skinny123

It's not if, it's when, with the 3rd baseman.

It's either the starters or the bullpen, either way, we're screwed.

Oliver retired, and Janssen on the DL, we're seeing santos true colours.

It's not just about toronto, it's also about all the small towns around where people will drive up to two hours to go watch a game on the weekend. This will always be a hockey town, nothing will change that, but if anything it's already been proved that baseball can work.

This is the post what my last post was meant for, the bronx and all of new york experienced a dramatic decrease in their crime rate during these years.

The bronx was never a safe place to go watch a game, especially late at night after the game, they started to make efforts to put more police there during games, and fans started to feel safe to go there again.

I understand where you're coming from , from a fan's perspective, I'm the same way, that's why I won't go to a sportsbar to watch a playoff game (leafs,raptors,jays), I have no respect for these people. The point is, money is money, it doesn't matter who its coming from, casual fan, die hard, it's all about numbers from a profit perspective.

The team's run by a corporation, that's the biggest problem, too many chiefs in the boardroom, it's always a lot more effective to get things done when there's a single owner with a dog in the fight.

Let's not forget the extra revenue each team get's this year and the next 10 with that monster tv deal in the states last year. This would offset some of the drop off you might see this year, they'll never contend anyway if the payroll is less than 100M, it's a lot more difficult to copy the rays model than the yankees or red sox.

Braves had a new stadium, but rogerscentre was only 5 years old at the time, maybe a world series won't sell out the games, but from a business standpoint, the extra tv revenues would make up for the lack of seats in the stands.

Merchandise is a lot bigger these days, that's only because they've prefected the marketing and distribution of it, a lot more effective and more professionally managed. Every single game is on tv, there's a bigger tv audience and more revenue coming in from that area. I'm sure there's a lot of fans that don't see the point most nights to go down when they could just watch it on tv. As far as bringing back the days of old, "the place to be", this will never be achieved without a first place finish, and maybe you're right, it has to be for two or three years in a row, but we may never know.

'83-'90 were golden years for baseball in toronto, this was the growing curb. I remember games at the ex getting 28-35k for mid week games, and 38-43k for the weekends. The weather was bad in april and september because it was so close to the lake, you had to dress warm. I remember getting the grandstand seats from dominion for $1, you would get free admission in the ex grounds and spend the whole day there. Baseball definitely peaked when the move was made to the skydome(rogers centre), up to those two WS, the strike absolutely killed everything. They also stripped the roster one by one, from devo to carter to alomar, thinking that fans would continue to fill the seats, a total miscalculation. Meanwhile you had teams like the braves that kept going, the yanks and red sox got into the game, and the jays were done in this town, as far as having that type of elite status. To anyone that wants to agrue about hockey being #1 here, the leafs at that time had a great team with gilmour and clarke, they made it to the CF two years in a row.

If they had the lineup from '93, the place would be full, it's called baseball fever.

Back then going to a baseball game was in fashion, it was the place to be seen, believe it or not. I remember a couple of years after the strike, my friend's dad, gave me four free tickets, I went down to the game, stood outside for one hour, first I tried selling them for cost, that didn't work out, then I tried giving them away for free, no luck, in the end, I gave one ticket to the guy that plays the snare drum outside, and went in myself to a crowd of 12k.

In 1993 they were getting 4 million fans a year going to the games, I'm sure nobody gave a rats ass why they showed up, they had the highest payroll in the league. Rogers has come out and said that there's a direct correlation between attendance and the payroll, are you now understanding it a bit better, or do you want to screen every fan that walks in making sure they know what a sac fly is? If they start getting 30k plus fans to mid week games, they'll go out and pick up those arms that we need instead of relying on mcgowan and morrow, you want to nitpick about how much baseball knowledge a fan has? That's like the preds nitpicking about how much hockey knowledge their new fans have, you have to introduce them to the game first, it takes years and patience to win fans over, you're not born a superfan, unless you have parents that forcefeed you with baseball from the day you're born.

I went to a yankee game, I bought a ticket behind the right field fence, I paid $58, that exact same seat location at the rogers was $27.

You still don't get it.

You're missing the point, who cares why and how they became fans, it's revenue that goes to the team, wether it be in gate reciepts, tv revenue or merchandise, come on lol.

I have to strongly have to disagree with you here, the leafs are not ahead of the jays in the sports section during the summer, at times, weeks go by , especially in august where you don't hear anything at all about the leafs until they start training camp. There's no doubt about it, the jays own the summer months, leafs are nowhere to be seen after the playoffs(which they never make). The only time you'll hear about the leafs is for a couple of days leading up to and during the draft, and after july 1st anytime they have a major free agent signing. The hockey people on the fan and tsn radio take two months off, some of these guy you only hear on draft day, and a free agent signing, other than that, then go silent until training camp opens. Which fans don't know anything about the game? There's a very educated fanbase of old expo fans in montreal that still follow baseball, they have minor league baseball in ottawa and calgary, the baseball fans, know and follow the game, know the game. The only competition baseball has in the summer, would be msl soccer, and the one month every four years they have the world cup. The cfl is non-existent in the east.

Considering that the hockey team is basically irrelevant from april to september, doesn't really quantify. California has how many baseball teams? Dodgers, A's, Giants, Angels, Padres, the current population of Canada is 36 million. The team owns the sportnetwork channel which is broadcast throughout the whole country, and most Canadians consider the jays their team, from coast to coast. One of the few things Canadians share as a nation, besides having a dolt like harper as their leader.

That's up for debate, the only team in the league that has a whole country at the palm of their hands.

I'm not going to defend AA, I'm not happy with his decisions, and I can't say with certainty what goes on behind closed doors when it comes to spending, but, judging by last year, it seems just to get 1 arm, there had to be a perfect storm.

Why not keep santos and janssen, the more depth the better, wagner and stilson are nothing to lay your hat on.They should just spend the money, and do what it takes to compete in the east, or just stop misleading the fans. Last year beeston said they would win two championships in the next 5 years, I don't see this commitment at the present time. All I'm seeing is make do with what we have, we blew it all last year, and we're not bailing you out anymore.

Financial bind is a rogers spin, this isn't a small market team, they have no money worries, it's only there because they choose to make it an issue. You don't see boston or new york ever whining about money.

I see what you're saying, yes, they could spend, but at the same time, at the cost of weakening the pen to free up salary, so there's conditions with that. Also, the story that came out about 4 players willing to defer their salaries to make room, makes me wonder, at what cost this extra $14M was going to take, and why didn't they just get it over with a lot earlier.