On the most frigid night of a Toronto winter, the Blue Jays opened their doors to what's left of their season ticket base, with nothing much to sell but verbiage and hope.
Short on specifics but long on talking about the future and the past, give the Blue Jays credit for at least facing the 500 or so who braved this blowy night to show up at the Rogers Centre, answering whatever questions were asked, and serving up a mean slider.
And no, the slider isn’t what Dave Stieb used to throw: This is a mini-burger, and if early reports are any indication, this may be the best reason to attend Blue Jays’ game this coming summer.
As for the rest of the team we don’t know, they don’t know, and there’s an interesting darts-at-the-wall approach the Jays have taken to this season without Roy Halladay. Boy, general manager Alex Anthopoulos has accumulated enough arms that he figures if he throws enough at the wall, somebody will stick.
The question is: Who sticks, who doesn’t and where does this mystery team go from here?
“The upside of this place (meaning Toronto) is huge,” said Anthopoulos, who exudes enthusiasm but is also quite real. “When we do start winning and winning big, imagine what this is going to be.”
Right now, it is all about imagining.
With Halladay, the Jays won 75 games. Without him, they are turning the pages back to the early 1980s, when Stieb and Jim Clancy were young, when Jesse Barfield and Lloyd Moseby and Willie Upshaw were just kids, when the Jays, frankly, began to capture our hearts.
The sell now is that Adam Lind and Aaron Hill and Travis Snider and Shawn Marcum and Marc Rzepczynski and Kyle Drabek will be the new wrung of home-grown and acquired talent. Some already have arrived. The rest, as always with baseball prospects, is hard work and guess work.
“It’s not going to be easy,” said Paul Beeston, the popular president. “We’re not in a rebuild mode. We’re in a build mode.”
And therein is the dilemma for Jays fans: Will hope sell? Can a team sell tickets not based on the coming season but based on a year or three down the road? If Beeston is willing to wear socks on this cold a night, perhaps anything about the Jays can change. But manager Cito Gaston wasn’t kidding when he told the hopeful audience: “Bring all your friends. We need you.”
In truth, few secrets were revealed last night which is how the tight-lipped Anthopoulos likes it.
If the fans showed up hoping to get insight on the next free-agent signing or who will close Jays games, they weren’t enlightened. What do we know today that we didn’t know yesterday?
The Jays have discussed the possibility of signing free agent Johnny Damon. They have discussed all kinds of free agents. They are looking for the young and the inexpensive, and Damon is neither of those things. When asked what the team’s budget was the coming season, Beeston gave a long answer that didn’t answer the question.
We also know that Marcum seems to be in terrific shape and Dustin McGowan will throw off a mound for the first time since his last setback today. Next week, Jesse Litsch will do the same. He isn’t expected back until mid-season. McGowan remains a long shot to be ready to start the season.
Pencil Marcum in to the starting rotation today along with Ricky Romero, Rzepczynski and a bunch of active arms named, If.
And we know that Anthopoulos will not be outworked. The kid is a maniac of sorts. He went to Hawaii on his honeymoon and called Gaston one day later to talk shop. He can’t help himself. If there is reason to believe, much as the Jays have turned back the clock with president Beeston, manager Gaston, and play-by-play man Buck Martinez, it’s the boy GM you want to believe in.
“I’d rather not say anything than lie,” said Anthopoulos, a departure from the spreader of deception who formerly held his post. Anthopoulos is the future — the only question is when.
