TORONTO - Paul Beeston took news that baseball was dead in Toronto and the franchise should be move to Caracas, Venezuela, in stride.
“We win the gold medal in hockey and we wind up with the most gold medals in the Vancouver ... we’re not asking them (the United States) to drop out of the Winter Olympics,” the Blue Jays president said jokingly as he responded to a Chicago newspaper report.
The Jays played their home opener against the Chicago White Sox on Monday before 46,321 fans and then failed to match that in the next three games combined ... drawing a total of 33,521, with sparse crowds of 12,167, 10,610 -- the smallest crowd in the history of the building — and 10,744.
“This isn’t a surprise,” Beeston said. “It’s April, we’re playing Central and Western division teams.”
A year ago the second through fourth games of the season drew 16,790, 12,145 and 15,297 against the Detroit Tigers.
Beeston said the “Blue Jays were not going anywhere.”
“Let me put on my prognosticator’s hat for a second, the Blue Jays will be in Toronto longer than the writer will work for his paper. I thought it was irresponsible journalism.
“We’re not going anywhere. We’re putting together a championship team and the fact he doesn’t like it is something I can’t control.”
Ex-Jay Alex Rios, booed in each at-bat during the four-game series told the Chicago paper: “There’s no real following here. There’s a small group of diehards, but it’s hockey, hockey, hockey. It’s gotten sad here. They just don’t really care.”
Manager Ozzie Guillen who played shortstop for the Sox during the 1993 American League Championship Series when the Jays hosted three games — all in excess of 51,375 fans said: “It’s kind of a sad situation up here. There are people supporting Toronto baseball, but it’s sad when you remember 10-20 years ago how exciting it was to come play here. There was enthusiasm in the city. There were great things happening here.”
bob.elliott@sunmedia.ca
