Blue Jays look ready to fly
03/03/2006PHOENIX -- The last time the words "World Series champs" and "Blue Jays" were placed in the same sentence, Joe Carter and Rickey Henderson were in the outfield, Dave Stewart was pitching for them and Mitch Williams was pitching for the other guys.
It was 1993, and baseball was going strong in the Canadian north. The beer wars were still brewing. The currency was strong. And the Maple Leafs hadn't won the Stanley Cup since 1967, the last year of the old six-team National Hockey League. Hadn't even been back to the finals. Still haven't. Makes the Blue Jays' run of futility seem like a Sunday picnic at the fairgrounds.
Then a little thing like the strike that wiped out the end of the 1994 season, that postseason, and postponed the start of the 1995 season, happened. And baseball hasn't been the same in Canada since then. Until now.
"I think we'll be a good club," Jays' GM J.P. Ricciardi said as Spring Training opened. "I don't think we're going to be a club that has a payroll of $75 million and can't get to .500."
That's good news for fans, who once flooded 4 million a season strong into what used to be called SkyDome.
The strike had more of an impact on Major League Baseball in Canada than anywhere in the U.S.
The Expos were in first place that season when the players pulled the plug. After it was over, they divested themselves of their stars and never were the same. The economy in Quebec slumped and the beer wars between Labatts and Molson ended. A new stadium was never in the offing, and last year the team relocated to Washington, D.C.
In Ontario, the golden era of the early 1990s, with the back-to-back 1992 and 1993 championships, suddenly ended. Carter, Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor and the nucleus of those teams were dispatched.
The memory of Dave Winfield's extra-inning double that defeated the Braves in 1992 and Carter's Game 6 homer off Williams that dispatched the Phillies a year later quickly faded.
The Jays finished atop the American League East five times from 1985 to 1993. They haven't finished higher than third place since nor have they come close to replicating their franchise record 99-62, 1985 season.
In the years since Carter's walk-off homer, the Yankees have ruled the AL East, winning the title eight seasons in a row and nine times out of 11, if you include the strike season. The other two seasons they finished second and won the AL's Wild Card berth.
World Series flags flew over Yankee Stadium in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Six times the Yanks have been to the World Series.
The Red Sox haven't been nearly as majestic, but they broke that 86-year curse by winning the World Series in 2004. During the eight consecutive seasons the Yanks have finished first, Boston has finished second.
That hasn't left much room for the Blue Jays, but after an offseason of incredible activity, they may be on the move.
With the additions A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan, Troy Glaus, Bengie Molina and Lyle Overbay to an already stocked and entertaining lineup, they seem to have a real shot.
Roy Halladay needs to recover fully from last season's leg fracture, but don't the Yankees and Red Sox also have things like that to deal with (see Carl Pavano and Matt Clement)?
And with apologies to the carpetbagging Johnny Damon, Vernon Wells is the best outfielder in the division. Hands down. Eric Hinske isn't Swiss cheese, either. And one wonders if the real Shea Hillenbrand played last year in Toronto or two years ago in Arizona. Come to think of it, the real Randy Johnson pitched two years ago for Arizona and looked much the same last year in New York. And the Big Unit is 14 years older than the Blue Jays franchise, which was born in 1977.
It also should be noted that the $100 million in combined revenue sharing and competitive balance tax that the Yankees paid into Major League Baseball last season is $28 million more than Toronto's current payroll.
And that's in U.S. dollars, not Canadian.
"I laugh when people say: 'You spent a lot of money,'" Ricciardi said. "Well, compared to what?"
Compared to what the Blue Jays had been spending.
They can't match the Yankees and Red Sox buck for buck. But neither could the 2002 Angels, who defeated the Yankees in an AL Division Series and went on to beat the Giants in the World Series. Neither could the Marlins, whose $52 million payroll was enough to defeat the Yankees in the 2003 World Series.
The question is whether Toronto's $72 million is good enough to win now. The Jays no longer have Joe Carter. The Yanks don't have Mitch Williams. But if this is the moment for a changing of the guard, it will come from the Canadian north.
Source: http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/
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