The Last Straw

Let me first start by saying that I have only ever felt this way once before.  That was after we allowed Carlos Delagdo to walk as a free agent for absolutely nothing.  My reaction that time was complete indifference to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club.  The term angry did not quantify my feeling strongly enough with regards to that decision.  In protest, I declined my annual birthday present from my father, which was a flexpack, and instead opted for a new golf club.  I eventually came back.

Let also mention what I had done in preparation for the guaranteed clusterfuck that will be the city of Toronto on June 25, 26, 27.  I recruited The Human Rain Delay and jaysaremy2ndfavoriteteam to join me on the complicated mission.  I bought a 20 game pack and immediately burned 9 tickets @ 50 bucks per on the weekend series against the Phillies.  I secured a place for us to sleep and park the car on King Street just east of Yonge less than 50 feet from the outer security zone.  I was in active negotiations to hook up a place to hang out/hide in at my first baseman's condo inside the security perimeter a mere 2 minute walk to the Dome even though he had plans to get the fuck out of dodge for the weekend.  It would have been perfect for the gap between games had the rumors about a possible doublehead been true.  I submitted a leave slip for almost 30 hours of vacation time to my employer as I am scheduled to work all three days.  I even had to talk one of the boyz out of bailing after he told me he was actually getting scared thinking about it.  In fairness, I was too.    

To summarize, I put my life on hold and no doubt danger to see Roy Halladay return and hopefully pitch in the SkyDome as a member of another team.  He was supposed to be recognized in some way by the Blue Jays at one of the games.  There was only a 60% chance I was actually going to see him pitch.  The last time I saw him live he one hit the Yankees.

Now I'm not going to sit and type all the shit I have heard about baseball in Canada.  I have DEFENDED this team and this game on a weekly basis.  Never wavered.  But even I am left speechless on this one.

To be fair, there is a whole lot of blame to go around for this.  

• The federal government for insisting the G20 Summit be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Center instead of the CNE which the city of Toronto proposed.  
• The Toronto Blue Jays were still selling tickets for this series on Monday night as if the games were going to be played.  I even went as far as placing a call to my ticket representative during the day Monday and he assured me nothing had changed. 
• Major League Baseball for agreeing to allow three of our home games to be played in Philadelphia, against Philadelphia.  Ask the Mets, Marlins and Braves how they feel about that.      

For me the finger should be pointed at one man and one man only, Paul Beeston.  Mr. President, you had a wonderful opportunity here and you fucked it up.  You could have done so much more.  There are so many places you could have played this game in Canada that would have done wonders for your national fanbase.  I suggested Montreal and have heard calls for the games to be played in London, Ottawa, Niagara Falls and Vancouver.  Not to mention all the parks in the northern US available that weekend within driving distance from Canada.  Detroit, Minnesota, Seattle and Cleveland all provided a chance for us, your die hard fans, to see our boys in action in a different setting.  How cool would it have been to go to that new park in Minnesota?  But no, you chose Philly.  Was it because they are selling out every game Paul?  Don't answer that.  Just stop lying to me.

Revenue neutral my ass!

I am not even going talk about the compensation.  Fuck the compensation.  You are going to only let the season ticket holders get a shot at the games in Philly?  What about everyone else that bought tickets?  Don't I at least get an option?  Nope, full refund and a free ticket to another game this season subject to availability of course.  That's it?  What about all the out of towners that bought airplane tickets and rented hotels?  What about them?

You know what I'm going to do.....when I get the e-mail and or telephone call from my guy, I'm going to tell him that I want a FULL refund for all the tickets I purchased that I have not used (14 in total) and I'm going to tell him to shove the free tickets up his ass and lose my e-mail address and phone number.  Those motherfuckers are more worried about the bottom line than the fans.  This proves it to me.  Keep the 9 freebies and try to sell them to someone else.  Consider it my gift to you Rogers, you spineless fucking wimps.  Just give me my money back and fuck off.

I recommend you all do the same.   

Now I can't say when this feeling is going to go away but what I can say is that until it does, my heart is not in it anymore.  I'm trading my Jays hat for my Expos until further notice.

Not trying to be a drama queen but this team just lost one of it's loyal soldiers.  I hope I come back this time.