Blue Jays built to win it all

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2022 (1596 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The great Yogi Berra, who could serve up a quality soundbite as well as he could swing a bat, once said this about his profession: “Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.”

He wasn’t wrong. And as another season of balls and strikes officially began Thursday, I found myself getting a bit misty-eyed. If that makes me a big ol’ softie, then so be it. Guilty as charged.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and a 99-day lockout during the long, harsh winter had the whole thing in jeopardy. Fortunately owners and players managed to settle their many differences and found a path back to the park. For a sport that has been struggling to stay relevant, particularly among the younger demographic, consider that a bullet dodged.

The 2022 MLB season is especially exciting for those of us who root, root root for the home team — as in the Toronto Blue Jays. They’ll kick off a shiny new 162-game campaign Friday night at Rogers Centre when they host the Texas Rangers. Expectations are sky-high, to say the least.

From arguably the most exciting young core in the game including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to savvy veteran sluggers such as George Springer and Matt Chapman to a starting pitching rotation of José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Alek Manoah, Hyun Jin Ryu and Yusei Kikuchi to flamethrowers in the bullpen such as Jordan Romano, Julian Merryweather and Nate Pearson, this group is built to compete for a World Series.

It’s been 29 years and counting since Joe Carter touched ‘em all, and you wonder if this is the season the drought comes to an end. Jays fans would certainly love if it was a case of “deja vu all over again,” as Berra famously uttered.

Not only is this a deep and talented roster, but one that draws you in because of how much they clearly enjoy playing a game for a (very good) living. The Blue Jays became must-see TV last year, with a dynamic offence that opposing pitchers were often powerless to stop. This modern-day Murderers’ Row were never out of a game, as proven by several “can you believe it” comebacks.

The big stars ooze charisma and charm, too, as often reflected by moments in the dugout captured by cameras. And the presentation of the “Home Run Jacket” after every big fly was terrific, the kind of thing that curmudgeons hate but remind you that sports is supposed to be fun.

I’m going to get an up-close look at the club this summer, as I head down to Minneapolis with my 20-year-old son in early August for the Jays series against the Twins. I suspect a few thousand fellow Manitobans and northern Ontarians will also be there. That trip was once a staple for countless baseball fans around here, but has been impossible the last two years due to the global pandemic.

An expanded playoff system which includes three wild-card spots in both the American and National Leagues, in addition to the six division winners, creates an extra sense of optimism for supporters in all 30 markets. Hope springs eternal, and the clean slate that comes around every spring can be infectious.

“This really could be our year,” fans of virtually every team are thinking and saying right now. Most are in for bitter disappointment, of course, left to utter another famous Berra-ism once the dust settles: “We made too many wrong mistakes.”

Don’t let my passion for baseball trick you into thinking I’m oblivious to the many warts the sport currently has. As much as it pains me to admit it, it’s getting harder to remain relevant in a smartphone generation. The biggest reason is games are taking too long to compete — anything less than three hours these days is now seen as quick — and there’s less action than ever due to a surge in strikeouts. The average nine-inning affair in 2021 lasted a record 3 hours, 10 minutes, which is up a whopping 31 minutes from 1984.

The Wall Street Journal recently took a stopwatch to multiple MLB games to track how much actually happens in a typical contest. If you include the delivery, receipt and return of every pitch, every ball put in play (whether fair or foul) and the conclusion of that play, stolen bases and pickoff throws, the total came to just 17 minutes and 58 seconds of actual action, on average. Which means about 10 per cent of the time something is happening.

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And when contact is made, very little often happens because of the scourge of the “shift,” in which teams adjust their fielding often to extreme levels to account for where batters typically target. All of this tests the patience of even the most die-hard supporters.

A pitch clock is among the tools currently being considered, along with a limit on infield shifts. But players and owners must agree to any and all changes, so it remains to be seen whether all this talk turns into action. Commissioner Rob Manfred recently said all parties must work together to “deliver the most entertaining product for our fans.” Considering both sides benefit from a bigger audience, whether it’s on television or in person, you’d think the appetite would be there. Even before we were introduced to COVID-19, crowds were thinning across North America.

For now, let’s just savour the fact that baseball is back. I certainly plan to. And even if your team doesn’t get off to a great start, remember it’s a long season and “it ain’t over till it’s over.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg

Mike McIntyre
Reporter

Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.

Every piece of reporting Mike produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.