Takin' a T/O with BT: How Commercialism Killed the Toronto Blue Jays

If you're a Jays fan, then this past weekend was pretty depressing.

Despite taking the opener from the Chicago Cubs on Flashback Friday night, the Jays stumbled in the final two games and watched their record drop back below .500.

What's more, they accomplished the feat with some shoddy (surprise) defense from David Eckstein and little to no offense. (As we sat in the stands Saturday, Dan Eldon, Paul, Dave, and I were horrified at the idea of getting no-hit by Jason Marquis.)

I've now been to two Jays games this year and had to witness two proposals (Be original, do it on a beach or something.), and they were buried by former Jays Ted Lilly and Reed Johnson.

Side Note: You want an explosive crowd? At Saturday's game the loudest cheer was given during Reed Johnson's first two at-bats—the second came when he belted that two-run homer. From there on out you wouldn't even hear the fans again until the bottom of the eighth with the bases loaded, two out, and Matt Stairs up on a full-count.

All in all it was a crummy game on the part of the Jays—one that left most fans (and probably Doc Halladay, too) wanting more from this team.

Despite all the mind-numbing plays on the field and the "been there, done that" attitude of the offense, that wasn't what caught my eye—nor is it what will bury the team in the long run.

What caught my eye is how unnecessary the whole experience seems to be.

Maybe (and I can only hope) the Saturday I spent at the ballpark with my friends was more cartoonish than usual because it was a Jr. Jays Saturday. But from what I saw, the Toronto Blue Jays have resorted to juvenile tactics to entice a majority of the borderline fans—children or not.

Instead of catering to true baseball fans, the Jays have decided to ratchet up the "excitement" with mid-inning cartoons and "adventures." They are hoping to hold the attention of anyone uninterested in the game in hopes of dragging another few food and souvenir dollars out of them.

Speaking of souvenirs, our ball boy can't even do his job right. On a foul ball up the first base side, he fielded it and flipped it to some guy in a Cubs jersey instead of one of the many little kids at the ballpark. Sure it gave Eldon a reason to ask the question, "Why did they give the ball to Chris Farley?" but you really have to wonder why they did give the ball to him.

Random subplots aside, the perfect instance of the organization trying to "keep the attention of the uninterested" was Jays for Justice. Don't bother asking what the heck it is. Trust me, I'll tell you.

In their infinite wisdom, the Toronto Blue Jays decided to market around five of their best players: Vernon Wells, Roy Halladay, David Eckstein, AJ Burnett, and Lyle Overbay, turning them into cartoon superheroes.

At the opening of the cartoon, the JFJ graphic is flashed across the screen. My first complaint? You'd think that, having shared the city for over 25 years, the Jays would have a better idea for a name than JFJ. I mean, we've been through enough already.

Anyways, the show opens on an empty ballpark with the five players and John "Jimy Williams" Gibbons sitting in the dugout. Apparently, the extreme heat of Toronto is keeping the crowds from getting to the stadium—not the team's lack of offense.

Now, at first you'd think the straightforward answer would be to close the roof and let the climate controlled atmosphere do its work, right?

Wrong.

Turns out the Jays' two fans (Note: No one asks why it's only two fans...or where the rest of the team is at game time.) are stuck waiting for the street car which has inexplicably stopped moving.

At first notice of this, the Jays players spring into action. Instead of calling the City of Toronto and getting someone on that broken car, they each adopt super powers. Well, everyone except Lyle Overbay.

Vernon becomes "VW," Roy Halladay becomes "Doc," David Eckstein becomes "Specs," AJ Burnett turns into "the Flamethrower," and Lyle Overbay...remains Lyle Overbay.

At this point, to be continued flashed across the screen.

I prayed to God that it'd be continuing after I left.

All this did was prove how far we've strayed from the good 'ol days here in T.O.

Back in the 90s, all the team had to do was take the field and the crowd was into it. Was it dolled up with a lot of razzle and dazzle?

No, it was exactly as baseball should be—baseball. From time to time the wave would circle the stadium and as Eldon told us "When that place got going it was just a beauty to behold."

Over the next few years, the Jays would become a little more corporate, but nothing overly outrageous that this mind could remember. There were between inning draws for prizes, but aside from that, there were no inane cartoons or goofy side shows. It was still baseball and it was still glorious.

Side Note: I may have actually missed more of those contests and things than I thought at that age. You're talking about a kid who would rather watch Felipe Crespo take his warm-up cuts between innings than watch the Jumbotron.

That same attitude held steady until around 2005—the last memory I have of a game not featuring that computerized Blue Jay flying to the tunes of Pirates of the Caribbean.

At that point, everything started to slide. The Blue Jays became less about baseball and more about dinner and a show (albeit dinner will cost you at least $20 and it'll taste like the tinfoil that it comes packaged in).

Whether it was to try and turn more Canadian children onto the game of baseball or not, the Jays experience became flashier and funnier, straying further and further from what true fans of the game expected when they entered the SkyDome.

It was all in an attempt to sell tickets and build a buzz about the team, and it worked. The attendance for games has started to climb back to where it should be and people are actually watching baseball in Toronto.

This leaves us at an interesting crossroads.

With what they have here, the Jays can do one of two things.

1) Now that they've acquired the fan base, they can start to slowly pull all the gimmicks away and revert back to selling solely the game of baseball.

If they do that, then the fans in Toronto will still care. And if it's done right they can grow a love and an understanding for the true game—not the polished, tacky, clap-trap they're calling baseball right now.

We can wean the fans from the extraneous crap they're pushing at the top of the executive ladder and build a passionate fan base, one that truly cares about the game and won't get out-cheered when fans of the Red Sox, Yankees, or Cubs come to town.

Maybe we'll even be able to build a little volume at the games so, akin to Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, it's too loud to hear the crack of the bat or the smack of the ball in the glove and you have to be alert and attentive to know what's going on. Or...

2) We can keep going in the direction we're going in now. Keep the animated walk-up videos, the drawn up head shots that make each player look like he's in his mid-sixties, keep the goofy superhero videos in between innings, and maybe have Superman throw out the first pitch at the next game.

It's not like he'd seem out of place.

To be honest, I have no problem with corporate sponsorship and representation. Post some billboards around the stadium, advertise the Jr. Jays and other kinds of activities in different and interesting ways. 

When Lyle Overbay has to save the city of Toronto? That's when I start taking issues with what's going on with my team.

Maybe Eldon said it best this weekend: "This is like going to an Atlanta Thrashers game. There's so much extra stuff that you forget why you're there and almost stop paying attention to the game itself. It's like a theme park."

Great. Apparently "Baseball North" has turned itself into an extension of Canada's Wonderland instead.

Oh well, at least my beer was cold.

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. You can contact him through his profile, and you can read more of this work in his archives.