By Stephen Johns

Sometimes, you just need to know when to give up.
If you’re a Toronto Blue Jays fan, you should’ve picked last night’s game—a gut-wrenching 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers in which Toronto blew a three-run, ninth-inning lead for the second time in three games—as a good time to write off the team’s 2007 season. To be fair, most people did that months ago; unfortunately, some of us wouldn’t let ourselves off so easy, and when we checked the standings a few weeks ago and said, “Hey, they’re only four-and-a-half games out of the wild card!” we dared to let ourselves believe again. Intuitively, we probably knew we shouldn’t: we knew our team was underachieving, knew our big-time hitters weren’t big-time enough (at least not this season), knew our main rivals were all-around better teams. But “belief” is the opiate of the sports-worshipping masses: we make an emotional investment in our team on the assumption that someday, any day, it’ll pay off. Occasionally, it does; more often than not it doesn’t, and we’re left to mend broken hearts, wallow in bitterness and mumble about “next year”.
If we weren’t at that point prior to yesterday’s game, then we certainly should be now. The rest of the season is a glorified exhibition schedule, a chance for coaches and management to get a better look at some of next year’s potential crop. Players who’ve soldiered on in spite of injury (or, in the case of Troy Glaus, injury and implication in baseball’s ever-growing steroid scandal) can pack it in, let themselves heal, get ready for “next year”. J.P. Ricciardi can take a good, hard look at his team and ask himself if it’s really got what it takes. As for the fans, we can turn off our hearts and our minds and start watching baseball for the sake of watching baseball, not in the vain hope that our team might make something of this current season.
Because teams that blow two three-run, ninth-inning leads in the heat of a (quasi) pennant race aren’t meant to be believed in beyond the end of the regular season. Wait ‘til next year, Blue Jay fans—wait ‘til next year.
Photo of the “fuck baseball” pole by the mkt from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.