Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
It’s been (warning! understatement alert!) an interesting week in Toronto Blue Jay Land. Seven days ago, they were floundering under a lame duck manager. This week, the team is still floundering—but at least they're showing signs (albeit tentative ones) of turning things around. One week—six games—is a negligible sample size; it’s barely sufficient to draw any sorts of conclusions, let alone meaningful ones. Still, as fans, we’re cautiously optimistic.
Cito Gaston was bound to have a galvanizing effect on the team: he is, after all, the greatest manager in Toronto Blue Jays history, the man who guided them to back-to-back world championships without ever really getting the credit he deserved. We’re still getting used to seeing him back in the dugout (not to mention hearing the names “Nick Leyva” and “Gene Tenace” spoken in context again), yet while we’re not claiming to possess any inside information we’re assuming he’s a much more inspiring presence than, say, a manager who fights his starting pitchers. As for J.P. Ricciardi, the embattled general manager: firstly, remarkably, he still has a job. Secondly, his unilateral war with Adam Dunn reached its apotheosis this week when Ricciardi announced that he’d apologized for his comments…only for Dunn to deny he’d received any sort of apology from Ricciardi whatsoever. From the looks of it, there’s some sort of J.P. Ricciardi impersonator on the prowl. We can’t take credit—we wish we could, mind you—but that’s still all sorts of awesome in our books.
Tonight is Flashback Friday at the Rogers Centre. This used to be little more than another hackneyed Blue Jays promotion; tonight, however, it’s as appropriate a moniker for the game as anyone could’ve concocted. The Atlanta Braves are in town, still managed by Bobby Cox…Cox, who managed the Blue Jays from 1982 to 1985. He and Gaston matched wits in the 1992 World Series; they’ve faced each other once since then (a three-game interleague series in 1997), but their presence in the dugouts will nonetheless recall better days for Toronto baseball. Better days, yes—but more interesting days than those we've been experiencing of late? That is much more debatable.
Photo by Triborough from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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What ever happened to Pat Gillick?
Perhaps the Jays should bring him back as GM.
He's the general manager in Philadelphia. His contract is up at the end of the year, but he says he's retiring.
On the other hand, Brian Cashman (Yankees) and Theo Epstein (Red Sox) are both out of contract at the end of the season too!
Last night's Flashback Friday game ended after 2.5 hours during which the Jays didn't touch 3rd base even once.
Flashback to little league, maybe.
Toby, how about we bring back WAMCO, too? We can even call it 1993.
The fact is we have a .500 team and only a .500 team. This disappoints no one more than me but it's just painfully obvious now. They played exactly .500 ball under Gibby and so far they're .500 under Cito, too. That doesn't happen year in, year out unless the blame falls at the GM's door.
Given Riccardi's front office mentor, I was hoping to see a little more Billy Beane in his decision-making but clearly that isn't happening. It's time to find a new GM. I say do it before the trade deadline to allow a new brain trust the chance to re-orient this ship toward a 2010 playoff run.