By Tim Kiladze

When the Yankees arrived in Toronto early last week, downtown became a hub of activity for baseball enthusiasts: Union Station was a mad house before and after the games and Front Street was lined with scalpers and fans. It was blatantly apparent, however, that Jays’ fans were outnumbered in the sea of Yankee and Red Sox jerseys.
The situation wasn’t any better inside the Rogers Centre as the stadium erupted in applause whenever the Yankees or Red Sox hit a home run. Very, very odd. On the weekend, there were also sections of seats—seemingly entire sections—that were filled with red and dark blue, occupied by Red Sox fans who were either from Boston or who live in the GTA (the latter is more likely).
This really shouldn’t be that surprising, because Red Sox fans pop up everywhere. At the sparsely attended Camden Yards stadium in Baltimore, they consistently outnumber Oriole supporters. But that’s because Boston to Baltimore is a short drive.
To further deflate the home team’s environment, the Rogers Centre is seemingly designed to run a non-stop marketing show. While there aren’t any annoying interruptions during play, every break is filled with a marketing ploy of some sort. Examples include the Fed Ex “employees” who dance above the dugouts with random boxed packages, the Dell laptop giveaway (that mysteriously takes place after the game is over so the crowd doesn’t find out who wins), the Nikon promotions, the Pizza Pizza strike out count, and the Sunoco t-shirt giveaways.
To give the Jays and the stadium’s operators some credit, there was an effort to weave some Blue Jay pride and history into Friday night and Tony Fernandez’s appearance received a big round of applause and a standing ovation. But the Sunoco give-away bonanzas also received almost as much attention from the crowd.
Maybe the Jays’ admin can’t be blamed because they need to somehow make up for the lost revenue from weak ticket sales. And because the crowd seemed more pleased with the contests and marketing attention than with much of the action on the field, maybe they really do prefer it.
Either way, the atmosphere wasn’t very uplifting for the Jays’ players, especially during the two series that could have put them in respectable contention for the wild card. Given the discouraging environment, however, it isn’t surprising the Jays came away from both series no better and no worse off in their hunt for a playoff berth.
Photo by stillsinflux from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.