Blue Jays Morning Brew: 1985 & Oh, Canada!

Well, well. Has a night’s sleep helped you get over the fact that the Blue Jays were just swept by the Tampa Bay Rays to bring the season series to 1-6? If you’ve been able to move on from this, then we’ve got some links to pass your way. If you haven’t been able to move on, perhaps these will help.

Toronto Blue Jays

To start off, let’s take a look at a neat little project. Freelance writer, Brad Balukjian and his friends are taking on an adventure. It is actually quite simple. They’re creating a book called Wax Pack. They are randomly choosing 15 players from the 1986 Topps collectors cards and tracking down said players for their book. The lead up to their efforts has them creating a website dedicated to 1980’s baseball. As such, they did up a piece on why the 1985 Blue Jays should have won the World Series. Blue Jays fans would have to agree with their assessment as the Royals were not actually the better team, even thought Toronto lost to them in the ALCS.

At Sportsnet.ca, Shi Davidi tells us that despite the cutting of ties with Ricky Romero, the Blue Jays are left with paying the $7.5M salary for 2015, the $600K buyout AND the mystery of what exactly happened to the fallen All Star. Romero’s struggles and tumble all the way down to AA before being released are not exactly news to us. But, the club has stuck with him for several years now as he tried to work out the issues and come back from having both knees replaced. It seems odd that they would cut him loose now.

But, GM, Alex Anthopoulos said that he doesn’t see Romero in the future plans of the organization and that it would be better for the player if each party moves on now so he could get a jump on finding another team. That didn’t work when he was exposed to waivers. But, with Rogers on the hook for his salary, another team could take a flier. Right? Right?

For the first time in history, a MLB team started 3 Canadian born players in their lineup. This happened on Saturday. Russell Martin (C), Michael Saunders (RF) and Dalton Pompey (LF) were all in the lineup in the loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. After all, there are many lineups that have 3 or more players from the Dominican Republic, etc. But, this is special because of the increase in Canadians in the major leagues. This is new. And, it is in the lineup of the only team in MLB to call Canada home. The Toronto Blue Jays are working really hard to push the game of baseball and their brand across Canada. This certainly helps that.

Josh Donaldson joined The Rundown and had some interesting things to say about his new team.

It was cool to gain some insight into the conversations that Donaldson and Jose Bautista have about the game itself and how they prepare, etc. It is not surprising, but the conversation about “body awareness” stuck with me. Sometimes it is easy to forget that these players do not just roll out of bed and hit. They study hitting. Donaldson covered the turf as well. And, for all of the complaining, he brings up a very good point. The turf may actually be better on players’ bodies. Of course, time will tell on that one. But, I’m sure the Blue Jays and Jose Reyes will be thankful.

Remember that this is the beginning of a new week. The Blue Jays head to Boston and then Cleveland. Try and shake off the weekend sweep and enjoy your week. To help you out with that, we offer you our podcast in multiple fashions. You can tune in every week (now on Saturdays) to our LIVE Google Hangout to interact and ask questions. We welcome your participation. Look for us on our YouTube channel, iTunes and Stitcher! Go ahead and give us a ‘like’, some ‘stars’, a comment, or otherwise general goodwill. Thank you for taking your time to tune in. We appreciate the love!

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