Losing the game

The Toronto Blue Jays are off to what I would call an okay start with a 6-6 record. They seem to have a goodly number of position players although pitching may be a problem. But this season I won’t be at the renovated Rogers Centre anywhere near as often as in the past. Since day one in 1977 I’ve been part of a group that had a pair of seats. Actually, two groups, one following the other.
The most recent group had excellent sightlines just five rows behind the Jays dugout. Usually, I’d chip in for seven games spread throughout the season. But the Jays organization decided to upgrade the seats behind home plate and turn them into a high-rent district. The price for “our” pair went from $13,000 to $28,000. To make matters worse, you had to make a two-year or four-year commitment. And they wouldn’t even tell you where the seats would be located. They kept touting the slightly wider width and the fact that it would have a cupholder. At that price you couldn’t afford to buy a drink to put in the cupholder.
I fully agreed with the decision not to renew. In fact, I’d lost interest at the end of last season. After squeaking into a wild card spot in the playoffs, the Jays demeaned themselves by scoring only one desultory run in the two playoff games. I thought my spirits would rise again as spring came but the jump in pricing put an end to that.
I’ve watched parts of the early home games on television and tried to figure out exactly who these people behind the plate are in the seats with cupholders. At first you might think they all work at TD Bank there are so many logos repeated on the brick wall behind them. Whoever they are, they can’t be real fans. By the late innings, even in an exciting game with the Jays doing well, about half the fifty seats in that section are empty, the tenants long gone.
So, for me, it would seem that the $500 million renovation at Rogers Centre was all about attracting a wider audience that doesn’t really care about baseball. It’s mostly guys with hats on backwards swilling beer beside babes who wouldn’t know that a double is not just a drink. Only in Toronto would aficionados of the game become so forgotten. Tradition has been traded for traffic.