Blue Jays' winning ways making Rogers Centre the place to be
By: Melissa Verge
Canadian Baseball Network
It’s hard to spot an empty seat at Rogers Centre. The blue rows are all filled with blue-clad people. It doesn’t matter that its 40 degrees out. Warm beer and hotdogs cooked twice-once by the staff and once by the sun. Must be the new preferred taste.
Fans aren’t scared off by the heat, only by losing. The Jays are in first place in their division and doing anything but.
So, the fans keep coming.
They come off the subway at Union station and head in droves towards Rogers Centre. Some have flown in to watch a series from different parts of Canada. I talk to a guy who says he’s a Blue Jays fan from Kentucky. Others I recognize as being permanent fixtures at the stadium from the beginning of April until now.
There’s the few that won’t remember the game at all. Not because of too many beers, but because they’re too young to understand what’s happening or where they are. They are the baby Blue Jays fans, they look the cutest in Blue Jays gear and usually end up passing out for the majority of the innings.
It’s because of fans like these, and because of the talent on the field, that every game seems to be a uniquely exciting experience.
Winning is fun.
The stadium is always packed even during the weekdays. It’s like the city of Toronto has forgotten work and other responsibilities in favour of staying out late, watching an incredible baseball team, and chowing down on overpriced popcorn.
It’s beautiful. It doesn’t just feel like glimpses of the 2015 post-season, every game has that same kind of energy.
One game Melvin Upton hits an inside the park home run that gives the Jays a lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. It feels like the magic that is happening at Rogers Centre has reached an all-time high. It can’t possibly get more exciting.
But then the next game Josh Donaldson hits three home runs, and it’s just as much a jump up and down and scream until you lose your voice game as the day before.
Hats are thrown down onto the field to celebrate Donaldson’s baseball hat trick. It has echoes of game five of the ALDS last year when beer cans were thrown down onto the field to protest a call.
But this isn’t a protest, it’s a celebration. And instead of the stadium echoing with boos, 50,000 voices are coming together to chant “MVP.” If you’re not standing up in your seat, you’re one of the few. It’s a magical place to be. The fans are brought to their feet at the Rogers Centre cheering on their Blue Jays multiple times a game.
I clap so much and so hard that my hands sting and turn a nice shade of red. I don’t have any power over what happens on the field, but support is the one thing I can offer.
There’s a lot of adults in the crowd, but here, we’re all 12 years old again. A middle aged lady struts around proudly in a giant bird costume. An older man has dyed part of his hair blue to show his support. A toddler has decided he wants to be Jose Bautista, and has a drawn on beard.
A toddler with a beard, who would have thought.
It’s the kind of season that I’ve come to expect incredible things to happen. The Jays have come back from losing 6-0 to win the game 12-6. They’re in first place in their division, and fourth place in attendance in the MLB, and they’ve won the fans confidence that no matter what the score they’ll come back and get the big W.
People who say it’s just a game have never heard what it sounds like when 50,000 voices come together chanting the same thing. Or heard the happy honks of cars in the street after the Jays won Game 5 of the ALDS last year.
I watch an older man lean over and ask a Jays fan on the subway if they won the game. In a city where people generally keep to themselves, it’s amazing how people are all of a sudden part of a tight-knit community. I feel safer walking home at night surrounded by other baseball fans. Although in Toronto anonymity rules, I don’t feel like I’m surrounded by strangers walking home beside people who are all wearing the same Blue Jays hat I am.