Elliott: New Jays cancel R. Webster award weekend

There won't be any R. Howard Webster award celebrations this month like the 2015 event pictured. The 33rd annual weekend has been cancelled. 

By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Your Toronto Blue Jays and Blue Jays Nation have the Boston Red Sox to worry about this weekend.

Not to mention the Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees and Houston Astros in the wild-card hunt come next week.

There are a few things the best Blue Jays minor leaguers won’t have to worry about this month:

_ They won’t have to get to their neighbourhood airport early, battle long lines of security to fly into Pearson on the final home stand.

_ They won’t have to straighten their tie as they mingle with the big leaguers in the Jays dugout, stand along the third base line and are introduced. 

_ And they won’t have to attend a luncheon where they are honored along with the Jays scout of the year and the player development instructor are honored with the Bobby Mattick and the Al LaMacchia awards.

Nope.

The best minor leaguers won’t have to worry about any of those bothersome details for their won’t be any R. Howard Webster awards presentation come the final homestand. 

The New Jays have cancelled the 33rd annual minor league award presentations we are told. They may hand out awards come next spring ... but Florida Auto Exchange Stadium or the Bobby Mattick Training Center in delightfully different Dunedin is not quite the same as a sold-out Rogers Centre.

Maybe Rogers Communications and the New Jays will have a reason: like they did not want the minor leaguers distracting the big leaguers? Or some players had too many frequent flyer miles so the players’ health had to be protected?

Gee, it’s too bad that the Blue Jays were not drawing. Heading into Friday’s series opening, embarrassing boat race -- which attracted a crowd of 46,953 -- the Jays had drawn a 2,810,336 fans (an average of 41,328) this season. That ranks tops in the American League and fourth in the industry behind the Los Angeles Dodgers (3,354,348), the St. Louis Cardinals (2,904,196), the San Francisco Giants (2,827,987) and the Chicago Cubs (2,825,287).     

The Blue Jays had their 34th sellout of the season on Saturday.

And so a tradition which began in 1982 has ended. For fans who don’t make the drive to class-A Lansing or where ever, it was chance for their first look at the stars of tomorrow.

Jay Blue of Blue Jays from Away who always keeps tabs on the minor league goings on predicted this year’s Webster award winners on Friday. 

So, who is missing out? Matt Dominguez at triple-A Buffalo; Rowdy Tellez at double-A New Hampshire; Jonathan Davis at class-A Dunedin; Ryan Borucki at Lansing; Patrick Murphy at class-A Vancouverl, Bradley Jones, at rookie-class Bluefield, Bo Bichette at rookie-class Gulf Coast League and Adams Cuevas at the rookie-class Dominican Summer League. 

Previous winners to mention a few include the likes of major leaguers Kevin Pillar, Dalton Pompey, Matt Hague, Andy Burns, Ryan Schimpf, Randy Ruiz, Moises Sierra, Carlos Perez, Adeiny Hechavarria, Ryan Goins, Danny Barnes, Justin Nicolino, J.P. Arencibia, Eric Thames, Jake Marisnick, Travis d’Arnaud,  Adam Lind, Josh Banks, Aaron Hill, David Cooper, AJ Jimenez and Joe Young.