[URBAN NOTE] "Time for Blue Jays fans to just savour the moment"

[rfmcdonald]

Donnovan Bennett's article at MacLean's, originally posted at Sportsnet, reads poignantly after the Blue Jays' loss 8:7 to the Boston Red Sox. That said, for a Toronto sports team they did decently enough.

The Toronto Blue Jays are past the awkward phase of dating when you are still uncomfortably learning someone, but they aren’t quite at the stage where you are so comfortable that the intrigue and excitement disappears and you resent some of the things they do.

The Blue Jays’ marriage with their fans is in the sweet spot.

The home opener is here, the AL East banner will be hung. Savour this moment if you’re a Blue Jays fan. Pay no mind to the hot and cold 2-2 split with the Tampa Bay Rays. This is the 40th season of the franchise and there are few others where the outlook has been this bright. They’re ascending, not descending.

The sports business is fickle. Our expectations cloud our perception. The Toronto Maple Leafs are talked about positively although they have qualified for the playoffs just once since 2004-05 and were eliminated this year on March 19. The Toronto Raptors are described with angst even though they’ve set a franchise record in wins and improved their record for five consecutive seasons. In the same city, the Blue Jays find themselves somewhere in the middle with a much more realistic chance at hanging a championship banner.

That’s because the narratives of sports teams continue to ebb and flow. The slope is slippery. Rebuilding teams have hope. The terms used are aspirational positives that are seen as indicators of a brighter future.