Rogers needs to spend on ball team, not ballpark
A small piece of advice as the Toronto Blue Jays and Rogers wait and wonder about the future of the Rogers Centre: Spend on your ball team.
Spend a lot. Do it now.
Instead of investing the billions it will take to knock down Rogers Centre and build something new — not to mention trying to figure where the Jays will play while this apparently is going on — how about investing millions in the current team?
Sign a Trevor Bauer. Trade for Francisco Lindor. Go hard after George Springer and D.J. Lemahieu. Surround Bo Bichette and Vladdy Guerrero Jr. and Hyun-jin Ryu with a whole lot more talent.
The one thing certain about a Toronto baseball crowd: Give them a contender, they will give you a sold out or nearly sold out Rogers Centre.
That is, of course, assuming the Jays will be playing at home and that tickets can or will be sold for the coming season.
The history is there. The Jays
made the playoffs in 2015 and 2016. They led the American League in attendance in 2016 and 2017. The stadium that needs to be re-done is never the problem when the Jays are winning.
When the Dome first opened in 1989, the Jays made the playoffs and led the AL in attendance, for that year and for the five years
that followed. The Jays were in the playoffs in '89, '91, '92 and '93, winning the World Series twice, and selling more tickets than anyone in baseball.
Give Rogers credit for seeking out a stadium alternative for the future. That needs to be done.
But understand this: When the Blue Jays win, the old, packed
stadium never seems to be much of an issue.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is adamant there will be a hockey season. It has become personal for him with ownership divided on whether or not to go forward. The questions now are: How long will the season be, and when will it begin? ... And still there's no deal with players, who are being asked to give more money back, after agreeing to and signing off on a salary clawback in July. The threat for players now: The possibility of no money for a season not played as opposed to some money for a partial season. My bet: A 48-game season starting in mid-january, a tight schedule with playoffs ending in early July. And Bettman's going to have to be creative in finding a way to entice the players to re-do a deal they'd already agreed to ... The Beijing Winter Olympics are just 15 months away and normally Team Canada has a management staff and coaching staff in place much earlier than this. Steve Yzerman did almost two years of work to get the Sochi team ready to play. The thought here is that Doug Armstrong of St. Louis will be named GM and there is some support (not necessarily in Toronto) to have Mike Babcock back coaching the team.
How is it the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning can do what the Maple Leafs cannot. The Bruins signed Jake Debrusk for $3.6 million a year and the Lightning signed budding star defenceman Mikhail Sergachev for $4.8 million a year. The Leafs seem forever caught in overpaying players at a time when the salary cap crunch has never been so severe.