Jays, Leafs, Argo sale, TFC, Raptor slide . . . woes deep as potholes

It’s not all bad, right? I mean sure, we still have the crumbling infrastructure, the lack of a comprehensive transit plan, idiots on council, traffic for days, this deathly winter, and the gradual melting of black snowbanks filled with cigarette butts and hardened gum and cans and junk and the trash of a people who believe that once you throw something into a snowbank it will never come back, because winter will never end. It’s like Everest that way, where the human feces deposited by generations of climbers has become a problem, along with the frozen dead bodies along the trails, in their rainbow array of jackets. That’s Toronto.

And this is Toronto sports in the spring. Marcus Stroman was probably going to be the best pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, and then he was doing a bunt drill in Dunedin, one he’d done a million times before. Josh Donaldson, the new guy who was their best off-season acquisition, called him off. So, of course, Stroman blew his ACL and he’s out for the year. Goodnight.

Now, you can blame the fact that the Jays have a lousy spring-training facility, where last month Michael Saunders tore his meniscus stepping on a sprinkler head, and this injury happened on artificial turf, like the stuff that pounds players at the Rogers Centre. Maybe you can blame the cheapness that wraps itself around this team.

But Stroman found the trap door. Jonah Keri of Grantland, a good Canadian and a baseball expert, had Stroman near the top of his list for breakout players this season. The 23-year-old only threw 130 innings last year, but he was poised to be a stud, a fun pitcher. Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey throw 200 innings every year, as if they are human seasons. But the Jays needed young arms, and now will have to rely on Aaron Sanchez and Daniel Norris and J.A. Happ replacement Marco Estrada. It’s not the end of the world, if only because Toronto’s traffic tomorrow will still be insane.

But you expected this, right? You were waiting for this, even if you didn’t know it.

The Blue Jays find the potholes. The Blue Jays find the ruts.

The Blue Jays crack an axle, blow their shocks, have their tires explode in the driveway. Brett Cecil’s shoulder hurts, Jose Bautista had a tight hamstring, and Edwin Encarnacion has a sore back, just for kicks. Toronto.

Because like life, Toronto finds a way. The Toronto Raptors were the beacon for a long time, and are still going to make the playoffs, and they could win 50 games, the most in team history. And right now they have lost eight of their last nine plus a win against Philadelphia, and they are 14-17 in 2015, and Kyle Lowry hasn’t been himself in two months and maybe something’s going wrong. Some fans have already decided that it’s pointless, they’re doomed, even if the schedule is going to lighten up down the stretch. Might even be true.

Hey, at least it beats watching Andrea Bargnani, right? He’s fourth in franchise points and rebounds and fifth in blocks, and he beat the Raptors a week and a half ago, providing four of the saddest words in the English language: Andrea Bargnani Revenge Game. Bad times.

The Leafs, meanwhile . . . well, the Leafs. This is the part where we look at each other, make fleeting eye contact, nod grimly, and stare into the distance as the cold sun dips down across the city. Then maybe we’ll talk about how spring is coming, and we’ll be able to see if the house keys are still where we dropped them, in that snowbank.

But the Leafs are mining new depths of toxicity, day after day. This implosion actually feels like the culmination of all the other implosions, lumped together into a great terrible ball. Salutegate, Kessel, Phaneuf, Kadri, the endless series of sideshows, and a team that has plummeted far enough into the abyss to make people actually stop watching the games, but not so far that they have the best chance at one of the two generational players at the top of the draft. At least they traded David Clarkson, though. That was this year’s Stanley Cup.

Yes, Toronto. The Raptors have won one five-game playoff series in 20 years. The Leafs have made the playoffs once in the last 10 years, and it was memorable. TFC missed the playoffs in its first eight seasons, and the current optimism is still so young. The Toronto Argonauts won a Grey Cup three years ago and are for sale, potentially homeless, and largely ignored. If they get a home, it will screw TFC. The circle of life.

Maybe it’s a curse. Maybe Toronto offended some ancient gods, unearthed some kind of virus, caught something from Cleveland or Buffalo. We elected Rob Ford and never built enough subways and think we’re the centre of the universe, and now Marcus Stroman has fallen to whatever we have committed, erected, left fallow or lost. Toronto, devourer of dreams.

Wait, no, hold on, wait. Maybe it’s not that bad. The Raptors could still win a playoff series. Leafs management is thinking smarter than it has in ages. The Argos deal probably gets done. Spring is coming, and the restaurants are pretty good, and you can’t beat the multiculturalism, and Stroman will come back next year. And I mean, at least it wasn’t his elbow, or his shoulder.

Yet.