LET’S PLAY (SNOW)BALL
As Jays begin 40th season, we recall the frosty first game at Exhibition Stadium,
The much-anticipated first game in Toronto Blue Jays franchise history was scheduled for April 7, 1977, at Exhibition Stadium.
But fans were left waiting to see what curve ball Mother Nature might throw their way. “Toronto is all set for the heralded opening Blue Jays game, but the go-ahead decision is in the lap of the weather gods,” proclaimed the front page of the Toronto Star on April 5, 1977.
“The decision on whether the game, set for Thursday afternoon, will go ahead as planned will not be made until Thursday morning.”
Everything was in place for the big day. Exhibition Stadium, the fourth stadium to be built on the Lake Shore Blvd. W. site since 1879, had been reconfigured to make it more compatible for baseball. The renovations, which cost $17.5 million in city and provincial funding, added seating opposite to the covered grandstand on first base side that curved around to third base side. It was the only ballpark in Major League Baseball in which the bleacher seats were covered and the rest were not. (An electric scoreboard would be added in 1978.)
Even the marketing of this new American League team hadn’t been overlooked. Irwin Toy Ltd. of Toronto, the exclusive licensee for Blue Jays souvenirs for Canada, had offered up women’s panties emblazoned with the team emblem, jockey shorts and hip flask souvenirs. The suggestions were vetoed by the American League Baseball Club. Instead, fans had their pick of purchasing about 70 Blue Jay souvenir items, including 20 different caps.
Luckily, excited attendees were able to wear those caps — and the much-needed extra layer of warmth — when the team debuted 40 minutes late due to that snowy Thursday.
Hundreds of Blue Jays fans began lining up April 7 at 10 a.m. in 2 C weather, crowding around the stadium, the Star reported. “Grey, overcast skies didn’t diminish the enthusiasm of fans who came bundled up in ski parkas, gloves and carrying thermos bottles full of hot coffee — or something.
“The smell of drying paint was still in the air, ready to mingle with the aroma of traditional hotdogs and popcorn.”
The game unfolded before a home crowd of 44,649, who watched the Blue Jays take on the Chicago White Sox in the cold. Hundreds missed the first pitch, thrown by Bill Singer (a strike) due to traffic jams. The first Blue Jays game played at Exhibition was also the only Major League game ever played with the field covered by snow. The white stuff was squeegeed off thanks to a Zamboni loaned by Maple Leaf Gardens.
The Blue Jays sewed it up that day with a final score of 9-5. Doug Ault, a 27-year-old Texan and starting first baseman for the Jays, became an instant hero by hitting home runs during his first two at-bats.
Exhibition Stadium, which opened in 1959 as the home of the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, would continue as the home field for the newly minted Toronto Blue Jays until May 28, 1989.
During 1977, there were 9,000 season tickets sold to the Blue Jays games, which marked an American League record for a rookie club. And more than 1.7 million fans attended games that first year.
Over the years, Exhibition Stadium also hosted the Grey Cup 12 times over a 24-year-period and three Vanier Cups, the university football title game.
The stadium made for some mellow and blissed-out memories for music fans, who crowded to the CNE grandstand to see such performers as David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Who, ELO, the Eagles, U2, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.
But Exhibition Stadium would earn the title of the “Mistake by the Lake,” because of its proximity to Lake Ontario and windy weather conditions — not to mention flocks of seagulls that played havoc with the Blue Jays’ tenancy there.
Or, as former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston noted, Exhibition Stadium “wasn’t just the worst stadium in baseball; it was the worst stadium in sports.”
In addition to problems with the seating placement — which often put fans away from the action — the stadium was usually quite cold at the beginning and end of the baseball season.
On Sept. 15 1977, the same year that the Blue Jays debuted, Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver pulled his team off Exhibition field, insisting that the bricks holding down the bullpen tarps were a hazard to players. This garnered a win by forfeit for the Jays, which is the only time in Major League Baseball since 1914 a team deliberately forfeited a game.
The Jays’ April 30, 1984, game against the Texas Rangers was postponed due to 97 km/h winds.
And who can forget the infamous seagull incident? Food deposited by baseball (and football) fans provided a feeding buffet for seagulls. On Aug. 4, 1983, outfielder Dave Winfield was arrested for killing a seagull with a baseball. Winfield had just finished his warm-up exercise in the fifth inning and threw a ball to the ball boy, striking the seagull in the head. The seagull met its maker and some claimed Winfield whacked the bird on purpose. Charges against Winfield were later dropped.
Stadium problems didn’t just plague baseball fans. The Toronto Argonauts had moved from Varsity Stadium for the 1959 season. For this, a smaller bleacher section was added along the south sideline. In this form, the stadium seated 33,150.
During the 58th Grey Cup played at Exhibition in 1970, Calgary Stampeders coach Jim Duncan called the condition of the natural-grass surface “a disgrace.” Artificial turf was installed a couple of years later. Mother Nature yielded one more knockout punch that would seal Exhibition Stadium’s fate for sports fans. This occurred during the 70th Grey Cup on Nov. 28, 1982, a.k.a. “the Rain Bowl.”
“In1982, there was a near riot as a steady rain drenched fans throughout the game,” reported the Star. “Washrooms were overcrowded, men urinated in sinks, fights broke out. Booze must have seemed a way to cope with both the foul weather and the Argos’ loss to the Edmonton Eskimos.”
The poor conditions were witnessed by more than 7,862,000 television viewers in Canada (at the time the largest TV audience in the country). “Canadian Football League officials said a Grey Cup would never again be played at Exhibition Stadium,” the Star reported.
In June 1983, then Ontario premier Bill Davis formally announced that a threeperson committee would examine the feasibility of building a domed, retractable-roof stadium. Officials with Metro Toronto, the Blue Jays and Argonauts agreed to abandon Exhibition Stadium pending that a domed one was built closer to downtown Toronto.
But before they left Exhibition’s skies overhead, the Blue Jays would win their first of six American League East titles in 1985.
Coming full circle, the Blue Jays played their last game at Exhibition Stadium on May 28, 1989, against the Chicago White Sox. Just like opening day, the Jays beat the White Sox, this time in a 7-5,10-inning win.
Exhibition Stadium lay mostly dormant over the decade following the opening of SkyDome, except for an occasional concert or minor sporting event. In January 1999, the stadium was demolished and the site used for parking until 2006.
This Friday, the Blue Jays take on the Boston Red Sox in the home opener at the Rogers Centre — 39 years since they debuted at “the Mistake by the Lake.”