Jays go to bat for T.O. sports fans

The Toronto Blues Jays certainly have an open door.
Now we’ll see if they’re able to enter the room with a splash.
With the Toronto Maple Leafs departing the Toronto spring sports scene ever so meekly following a three-week tease for a playoff spot, the Blue Jays have centre stage to themselves with a chance to enhance their place in the market after a run of mediocrity for more than a decade.
It is a rare opportunity for the Birds of Summer given the fact the Leafs had not missed the Stanley Cup playoff party in nearly a decade.
But now, with an off-season spending spree behind them and no pesky Maple Leafs competing for attention and attendance, the Blue Jays stand to become Toronto’s No. 1 team, at least for a few months until hockey again starts to dominate talk in and around the city.
In the meantime, a successful Blue Jays run in the American League East will at least indicate there is room for their ilk on the Toronto sports front. It’s not like Leaf Nation fans have much else to do for a while anyway.
Despite adding all those new arms and bats during the off-season, it remains fact a lot of things have to go right for the Toronto Nine to challenge perennial playoff contenders such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
No one rightly should expect the Blue Jays to replace the Maple Leafs permanently — the Toronto sports fan doesn’t work that way — but the opportunity to revisit the franchise’s glory days of the early 1990s exists. And with it, a chance to develop a new generation of fans and young baseball players.
However, should the Jays compete and still not nurture and grow a following, perhaps it will signal the beginning of the end for professional baseball in Canada.
These opportunities don’t come along all that often. The Blue Jays need to step up and hit one out of the park.