TORONTO -
The Toronto Blue Jays were once a franchise that routinely set attendance records by packing the joint, followed by a rabid fan base that was the envy of baseball.
These days the records they're rewriting are on the other end of the spectrum, and that's one of the most worrying side effects of this latest season gone horribly awry.
Only 11,461 fans showed up for Thursday afternoon's 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins, making it the second-smallest crowd in the team's 20-year history at Rogers Centre. A night earlier, the all-time low of 11,159 was established in a dubious piece of history.
Seven home games remain for the Blue Jays in 2009 and with the dreadful Baltimore Orioles and the uninspiring Seattle Mariners left on the docket, that mark and the team's record for smallest crowd ever -- 10,074 at Exhibition Stadium versus Chicago on April 17, 1979 -- are likely to face serious challenges.
There's little to entice fans to the ballpark these days, and it's hard to imagine how things get much better in 2010.
"It wasn't a proud moment," interim CEO Paul Beeston said Thursday of the record. "It is what it is. Given the position we're in, not being in a pennant race, first week after Labour Day which is traditionally a tough draw -- they're not excuses, but they're reasons."
Beeston also acknowledged that the club's apparent aimlessness is also a factor why the team's fans are tuning out.
With a middle of the pack payroll of about US$80 million and no public indication of a long-term plan, the Blue Jays are caught firmly in baseball's grey zone, neither bad enough to rebuild or good enough to compete, with a clear path forward.
General manager J.P. Ricciardi was told to make no player moves last winter. He did as he was told even though the 63-77 record the team is carrying was entirely predictable, and has now been left to twist in the wind even though he has year left on his contract.
Quietly, it looks to some people in the know like assistant GM Alex Anthopoulos is being groomed to take over, and it's believed Beeston will finally name his successor sooner rather than later.
But in the meantime the fans -- alienated by the public shopping of ace Roy Halladay in July -- have no real idea of what the team's plans are, and that seems to be catching up with them.
"I think the uncertainty is a part of it," said Beeston. "You can't just sugar-coat things and say to everybody, 'Trust us.' We've been working on a plan and in short order that will come out."
Asked if that should be expected shortly after the season's end, Beeston replied: "I would definitely think so."
As for Ricciardi's future, Beeston wouldn't get into that at all, saying only: "I'm accountable for everything that's gone on. At the end of the year we'll assess everybody."
"We want the fans to be wondering what's going, and we know they're not happy with the situation," he added later. "We don't like the negativity they have, but negativity is better than apathy."
If nothing happens to reignite their interest, apathy is just around the corner.
Through 74 games, the Blue Jays have drawn 1,734,110 fans for an average of 23,433 per game, good for 23rd in the majors. The only teams behind them are Cincinnati, Washington, Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Oakland and Florida -- not exactly an honour roll of baseball clubs.
Barring a sudden turnaround for the final seven games, they'll draw less than two million for first time since 2004.
Last year the team counted 2,400,416 fans for an average of 29,635, although some of the figures in recent years were inflated by giveaways that came with corporate deals. The Blue Jays will finish this year with more revenue than last despite the attendance drop, a hopeful sign that may eventually allow the team to up its payroll.
"There's no use fooling yourself and announcing numbers that aren't real," said Beeston. "I'll be very straight-forward, it's not the ticket sales but the revenue-per-ticket. And revenue-per-ticket is up. Now, if you have last year's attendance and this year's revenue-per-ticket, then you're talking."
The sad part is that the 2008 product was one of the best in recent memory and is not likely to be replicated in the near future.
Second baseman Aaron Hill, left-fielder Adam Lind, outfielder Travis Snider and left-hander Ricky Romero will help form the core of the future, but while they progressed, others, most notably centre-fielder Vernon Wells, regressed or stood still.
There is no ace in the system to replace Halladay, who if not dealt this winter will clearly leave once his contract expires after 2010, and while rookies Brett Cecil, Mark Rzepczynski, David Purcey and Brad Mills all showed varying degrees of progress, they don't appear ready to help sustain a legitimate run at the Yankees or Red Sox next year.
Given that some of the club's other top prospects stalled this year, catcher J.P. Arencibia in particular, the notion that the Blue Jays will spend a bunch of money on free agents this winter doesn't hold up.
There are holes to plug at catcher, shortstop, the outfield and DH before the starting rotation and the bullpen are addressed. And even then, the Blue Jays aren't likely to be good enough to overtake the Yankees or Red Sox, so why spend now?
And then there's the question of where all the money is going to come from.
The days of writing off big losses with the Blue Jays as a marketing expense for team owner Rogers Communications Inc., are over, and with fans tuning out (TV ratings at Rogers Sportsnet were up earlier in the season but slipped 10-14 per cent from 2008 in July and August), the money to sustain a payroll boost isn't there.
So unless the Blue Jays can inspire some hope in the final weeks of this season, the fans will have little incentive to spend their hard-earned money during a recession at the ballpark.
"You win, you'll have people in the stands, you lose you can't expect too much more," said Wells. "We're not winning, no disrespect to the Twins but it's not the Yankees or the Red Sox that are here in the middle of a week, and everybody's kind of looking forward to hockey, so it is what it is. Our job is to be better."
First baseman Lyle Overbay agrees: "I think it just relates to how we're playing. If we're in it, I think they're going to come out. We're not the Toronto Maple Leafs, we're not going to just draw because we're here. It's sad but on the same token, we've got to put a good team out there to bring the crowds in."
