The Perfect Ending

Can't wait until the first pro athlete in Canada demands to be paid in Canadian funds.

They can't call it funny money anymore, can they?

Somehow, you have to figure the Blue Jays, to name one team, will twist the soaring Canadian loonie into a new excuse after blaming it for many of their financial ills over the years.

Can't you hear it? "How can we possibly compete having to pay our players in Canadian? Those loonies are heavy and cost us a fortune to bring in by truck."

Otherwise, the 2007 season, which is turning out to be nothing short of a full-fledged disaster for the Rogers boys, is really ending in perfect style for the people who have to make baseball excuses for a living, in this case Paul Godfrey and J.P. Ricciardi.

They promised one thing, delivered quite another, namely a team that just needs to finish 10-0 to draw even with last season's 87-win effort.

Happily for Godfrey and Ricciardi, their players are dropping like flies in the final days of the season.

The team will end the season with B.J. Ryan, Lyle Overbay, Troy (It's In The Mail) Glaus and Vernon Wells all disabled, which puts a lovely ribbon on the big excuse, that the Jays had a wonderful team this year but it was all ruined by injuries.

Forget that the teams above them, Boston and New York, also had to deal with all kinds of injuries. And forget that even when the Jays had most of their lineup intact, they weren't any good anyway, and that it's quite likely that next season will be filled with tricky injury issues again, as is the case with most major league teams.

Godfrey and Ricciardi have hung on the injury excuse all season - that is, when they weren't lying about Ryan or running interference for Glaus -and you can bet they're not going to let go now.

If they finish .500 over the last 10 games, this is a ball club that will have averaged 79 victories per season over the last four years. Throw out the 67-win season of 2004, and you have an average of 83 wins per season over the last three years.

I think Godfrey and Ricciardi have pretty much established that of which they are capable, don't you?

Comments

[Peter]

Isn't it obvious that the Yankees and Red Sox have a much deeper (and expensive) team? Therefore, they can absorb injuries with much less effect on their performance.

Also, it's interesting that Terry Ryan is considered one of the better GMs even though he started out with 7 straight losing seasons.

[Stephen]

Who knows Damien... I read people screaming that JFJ needs to be left alone for a few years so we can see what he can do, and then we see someone who was similarly tagged as an up and coming young GM given all the authority in the world only to find out that the best thing he had going for him were Gord Ash's draft picks -- and now they're complaining that he didn't have enough money to compete with the big boys. Well, okay ...how about competing with Minnesota then? What excuse will be trotted out by the ever-loyal Toronto sports fan next? The guy hasn't delivered what he said he could, he's shown himself to be impatient with young kids, a poor judge of wise monetary investments, and has no respect for the fans whatsoever. What more will it take?? Seriously.

[Peter Gray]

The Blue Jays were also very good at the end of last season. Godfrey and Ricciardi made a big deal out of coming in second, ahead of the third-place Boston Red Sox. What an achievement!

Godfrey is a good politician for Canada, I guess, but he is no baseball man. And Ricciardi is no Billy Beane, as we were told he was. I was amazed at a photo of JP and Billy from their playing days. Beane was twice as big as his little buddy Riccardi. The photo reminded of Warner Bros' canine duo 'Spike and Lester', with Ricciardi coming across as the runt.

It is a shame that the once formidable 'Toronto Blue Jays' organisation, built by Pat Gillick and co with gutsy and informed drafting trading and free-agency pick ups, with those great original style uniforms, have turned into 'the Jays'. Toronto's team is now a second-tier organisation that has learned its place is with the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Devil-Rays. The days of standing up to the Yankees and Red Sox are gone, and will not return as long as Godfrey and Lester-Ricciardi are in charge.

The Yankees and Red Sox won't even play in Toronto on the weekends anymore.

[chris]

I can just imagine Ricciardi and Godfrey coming up with the excuse that they always knew their pitchers McGowan and Marcum would be major league ready and that their progress surprised even themselves. That's always been their modus operandi; take all the credit when things go good while always finding a scapegoat to throw to the fans when things go bad. These two are joined together by the same orrifice.

Wake up Ted! If you have any dream of seeing your ball club compete, then you'll get rid of these two weasels, ASAP!!!