Go Blue Jays

As I noted the other day in another entry of PoYB's ongoing moral grandstanding about goddamn baseball, I am not following the Phillies this year. It was a painful decision, since the Phillies have acted as the spine that has held the last thirteen summers together for me, and removing one's spine is gonna fucking hurt. But it was a decision that had to be made. There are more important things in life than baseball.

Still, in a vacuum, I'm still a big fan of baseball. I loved the Phillies deeply, but if I take a step back, I can see that they were only one possible entry point into the world of the only perfect sport on earth. What if I were to... please try to contain your gasps when I say this... root for another team? I know! I know! Bury me in Philly when I die, but fuck it, man, why should I have to not watch baseball at all? The Phillies are only one team out of 30. Why not just pick another team to hang out with for the summer?

The title and the picture at the top of this blog post have already spoiled my decision. The Toronto Blue Jays are my team this year. But I think it's still worth going through how I arrived at this decision. It's important I am open and honest about my decision. Part of me still feels duplicitous about the whole thing—the Phillies are an abusive partner in 2022, but one that I built a life with, and even if I hate the Phillies for their abuse, it's still not that easy to pack my bags and leave—and I really can't blame anyone for calling me a "traitor" or whatever. I have pride in my city, and I feel a certain responsibility toward my city, however fucked up it can be sometimes. This feels like I'm abandoning Philadelphia to some extent.

Oh well! Maybe don't spend entertainment money on domestic abusers! As far as I know, the Blue Jays aren't harboring any abusive men on their team. So that's reason #1, but it's the obvious reason, and could apply to many MLB teams, so I'm not including that in the below list. In the interest of full disclosure regarding my decision to switch alliances to another baseball team for the first time in my entire life, here is my full reasoning for choosing the Blue Jays.

1) If this list is roughly in order from most important to least important, then I have to put this at the top—the Blue Jays are not a rival of the Phillies, at least in the very specific way that Puke on Your Birthday defines the term "rival." In case you missed it in 2018, to be a "rival" requires two distinct things: proximity (geographically or in how teams are organized in their respective league) and a significant shared history. I even specifically named the Blue Jays as an example of a team that is not a rival to my Philadelphia baseball team. Joe Carter's home run was a blip. A rather large blip, mind you, but a blip nonetheless. It's been almost thirty years. The Blue Jays and the Phillies are not rivals. I cannot root for a rival of the Phillies, regardless of the circumstances (sorry, Mets, I know you'd love to have me, but y'all can fuck off!!!).

2) Which means that I was always going to pick a team from the American League. The Phillies don't play every AL team every year. Series with, like, the Royals and the Tigers and the A's and all those types of teams, on the rare occasions they do happen in any given season, feel more like novelty events than another match-up in a shared history. Not that every National League team is a Phillies rival, but in my mind, I can think back on more regular season series against most of those teams, just because I've seen a lot more of those series over the past half of my life. Are the Reds a rival, e.g.? No, but when the Reds come to town, there are stakes. You don't get that with a lot of AL teams.

3) If we are considering the idea of "rivals," though, then it also makes sense to make sure that I already have a built-in hatred for the Blue Jays' established rivals. And I do! The Yankees and the Red Sox are both in the AL East with the Blue Jays, and rivals of the Phillies or not, I fucking hate the Yankees and the Red Sox. So transitioning to the Blue Jays, and having ample opportunities to root passionately against those two teams, is going to be an easy transition.

4) Let's be honest, here, time zones were an important consideration here. Maybe even more important than superficial baseball considerations like rivalries. I don't have any issues with rooting for, like, the Mariners or something, but they play most of their games at 10 PM EST. I am conscious at that time of night maybe three nights of the week at most, let alone awake enough to watch an entire baseball game. Plan B was the Twins, but even they are Central Time Zone, and I just wouldn't be able to do it.

5) Something about the Blue Jays literally not even being an American team makes the switch easier to swallow for me. As a self-hating American, I find solace in the fact that I don't have to root for another American team if I don't want to.

6) Actually, from a moral standpoint, this might be the most important factor for me in 2022—every Toronto Blue Jays player on the 2022 roster is vaccinated. You know how I know this? Because if you're an unvaccinated baseball player in Canada, you aren't allowed to play. There are players on other teams who won't even be allowed to get into Canada at all when they are playing the Blue Jays. This is awesome. You know how I feel about the unvaccinated among us. You also know how I feel about unvaccinated baseball players specifically. The Phillies are visiting the SkyDome in 2022, and I hope they are fucking decimated on the field because of the unvaccinated, selfish assholes on the team. I will be proud to root for a team who are either totally comprised of non-morons, or at the very least comprised of baseball players who value the sport and others' health enough to bite the figurative bullet and do what's right.

7) I'm looking at the potential roster right now, and while there are a few names that I recognize, there are definitely no players on this lineup that I feel any negative emotions regarding. In other words, there are no players on here that I have any memories of having caused the Phillies any significant harm in the past few years. It would be weird if, say, Freddie Freeman ended up with the Blue Jays. I'm not even saying that that would necessarily be a deal-breaker (it wasn't when Harper signed with the Phillies, obviously), I'm just saying that it's appealing to be able to start fresh with these players. Let them earn a spot in my heart based on their 2022 performances alone.

8) I have to imagine in my mind that all the characters from Degrassi: The Next Generation are Blue Jays fans (though I guess the teens from Degrassi Junior High had the Expos as an option at that time too). I doubt they mention the Jays at any point in the series, but the actor who played Toby, Jake Goldsbie, has a Blue Jays podcast, so I can't be that far off base.

9) Also, not for nothing, but the Blue Jays get at least a tangential shout-out in the newest Pixar Film, the fantastic Turning Red. A lot of the action in the climax takes place at the SkyDome (now called the Rogers Centre, but I am told by Blue Jays fans that everyone calls it the SkyDome still, which, as someone who still calls it "Delaware Avenue" and "Market East Station" and "Pattison Station," I can appreciate).

10) I actually already have a noted history of rooting for the Toronto Blue Jays organization. Not the Blue Jays specifically, but in 2012, their AA minor league team was the Las Vegas 51s. Pam and I went to a few games when we were living out there, and definitely rooted for the team while sipping on $1 beers. The team is no longer the 51s and no longer part of the Blue Jays' minor league system, but I still look upon that time as unintentionally providing a soft landing, now that I am "returning" to the Blue Jays ten years later.

Are all these reasons in combination enough to justify my decision to root for the Blue Jays this season? Maybe. I don't know. But I also don't really care. I just want to watch some baseball. And if I can justify doing so without having to root for a bunch of scumbags who are silent about their teammates beating their respective girlfriends and wives bloody, then I'm going to do it. The Blue Jays are my team this year. Go Blue Jays.