I hate myself.
They just don't make showers hot enough to clean me of my new fragrance, "Hate" by J.P. Ricciardi.
And I've tried. I think I've lost a few layers of skin trying.
What I'm talking about is the negativity that surrounds these Toronto Blue Jays, honorable defenders of fourth place in the AL East. I've found myself criticizing every facet of their play (most of the time deservedly so) but I haven't found happiness doing it.
Face it, Toronto fans think that the sky now resides at the center of the Earth (that's how far it's fallen). We get some kind of sick satisfaction from seeing our grisly predictions come true.
When the Jays were leading their division we were all waiting for it, the sudden loss of cabin pressure and subsequent descent into freefall. I had my oxygen mask strapped on in February and I was saying rosaries between at-bats in April.
Then the wheels, or wings, literally fell off, and the Jays have descended into mediocre hell. It's a place where room temperature and Royal Canadian Air Farce are substituting for the fire and brimstone. It's a place where we've found ourselves constantly.
That's something that needs to change if we ever want to see success.
When I wrote about Roy Halladay a week ago, it was from an analytical standpoint. It ended up making me sick.
Even though my point was about trading Halladay being a panic move by Ricciardi to save his job, the responses that were given started fuelling my patriotic side.
You can't trade Roy Halladay.
You just can't.
I've been watching the All-Star hoopla and have watched Doc being barraged by trade questions. There's blood in the water and I think that the rest of the world is dying to appreciate Roy Halladay fully. Toronto is just not done doing it yet.
It's going to be the last straw for Blue Jays fans everywhere. Our cynicism already threatens to consume us as a franchise and losing Doc would be like having a car hit your dog, back up over it, and then drive forward, crushing your grandmother in the process.
Watching Halladay recording the Home Run Derby with his video camera I just kept thinking, "I bet he's taping their swings so he can find the holes and exploit them at some point." Then I found myself feeling terrible that we're on the verge of never seeing Halladay in Blue Jays garb again.
While talking to my brother (he's the guy who brings me back down to Earth when I start thinking I'm clever), I asked him if the Jays should trade Halladay.
"Yeah" he replied, "If they want to win the emptiest stadium competition."
Words to live by.
The average Blue Jays game attendance is 22,840, 26th in the league. Excluding the home opener, when Halladay is pitching the average attendance is 25,444, or 20th in the league.
It's a small but significant difference. People will to pay to see Halladay play. Surrender him to another team and all the fair-weather fans will take the hint and abandon a sinking ship.
That's the thing about Toronto. The fans can sense failure, and—unless you're the Maple Leafs—they're not coming to the game.
A new trend has emerged in baseball: There's the wealthy Haves and the poor Have-Nots. I think the Jays are the Has-Nots, because Toronto has not fulfilled the potential they have.
They have something special that's looking to click. You can't deny it. They've spent the money on their players because they believe it's going to pay off. I do too...now.
That's right, even though I have been howling like a banshee every time J.P. Ricciardi does or says anything, I've made peace with this team.
I think it can win.
This season is a stretch, but there's no commandment in the baseball bible against trying to be competitive. They could make a run, or they could fade hard down the stretch, but they'll be competitive. And of course, there's always next year.
Adam Lind, Roy Halladay, and Aaron Hill are two-and-half All-Stars (So long Charlie Sheen and the other one and a half actors!). Scott Rolen has become a born-again contact hitter. Vernon Wells and Alex Rios can only wither on the vine for so long before they start to bloom.
Scott Downs has returned and BJ Ryan was finally excorcised from Toronto. It's going to cost another $10 million, but if someone decides to sign BJ there's $400,000 off the books (It's something).
Marco Scutaro has rejuvenated his career by developing the keenest eye in baseball and has become a great leadoff man. Or at least tantalizing trade bait before the trade deadline.
There is a rotation chockfull of potential: Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Scott Richmond, and now Marc Rzepczynski. There's even the return of Shaun Marcum, Dustin McGowan, and Jesse Litsch to look forward to.
At the worst those new rotation guys are more trade bait, at best they're the beginning of great pitching depth the Jays have lacked.
Here's what's got me most excited: Travis Snider. Snidawg.
(Sidenote: Snidawg is the nickname I'm attempting to spread for Travis Snider. My dream is a crowd of Jays fans wearing Cleveland Brown-style dogmasks and barking every time he comes to the plate.)
People wonder where the early season magic went, I say it went back to Triple-A. When Snider was in the big leagues, the Jays reached their loftiest heights (They were 27-16 and first in the AL East before he was demoted).
Granted, he had some problems and was hitting only .242 when he was sent to Vegas, but when he was in the bottom third of the lineup it had some teeth.
Snidawg got himself dinged up in the minors, but when he returns someday there will be hell to pay. Not mediocre hell, Snidawg hell. The one where the knob fell off the thermostat and other teams are sweating the second they enter Rogers Center.
But I digress...
Roy Halladay can't leave, if he does there will be distraught Jays fans wondering if Boston needs another bandwagon jumper. They don't. Still, Jays fans will be thinking about our odds for winning anything, anytime soon.
The other day I paid my Rogers bill in full, praying that it would help keep Doc in Toronto, where he belongs. A guy who has played his heart out in Toronto deserves a chance to win in Toronto.
It's not an impossible task either. This season has been the quintessential example of Murphy's Law. Everything has gone wrong, but I still hope.
That's where the fans haven't been looking this year: At ourselves. We have to accept some responsibility here.
We're the ones who don't go to games or don't care enough to notice the team until they're talking about trading Roy Halladay. I'm still hoping that J.P. started hearing Halladay trade offers just to make people care again.
You can argue that the product on the field isn't worth seeing, but it is. It's baseball, we have a Toronto baseball team with a great history that we have now abandoned.
They need our help, they need something more tangible than a paycheck (Okay I'm reaching a little here). How excited can a player be for game after game in a stadium where people barely recognize there's a game being played at all?
The most excited we've been as Jays fans was for two dollar tickets, and all we did with them was get so drunk and surly, the players were using their bats for defence.
Sure, times are tough, but a ten dollar ticket or watching the game on television isn't too much to ask.
"Fans" barely blinked when Toronto was in first, and when we did they had already started their descent. I can just picture the team yelling, "We're in first-first-first-first-firs-fir-fi" to an empty Rogers Center after a game.
We're so convinced that our team will lose that we feel vindicated when they finally do. That's a poisonous attitude that's infected the team and the front office, who has taken our flip attitude as cause to dump salary.
Is now really a good time to trade the player that has been the one unifying reason to love the Toronto Blue Jays?
I say we keep Halladay. Forget the trade deadline, forget the offseason, forget next year's trade deadline. Keep him until he finally has to tell us enough. Sometimes the best move is the one you never make.
In the meantime keep developing a franchise that has quietly been growing more talented by the day.
The Jays play the Red Sox on Friday, and an opportunity looms. Stealing that series is a great way to start the second half of the season.
If you fall short this year, the stars are going to align next season. There is no way this team can experience half of what they have next season. If the injuries disappear then you're left with one helluva chance to win.
That's a big if, but there's chances for the Jays to go out and make their team better without dismantling it.
As for the worries about the payroll being too unwieldy for the current market, I say "Bah!". Millions of dollars were shelved during trade talks for A.J. Burnett during the eye of the financial storm. Cutting Halladay from the budget will cost you more now than a pale substitute will bring you later.
Common sense would say to trade Doc and reap the prospects his departure brings. Common sense can go...fornicate...with itself. Toronto has done all the sensible things except try to build a real contender with Halladay. Let's take a chance and tell the rest of the league to find another carcass to pick over.
Trading for some speed would a great idea. Putting Brian Tallet back into the pen to eat up some innings for that overworked squad wouldn't hurt either. There's going to be a glut of pitching coming into next season, and dealing off some of the excess could fill some important holes.
While we wait, let's change our attitude people. I know our expectations are always high, but sometimes you just need to believe, or at least get more invested in our team; because after all, this is our team and we need to take care of it.
And if at the end of the day the Jays fall short again, and Roy Halladay walks away in 2010 towards free agency, I'll be happy, because we took that shot.
You should too.
(Blast away.)
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