Cheering for a winning team

By Jordan Caschera

The dreadful and embarrassing season of the Toronto Maple Leafs has finally come to an end and it’s time to cheer for a championship caliber team, Toronto Blue Jays.

The Toronto Maple Leafs ended their season with a 29-42-11 record, enough to finish last in the NHL and hopefully enough to win the draft lottery. Cheering for a team that wins a mere 29 games out of 82 isn’t fun. In fact, it’s a feeling no sports fan should ever have to endure. It’s a feeling of complete hopelessness, fear and utter sadness.

The season has passed and like everything else, there is a new beginning and this new beginning starts just a few blocks away from the Air Canada Centre. The Blue Jays season is what the entire country has been looking forward to since every Canadian NHL team was eliminated from the playoffs. It’s another season Jays fans hope to see a new addition to the ’92 and ’93 World Series championship banners. It’s possibly the season with the most pressure. After the disappointing, yet successful season last year where the organization lost and gained some familiar faces. These losses and additions didn’t come without scrutiny. After failing to reach a deal with former general manager, Alex Anthopolous, Jays nation sarcastically welcomed new President Mark Shapiro with, let’s say “open arms”.

Shapiro didn’t help his welcoming party when the organization withheld a contract offer to ace pitcher David Price, allowing Price to shop around and eventually find a spot with division rival Boston Red Sox. Adding to Jays fan’s agony, Anthopolous said he would have offered Price a contract if he had remained with the team, a scenario most Jays fans wanted.

Though change is sometimes hard and in this case inevitable, for the 2016 season, the Blue Jays have key pieces which management obviously thinks will be enough. With arguably the best offensive line-up in all of baseball, the 2016 season is looking to be the year the team dominates in the standings, hopefully. With Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki all starting the season in Toronto and hitting in that specific order, the team’s offence has to dominate. Not to mention the defensive aspect with Kevin Pillar, Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin.

The Blue Jays plan this year is the same as last year, score runs, 900 of them.