If you've been following the Jays at all lately, you know all too well that they haven't been hitting. The best guess as to why is that they're trying too hard. No doubt, they're all busy watching game films, endlessly practicing, and otherwise behaving like hardworking, type-A professionals. I'm thinking perhaps it's time for them to loosen up and do something silly.
An example, and possibly not the best one to follow: when Doug Rader was managing in the minor leagues, and his team was slumping, he called a post-game mandatory clubhouse meeting. In the meeting, he wheeled several cases of beer into the room and issued an edict: no one was to leave the clubhouse until all the beer had been consumed.
So what I'm wondering is this: what novel things could the Jays attempt in order to try to break out of their slump? Here's a couple:
- Randomly shuffle the lineup. Put all the starters' names in a hat, and have John Gibbons or Tom Cheek or somebody draw them out of a hat. The latest evidence suggests that lineup order doesn't matter that much anyway, and perhaps a reshuffling might help the Jays bunch their 6 hits a night more effectively.
- Swap uniforms. Perhaps Chris Woodward might take a different approach to hitting if he was wearing, say, Carlos Delgado's uniform. This would also serve to confuse the opposition.
- Have everybody wear uniform number 0, representing the Jays' number of home wins this year. Or, alternatively, have them wear a number corresponding to the number of consecutive home losses - tonight, they'd all wear 8. Or have everybody wear 13, for good luck (or more bad luck).
- Change their uniform colours, or cap logo, or both. Why not wear, say, bright orange for a day?
Now, for some promotions to entertain the fans (warning: to be taken even less seriously than the earlier parts of this article):
- Burn bats in a pre-game "remove the curse" ceremony.
- Hold a variation on bingo - issue cards where each square lists a strange way to give up a run. Then, as the Jays' hoodoo curse causes them to surrender runs in new and interesting ways, cross off the square on your card. For example, a lucky fan could win a handsome prize if the Jays gave up runs via a balk, a misplayed popup by the shortstop, and a collision between the catcher and the home plate umpire.
- Set off the fireworks after every hit! Why not?
- Give away a free pass to another game every time the Jays reach double figures in hits.
So what do you think? Have you any good ideas? (As you can see from this article, the bar for ideas is set rather low.)
By the way, has anybody checked what the record is for worst start at home? The 1988 Orioles went 0-8 at home as part of their losing streak, before winning in their 9th home game; if the Jays lose today, they'll surpass that.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20040422071805999