There are lessons to take away from the experience of watching the 2023 Blue Jays. These are perhaps things we have always known, but we can still use the reminder.


For example. There's a Ted Williams story I've always liked. In retirement, the Splinter often showed up at spring training to help out with the young Boston hitters. Occasionally people from other organizations would have Ted look at one of their players, a bit of expert consultation from one of the greatest hitters who ever walked the planet. So there's old Ted watching young Von Hayes take his cuts, and Hayes askes Ted what the best approach would be for a back door slider that just nips the corner, low and away. And Ted's eyes got really wide, and he says "Why, you just let that pitch go by, son. Don't you know how hard all this is?"

Don't you know how hard all this is. If there's one thing the 2023 Blue Jays have reminded me of, over and over, there it is. Hitting is hard. I mean, it's really, really, really hard. It's sometimes utterly incomprehensible to me that hitting ever even happens. Just making contact at this level is slightly miraculous. Any normal human being would run shrieking in terror away from the box the first time a 95 mph fastball missed the plate on the inner half.

This may seem an untimely observation the day after a game with a 10-7 score, but we've spent the last five months watching a team that suppresses the other team's offense at an elite level and has a great deal of trouble scoring runs themselves. The lesson should have been pounded into us. Hitting is hard. Never forget it.

But there's a larger lesson we can reacquaint ourselves with as well.


Because I know what I'm in for. That's what we're all in for, and no one knows more about losing than basball fans, because no sport's fans have anything like the same level of experience. It's baked into the conditions of the sport. As I'm fond of observing, the best baseball teams - the very best, the champions of the sport - regularly lose more games in a season than Tom Brady lost in his long, long two-decade career with New England. Losing, over and over, is what we've all signed up for. Baseball is pain.

Easy for you to say, Magpie. You can get all philosophical about this type of suffering. You're old, you remember the glory years, the back-to-back championships....

Do you know what it was like? The Glory Years? The Golden Age of Gillick, those eleven straight winning seasons? What it was really like?

It was mostly a misery. Oh, it started out wonderfully, when we and all the world was young and full of promise. Why, 1983 was positively delightful. For the first time the local team was actually good. Sure, they finished fourth, sure the bullpen blew up in spectacular fashion in late August - but we were not discouraged. The novelty of having a good team was more than enough. Maybe next year.

Next year came, and another team simply ran away with everything. The Blue Jays made a valiant effort to keep up with the mighty 1984 Tigers, but nothing was getting in the way of that team. Nothing you can do about that. Maybe next year.

And next year came, and so many pieces fell neatly into place. The Jays moved into first place at the end of April, and saw off every challenge, highlighted by taking three of four crucial games from Billy Martin's gang of stars right there in Yankee Stadium. Our first experience of post-season baseball - it was a blast, even if it all came to a sad end, with our exhausted ace left out there too long and a wind-blown fly ball catching the top of the right field wall... Maybe next year.

So next year came, and along with it a new manager, and the Jays were everyone's trendy pick to win something impressive. Naturally everything - mostly on the pitcher's mound - immediately went to hell. The team didn't clear .500 for good until late June, and just as they were getting into position to maybe mount a challenge, the Red Sox ran off an 11 game winning streak and it didn't much matter what the Blue Jays did. Maybe next year.

So next year came, and the 1987 team - once more expected to contend and win - played well all year long. Other teams in the division got hot - the Brewers had the early season lead, the Yankees actually spent more time in first place than anyone that year, but the Jays were right there with the leaders and held the division lead for a while in June, and again in August. And then, in September, they got really hot, winning 19 of 24 games and heading into the final week with a 3.5 game lead atop the division. You've probably heard the stories. Well, maybe next year.

So next year came, and people were starting to wonder although the team obviously had enough talent to win everything. Alas, the traumatic ending of the 1987 season seemed to have temporarily unhinged everyone's mind. The year began with the phony Ducey-Capusano duel for a starting job in the outfield, and the follies that ensued. The team never even sniffed anything resembling contention - they took a losing record into the season's final month, and only a closing hot streak (22-7) gave the season an appearance of decency. It wasn't. Maybe next year.

So next year came, and by now the confident expectations of the fans and the baseball community was beginning to waver. Things got so bad right out of the gate that the manager had to be fired after a grisly weekend in Minnesota was capped off with a 13-1 shellacking. The team was sunk so far under water that the season seemed over before it had even begun. And yet - this was a plucky bunch, and they had the great good fortune to catch the AL East in a year when there didn't happen to be another really good team around. The 1989 team made that long, slow climb up the mountain and actually found themselves back in the post-season. Where, as everyone expected, they were quickly blown away by a powerhouse Oakland team. But that was a satisfying season. Maybe next year would be even better.

So next year came, and it wasn't. Oh, they were in contention all year long - they spent time in first place in April, May, June, July - but they never did take hold of the race, they never moved much more than 7 or 8 games above .500. By late August they were two games behind the Red Sox, who came to town for a four game series. The Jays won the opener to cut the lead to a single game - they then dropped three in a row, by scores of 2-0, 1-0, and 1-0 again. They had fallen to 6.5 games back by the time September came around. A desperate last season charge got them back in front with two weeks left. So they lost two of three to Cleveland, two of three to Milwaukee, and (fatally) two of three to Boston. They went into the final day needing a miracle to salvage a first place tie and didn't get it. Maybe next year.

So next year came, and changes had been made. George Bell was gone, they'd made some big off-season trades, and things looked better. They really did. The team moved into first place in late May and stayed there all year. They were challenged for the lead several times, and occasionally had to share it with another team, but they held fast. And once more, they were back in the post-season. And once more they were blown away, this time by the Minnesota Twins. Next year? Again?

Which was when they finally, finally, won it all.

What did winning feel like? It felt, more than anything, like relief. And like justice - we had paid our bloody dues, we deserved this. But mostly, relief. From pain. Because baseball is pain.

So why do we put ourselves through it? Why do we care?

Well, it's good to care about things. Roger Angell said so, and that's good enough for me.

“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team... What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.”

Matchups

Mon 28 Aug - Gray (7-10, 3.85) vs Gausman (9-8, 3.23)
Tue 29 Aug - Gore (6-10, 4.38) vs Berrios (9-9, 3.55)
Wed 30 Aug - Corin (9-11, 4.70) vs Bassitt (12-7, 4.00)