The Toronto Blue Jays three game home series against the Phillies in June has been moved to Philadelphia.  That series was supposed to be the return of possibly the greatest Blue Jay ever, Doc Halladay.   The reason for the relocation is because of the G20 Summit being held in Toronto at the same time.  It is being held literally right beside the Rogers Centre at the Metro Convention Centre.  Naturally, security will be high and as we all know, parking for a Jays game is at a premium and with this going on, it would be next impossible to park.  The Blue Jays will be the home team & the DH will be used in Philly.

            When I first heard of this, I was mad.   Which than turned into disgust, and is now disappointment.  With that being said, I realize that the G20 summit is much more important than a ball game.   However, I still want to know why the Jays were scheduled to play at home during the Summit.  I was looking for answers to that question and others when thankfully I found some answers.  Katy Feeney (VP of MLB Scheduling) was on the Fan 590 this afternoon and explained the scheduling situation.  According to her the MLB schedule for 2010 was set before the Summit had decided on Toronto.  Her & MLB tried to accommodate this after the fact, but could not find a better alternative than moving the series to Philly.  Do I believe this?  I don’t know.  I can’t see why they would not try to help out one of there teams.

            After all that I have mentioned above, consider this:  Perhaps it is better that the games be moved to Philadelphia.  I was listening to Primetime Sports on the FAN & Bob McCowan & callers had some good points.  One of the points being the heighten security at the Dome.   All fans would have to go through a metal detector before they entered the stadium.  McCowan estimates that it will take (in his words) about only an hour more.  An hour more? No big deal right?  Well, I know as well as others that for some reason the Blue Jays & the radio broadcast brush off the notion of fans that are not in the GTA(Greater Toronto Area).   The notion in most of Canada is that Toronto is an arrogant city who only thinks of themselves.  I live only an hour away & agree totally.  I can understand why people in B.C. who are three time zones away think the same thing.  What I’m trying to get at is that they don’t understand that there are people(fans) outside of there city.  For example, traveling from outside the GTA to a ballgame.  It takes typically an hour and a half to two hours from cities like Kitchener(less than 100km away, close to Hwy. 401) to get to the ballpark.  People cannot make it to a 7:00 game on a weeknight because of traffic.  I do realize that a large sum of fans are from Toronto and can take the city transit or subway.  Well, for the ones that don’t, it can be h*ll.  I recently attended a Sunday afternoon game at the Rogers Centre and it took over an hour to drive, park & enter the stadium.  That was on a Sunday.   Can you imagine a Friday or Saturday while the summit is on?  It would take at least 2-3 hours longer to get to the ballpark from an outlining city.  And this is not just southwest of Toronto.  This also includes, Hamilton, Barrie & wherever else people live.  Forget it.  I’d rather watch the game on T.V. and save myself the aggravation.  I know people are aggravated enough with just regular schedule games.  So add on 2-3 hours driving, plus trying to find a place to park in forever dwindling (or disappearing) parking lots.  Than add the extra hour for security.  That’s 3-4 hours.  Come on Bob, and whoever thinks that it would be no big deal.  It would be and I think that is one reason it wouldn’t work.  Does the Jays organization realize this, or are they just concerned about the security?  I’m not sure about that question or if the parking & traffic situations even occur to them.

            After the above ‘rant’, I would like to say that I agree with the moving of the games.  It just would be too much chaos and as I stated before, the summit is more important than a sport.  It’s just too bad that we don’t get to see Doc pitch ‘live’ in Toronto this year.

On a happier note, the Jays are playing well and hope to take one from the Red Sox tonight.

Thanks for reading and go support your Blue Jays.  I do.

Bye for now.