When/why did you start being a Jays fan?

[tiger7]

1990 when I was 5 years old and became a fan watching Fernandes and Alomar. They were the main reason I got into playing baseball until I was 20.

[denny]

A long, long time ago.

The first time we really had success was when we had a 3 game series with the Yanks to decide who would go through to the playoffs. We beat em and faced KC in our first playoff series. Fernandez got an elbow injury and Manny Lee had to replace him. Manny did well but ended up the dog when he let a grounder go through his legs to lose the series.

[akakalakin]

Bosetti, Cliff Johnson, Dave Collins, Damo & Alfredo ....hooked

[James_Raptors]

No offense, but I've been on the Raptors board off and on since 04' and never once checked out this BB RealGm board one time until this year. What does that say about the excitement level?

Uh.. nothing? The Jays fanbase and viewership completely dwarfs that of the Raptors. Just because you're living in a bubble doesn't mean the rest of Toronto is.

I assume he/she didn't mean it as an insult, but rather a demonstration of how exciting this off-season has been (considering it even motivated him'her to come join us)

[Mohanad]

When Carlos Delgado was playing 1st base, started to hate Ricardi ever since he ran him outta town after so many great years . Was willing to take a paycut to stay to.

[Mike Hunt]

I grew up in a household that did not care for sports at all. I can honestly say that outside of the 100M dash in 1988 with Ben Johnson/Carl Lewis, no more than 10 seconds of any sporting even had aired on our TVs before 1990.

My love of pro sports started that year. I remember my uncle coming over, out of the blue, and asking me if I wanted to help him open a box of hockey cards. As we were opening the packs, he would tell me who the players were and why certain cards were more valuable than others. When we were done, he said the cards were mine. That Saturday, I watched my first hockey game from start to finish.

Later that year, I decided to give baseball a try. It quickly became my favourite sport and I was a hardcore fan, right from the start. My room essentially became Blue Jays themed and I started mimicking players' movements in my yard (I eventually became a reasonably accomplished player). Initially, my favourite Blue Jays player was Kelly Gruber. It soon became Joe Carter and remained as such until his retirement.

I guess the Jays winning in the second *and third) season I actually watched them might have jaded my views on the team. For a long time, I just got the sense that ownership didn't give a ****. That's why I'm excited about this season. I don't know if the moves will pan out, but at least I'm getting a similar sense as to what I got when I first started following the team, that they at least care.

[theSkinny]

I grew up equal distance from Toronto and Detroit...so growing up you were either a Detroit fan (easier on the psyche) or a Toronto fan (sucker for punishment) this applied to both baseball and hockey.

Cecil Fielder was my favourite player as a kid, then when the Jays started getting good back in 1990 all the kids in the school yard were quickly becoming Jays fans. I watched the World Series games with my friends at our one friends house because he had a fairly big TV and his mom made awesome snacks.

Then from the mid 90's when I started playing basketball, baseball became nothing to me and stayed that way till I moved to the city in 99, when I became friends with a guy who has season seats and would bring me to games periodically (8th row behind the plate) the games were fun to goto, but rarely did I stay past the 7th inning.


I have lived adjacent to the dome since 2003 and can hear when HR's happen on open dome games before they are on television, so would flip channels and catch it as the feed was showing it.

So I have been going to games for over ten years, but my fandom was really casual... I knew enough of what's going on, but basketball is my life and baseball falls still after soccer... This season should be fun, and I already for the ride.

[PJTucker]

Bosetti, Cliff Johnson, Dave Collins, Damo & Alfredo ....hooked

Loved Damo and Dave Collins! Looking forward to having that type of speed in the lineup again this year. It's arguable we haven't seen that much speed since the Robbie/Devo days. Even then, Devo didn't run THAT much.

[Marlowe]

First game I ever watch on TV as a kid was when Tony Fernadez was taken out at second base by a Detroit Tiger trying break a double play. I can't remember the Detroit Tiger player. All I remember saying to myself how dirty the play was!

I think that put Tony on the DL for the rest of the year! I have been following the jays since that day!

[JN]

As I grew up about an hour from Montreal so I was an Expos fan from the early 80's... but I certainly became a big jays fan by 1985. My first passion was still the Expos, and by high school, after the Expos were trashed by a few new friends I had met -- they forced me to fight back and stand up for my team.

The Jays were not that hard to hate - the spolied team. The first half of the 90''s was a fairly good period for the Expos. But the team which spent little money came up just short in 92/93 -- compared to the team who had endless money at the time, with the great stadium, and all the media attention -- the Jays. And after years of torment when I actually cheered for them, they finally got over the hump in 92/93 when I hated them. Damn I hated the Jays. I loved the Expos teams of that era - Walker, Deshields, Grissom, Dennis Martinez. Hell that 1993 Expos team won 95 games (last year before Wildcard), and were ignored/

This continued until i moved to Toronto in the late 90's... and I never hated the Jays once I moved there. Never really cheered for them either -- I tried to get into them, but I suspect the mediocrity made it hard. And as bad as they were the Expos were still around until 2004.

But these moves have me excited again against the Jays. I'm on the bandwagon. Really, that is the only way to grab someone who has established rooting tendencies with other teams.

[JN]

First game I ever watch on TV as a kid was when Tony Fernadez was taken out at second base by a Detroit Tiger trying break a double play. I can't remember the Detroit Tiger player. All I remember saying to myself how dirty the play was!

I think that put Tony on the DL for the rest of the year! I have been following the jays since that day!

Bill Madlock was the Tiger.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Anyone else have these cards from 86? I did.



Not sure exactly when I started with softball, but I know I had been playing for a while by the time I got glasses in grade 3, which is when I stopped being able to hit. That's how we figured out I needed glasses. I never played t-ball.

Looking back at those 83-84 teams I knew them well. Jim Acker! Jim Clancy! Doyle Alexander! Luis Leal! I loved Lloyd Moseby, Alfredo Griffin, Damaso Garcia!

I have a whole stack of those cards - I know I have the Moseby, Garcia, and Iorg cards. They're hiding somewhere. Also have the newspapers when we won the World Series. Will see if I can dig these up haha

[JN]

I'm not sure if there is a better outfield today than Bell, Barfield and Moseby. I always found it a bit odd that all three players declined so rapidly after their prime.