Victory-starved city abuzz over Jays

[LittleOzzy]

As the Blue Jays take batting practice, Nicholas and Nathanael Elsasser lay their Lyle Overbay bobbleheads and their baseball cards out on the dugout roof.

"They're in first place," Nicholas, 11, points out.

Were you expecting that?

"No."

Does this mean they're going to win it all?

"Yeah."

There's the enthusiasm of youth for you. That might also describe the Blue Jays team, a group of surprising overachievers who've leapt out to a 10-4 record early in the season – best in the American League.

The playoffs are a distant five months and 148 games away, but the Jays have created a growing buzz around a town starved for a winner.

"No matter where I go, people are talking about the Jays. That hasn't been the case for a while," said team president Paul Beeston. "The fans have gotten to the point where they're hoping. They haven't crossed over into believing we're going to do it yet."

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/621100

[rtcaino]

Certainly an exciting time to be a Jays fan - or it apperars that truly exciting times may be on the horizon.
It is kind if like meeting a pretty girl - you're hopeful, but don't want to get a head of yourself!

I'm looking forward to more activity on this board also. Great job Ozzie, on finding suitable discussion points - it's only a matter of time before this place picks up.

There are tonnes of jays sites around the web, much like the raps - but with bball, realgm is a great starting point to see what is going on: the identification and analysis of relevant info is phenomenal. Even if you don't care for the posting, you still have to value how on the ball the forum is. Hopefully the jays forum can develop similarly.

(Sorry for spelling - on bberry - no spell check app yet...)

[tsherkin]

Ah, baseball season... bless this sport, especially post-steroids...

I think the most encouraging thing about this year is that we can be reasonably confident that the hitting will be at least league-average; over the last 80 or 90 games (with Gaston last year), we were hitting better, grounding into fewer double-plays, etc, etc, etc. It's worrisome that Burnett and Marcum are completely gone and that McGowan's not likely to be back until August and competent until late that month, but the young pitching has been really nice. Especially Romero. Purcey has moments and Tallet's alright, but I'm utterly fascinated by the idea that Romero is now in constant communication with Doc and Arnsberg.

If nothing else, we have some youth with upside to watch for a little while.