Toronto Blue Jays fans react to team ditching the home run jacket as part of new attitude this season: "Time to get serious!" "A needed change!"
The free-spirited Toronto Blue Jays squad is locking things down in 2023, hoping that paying more attention to functioning over form may get the team over the postseason hump.
The team announced that it is getting rid of the team's "Home Run Jacket," which players wore after hitting a round tripper in previous seasons.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider told the Toronto Sun on Wednesday:
"It’s time to go from a talented, fun team to a talented, fun team that’s going to scrap and claw and find ways to win games."
#Bluejays pack away HR jacket. “It’s time to go from a talented, fun team to a talented, fun team that’s going to scrap and claw and find ways to win games." torontosun.com/sports/basebal…
Toronto Blue Jays fans are split about the loss of the jacket. Many fans love the new no-nonsense spirit as the team seeks to make its first World Series appearance since back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993.
A needed change! #BlueJays twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Great step forward. I'd lost interest last year as they'd become too silly at times. #timetowin #bluejays twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Good! Time to get serious! twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Still, other Blue Jays fans lamented the loss of the ceremonial coat. Baseball is a game, after all, and games are supposed to be fun. Part of what makes Toronto successful, they argue, is the team's freewheeling clubhouse.
Kinda sad....it was fun while it lasted. Other teams had much lamer celebratory things like cheese fake gold necklaces...we shall move on, alas... twitter.com/longleysunspor…
It's over. twitter.com/longleysunspor…
This is so lame twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Some fans took a more philosophical approach - if the jacket helps the team win then keep it, if it doesn't, then lose it.
On the one hand, I'm fine with them moving away from the home run jacket. On the other hand this "the jacket prevented them from winning" narrative is absolute nonsense twitter.com/longleysunspor…
I liked it I understand lots of the old heads didn’t but I think you need to have fun over the course of a long szn and I hope they don’t stop doing so. Good to see it was the players not the coaches making this call tbh. Hope they come up with a new celebration. twitter.com/longleysunspor…
I enjoyed the jacket, but I'm okay with this. If they think they need to put away the props and turn more into a team that will punch you in the mouth for a W, I'm okay with that too. Just win. twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Of course, ditching the jacket doesn't mean that Blue Jays players couldn't do something even more profound to celebrate home runs.
I'm so excited for the Jays to start firing Roman Candles off, while riding a live donkey through the dugout after home runs so that every "they should be more serious" boomer has a collective aneurysm twitter.com/longleysunspor…
Toronto Blue Jays yearning for a World Series
Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run off Philadelphia Phillies closer Mitch Williams to win the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays. After back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993, Toronto did not qualify for the postseason again until the first of two straight American League Championship Series appearances in 2015 and 2016.
The Blue Jays lost both times, first to the Kansas City Royals and then to the Cleveland Guardians.
While Toronto has made the playoffs again in two of the past three seasons, both of those postseason forays ended in Wild-Card Round defeat. Blue Jays players, management, and fans are bursting at the seams for the team to make it back to the World Series for the first time in a generation.