The Visual History of Pro Sports in Toronto - Part 1: Baseball

Toronto is very proud when it comes to the sports here in the city - even the less popular sports have their diehard fans, who will turn on you if you say one bad thing about "their team". In four parts I'll be presenting Toronto's pro sports history, covering what I will consider the 'bigger' of the pro sports: Baseball, Football, Basketball, and finally Hockey. This is part one...

"Touch 'em all, Joe"

The fever is back in Toronto over America's pasttime - with the Toronto Blue Jays actually looking to take the new generation of fans to the promised land. Be it that none of our other teams have done anything significant in their respective sports in many, many...did I mention many? years.

It's good time to look back at some of the more memorable, as well as lesser known times in Toronto's baseball history...

The Toronto Maple Leafs...wait...whaaaa?

Although not technically professional - the Toronto Maple Leafs filled a growing desire to watch good baseball in Hogtown. The team actually played from 1896, for 70 years until the glory days of those "other Maple Leafs" in 1967, when they were sold, and moved to Louisville, Kentucky.

The almost Toronto Giants

In early '76, the owner of the San Francisco Giants "completed" a sale to who else? Labatt Breweries in Canada - and the Giants were to move to Toronto. The announcement was set - and it looked as though Toronto finally had a major league team. However - like an early pre-cursor to the Jim Balsille/Phoenix Coyotes deal - a U.S. court overturned the sale, and a local California investor bought the team and kept them in San Fran.

The Toronto Blue Jays entered the market in '77, shortly after the Giants debacle - no doubt as a "sorry" to Toronto fans who thought they were getting a team. The name "Blue Jays" was one suggestion in a "Name the team" contest they had in 1976 - and eventually the owner of Labatt at the time chose 'Blue Jays' to stick. The Blue Jays stuck with a similar look from 77-99 - winning 2 world series' and having some great success while wearing it.

Rogers bought the team prior to the 2000 team, and we saw a different look on Blue Jays uniforms in the 1999 and 2000 seasons. Although not much different - we saw the emergence of the "sleeved" look - and a more prominent maple leaf.

 2004 - don't get me started on this year...this was the year that the Blue Jays changed their uniforms completely. Gone was almost any blue whatsoever, and here was the white, black and grey uniforms for what we were now supposed to just call "The Jays". We might as well have thrown a picture of Jay Leno on the front - at least there'd have been some comedy in it. The classic look was gone. That wasn't even the worst part about the year though - Rogers media completed their purchase of the Skydome, and to completely usher in a new (and crappy) era in Toronto baseball - we went from having the Blue Jays playing in the Skydome, to having the Jays playing in the Rogers Centre.

These were the bad years...the years when attendance was lowest, and going to a Jays game was just a novelty (if that).

That was until 2012 - when current president Paul Beeston (who was actually the president in the glory days of 89-97) decided that the team needed to embrace its history. We all knew it - but for some reason didn't care enough to fight when it was taken away. He said what we all thought, "They're not the Jays, they're the Toronto Blue Jays".

Now we're here...and if only we could see Rogers embrace the name of the Skydome - we'd be in a place that my generation would really enjoy...