By Steve Clancy
It’s happened again: The Buffalo sports fans’ misery continues. We finally get Major League Baseball played here, but wait for it ... no fans get to go! “Say it ain’t so!” a Chicago sportswriter reportedly said upon hearing that Shoeless Joe Jackson admitted to cheating in the 1919 World Series.
But it is so, adding to the long-suffering Buffalo fans’ pain. Four losses in a row in the Super Bowl. The “No Goal” game in the 1999 Stanley Cup final. The Buffalo Braves basketball team sold off and moved. It hurts just to list them. Now this.
My brother Kevin and I had season tickets to the Triple-A Bisons going back to the days at the old Rockpile. We loved baseball, so we bundled up in our parkas to watch freezing home openers in April. We were there when a skinny Barry Bonds was bashing home runs when the Bisons were the Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm team. We readily moved our seats when the barbecue pits along the first base line smoked us out.
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When team owner Bob Rich started flirting with a possible major league expansion team, we got really excited. When Jimmy Griffin somehow managed to get the fabulous Pilot Field ballpark built downtown, we were ecstatic and signed on for more season tickets. But then Rich balked at the economics when major league sports went crazy and dropped out. Rightly so, but still – another major disappointment.
When it was announced that the Toronto Blue Jays had to play their home games in Buffalo (reluctantly of course), I thought: baseball is the perfect socially distanced sport. And if they limited capacity, people could easily spread out and stay safe. But no, gatherings of 50 or more were not permitted. So that meant no fans in the stadium. Of all the misfortunes that have happened in Buffalo sports history, I don’t think anyone could have come up with a global pandemic as even a possibility.
But I was still determined to see a game. I had my eye on that strip of grass beyond left field on the Oak Street entrance to I-190. Kevin and I would have gladly dodged cars speeding onto the highway to watch baseball. Or maybe the third level of the parking ramp out past right field. Bring a lawn chair, binoculars and a cooler of course. And it would finally happen: I could watch a live Major League Baseball game in Buffalo.
But no. Apparently, the Blue Jays, the city or maybe the Sports Gods themselves had decided there would be no free views. If it’s OK at Chicago’s Wrigley Field or Boston’s Fenway Park, why not Buffalo? It was starting to feel like a curse.
Still, I started following the team in The Buffalo News. And I’ll admit it, I found myself pretty jealous of Mike Harrington getting to see every game in person. Then last week we got to see our ballpark on television when they played the Yankees and the Mets. It was pretty cool seeing former Bisons like Bo Bichette, Rowdy Tellez and company playing for the Blue Jays.
So now I’m thinking about next year. There’s hope for a vaccine. Other sports are starting to let limited fans attend games. Canada’s still not happy to see us, so maybe the border will still be closed. Could there be a possibility, even an outside chance that the Blue Jays would have to play in Buffalo in 2021? For the Buffalo sports fan, next year always brings hope.
