A lot of you are happy and I also know a lot of you felt like you struck out or, worse yet, were called out on a pitch too far outside your means.
Whatever your feelings about the sale of tickets to the first eight Blue Jays games in Sahlen Field, my initial advice is everyone needs to step back and have some perspective on how things have gone. This is a massively unusual situation and nothing is set in stone.
Sales for the next 10 games have been pushed back a week, to June 8-10.
I can tell you that the Blue Jays are continually in the process of evaluating all facets of their stay here, with ticketing and accommodating fans, a brand-new challenge they did not have last summer when Sahlen Field was closed to the public.
A change, in fact, was revealed Thursday, when the Jays decided sale for the 10 games here from June 24-July 4 would be pushed back a week. Presale will now be held beginning on June 8 and the general public gets its chance on June 10. The games are against Baltimore, Seattle and Tampa Bay.
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What I'm hearing is the Jays are re-evaluating how the first set of sales went and are working with state and county officials to continue to increase capacity at the ballpark for upcoming games.
Here's this corner's random thoughts on sales:
• Let's keep the Bisons out of all this. They're not making the ticket policies. They're not selling the tickets. The Blue Jays are using their park and it's their show. If there's something you don't like, emailing or calling the Bisons is barking up the wrong tree.
If you're hoping to see some Toronto Blue Jays games in Sahlen Field, you have to expect to pay major-league prices.
• There's too much crabbing about prices. If you want to see the Yankees (or the Red Sox next month, assuming those games are here), you have to be prepared to pay. If it's once in a lifetime to see the Yankees in Buffalo, what's wrong with $200 for a ticket? Would you pay that to see U2 or Billy Joel in Orchard Park or Hamilton at Shea's? It's no different.
If you just want to see an MLB game in town, go see a different opponent. There were plenty of seats under $60 for the Marlins and Astros – and some for as little as $27.
• Why were season ticket holders from the Sabres, Bills and Bandits included in the presale? It seems unnecessary. I think the Blue Jays were worried tickets weren't going to sell and opted to reach out to other sports fans in town.
I get it but that was a silly thought. The Jays have sold tickets to folks from the 716 for 44 years. I'm not the only one in town whose first major-league game was in old Exhibition Stadium, right? In the early, halcyon days of then-SkyDome starting in 1989, the Jays would put an ad in this newspaper in February and you'd buy your tickets for the whole season by marking the ad and dropping it in the mail.
Is no one in the Jays' ticket department old enough to remember any of this? Maybe not. People in Buffalo go to Jays games all the time. And not just to see the Yankees.
The millions of dollars the Blue Jays are spending on the park, albeit not on fan amenities, will ensure the club remains here, Mike Harrington says.
Did they think everyone in Buffalo wouldn't care about games against the Marlins and Astros? Wrong. It's Major League Baseball. Lots of folks were hopeful of getting a team of our own during the 1980s when then-Pilot Field first opened. Since the Jays and Bisons hooked up in 2013, the connection is even tighter with all the players that have come through here on the way to Toronto.
I hope for the next group of tickets the Jays reconsider these presales. It should be Bisons season ticket holders only. To the Jays' credit, there were seats available in the public sale on Thursday for all games. But probably not nearly as many as there should have been.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge took his swings at Sahlen Field last September in front of no fans but that won't be the case when his club returns to town June 15.
• "Dynamic pricing" is terrible. People in this market are used to the Sabres' system, where different games have different prices based on opponent and day of the week. But the prices are the prices if you buy in October or February. Dynamic pricing is like what you see for the airline and hotel industry, where supply and demand change the prices by the day and maybe even by the hour.
Prices on Tuesday when the games first went on sale weren't the prices on Wednesday and weren't the prices on Thursday. We expect the Yankees games to be a lot more. But set the price and keep it. It shouldn't go up $3 to $5 a ticket from Tuesday to Wednesday and Wednesday to Thursday. And it did.
• Another stinker: Ticket fees. Total scam. There's no paper tickets. There's no employees doing orders on the phone. Nothing is being mailed to any customers. Just a ripoff.
I know two people who bought two tickets to an Astros game for $56 apiece. On top of that were a $13 "convenience fee" and a $4.75 "per order fee." Another $17.75 and that's patently ridiculous. Shame on you, Blue Jays and MLB.
• Enough about vaccination status. It quickly became tiresome to hear that the Blue Jays are being unfair to people who aren't vaccinated, or that they're being unfair to people who are vaccinated. I don't care. If more people were vaccinated maybe we could just about fill the ballpark and have lots of tickets available instead of 6 feet of empty seats between pods. Why is this even an argument?
• If you bought tickets just to put them up on StubHub and gouge people, you should be ashamed of yourself. On Friday, there were two tickets in Section 110, Row U for the June 16 Yankees game on sale for $1,650 apiece. Another pair in Section 102, Row I for $999 each. And all kinds of pairs for $400 and up.
A pox upon all of you. I hope you can live with yourselves. If you're looking to make money, go invest in the stock market. The ominous-looking ticket scalper we saw hanging out in the dark around the Aud when we were kids is just as greasy in the online market these days.
As Springer sits, Semien thrives
The Blue Jays are still waiting for George Springer to overcome his quad troubles and return to the lineup, and they're keeping a strong public face on this one even as the fan base properly panics over a guy who signed a six-year, $150 million contract suddenly being unable to stay healthy in the first year of his deal.
But the flip side of the Springer problem is the way they should be celebrating the work of second baseman Marcus Semien. The 30-year-old signed a one-year, $18 million contract in January and it was a prove-it type deal after a terrible 2020 campaign (.223-7-23 with 50 strikeouts in 53 games). So far, the Jays are getting the 2019 version of Semien who finished third in the MVP voting (.285-33-92 in all 162 games).
Semien homered, doubled and tripled in the first five innings of Friday night's 12-inning loss to Tampa Bay and is at .280-10-26 in the first 46 games. He's second to Vladimir Guerrero in home runs and OPS (.854), is third in hits and fourth in RBIs while also doing a strong job at second base.
Semien has gotten red-hot in May because he's been spraying the ball to all fields. After a .211 April when he slugged just .368, he's batting .380 in May with a .747 slugging mark and 1.177 OPS. You would think he's going to find Sahlen Field as hospitable as Guerrero and Bo Bichette did both last year in the big leagues and when they were in Triple-A.
Donnie Baseball's state of the game
In the wake of last week's no-hitters on consecutive days by the Tigers' Spencer Turnbull and the Yankees' Corey Kluber, Marlins manager Don Mattingly had some of the most interesting commentary on the spate of no-hitters we've seen this far this season. There have already been six, the most ever before June, and the composite batting average in the game for this season is now below .240.
"It's great for your team when a guy throws a no-no. It's great for that guy. It's a great accomplishment, right?" Mattingly said. "But when there's so many so early ... strikeouts are at an all-time high, and it tells you that there's some issues within the game that need to be addressed and they're going to take a while.
"Because this started 15-16 years ago with the swing changes, the philosophy changes with all the analytics of the three-run homer and all that stuff. It's been coming. It's been building and now we're at a point where I think it's getting so much more attention because it's just a game that sometimes is unwatchable. You see guys, you talk to them and they don't even like watching games because there's nothing that goes on in them."
Buffalo virtual panel to discuss Negro Leagues
Former Bisons GM Mike Billoni and Jim Overfield, the respective publisher and editor of "The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball 1857-2020" will stage a virtual panel discussion at 7 p.m. Monday on "Breaking Baseball's Color Barrier" from Dave & Adam's Card World in Clarence. The program was inspired by MLB's decision in December to recognize the statistics of teams and individuals from the Negro Leagues in the game's official records.
Registration is required online at https://www.57sobb20.com/#details
The headline guest will be Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City. Other guests include former Bisons pitchers Dorn Taylor and Morris Madden. The program will be hosted by Bills play-by-play announcer John Murphy.
During the broadcast, drawings will be held for giveaways of a $25 Dave & Adam's gift card and autographed copies of the book, which remains available at multiple sites throughout the area and is now on sale through The Buffalo News Store.
Around the horn
• A numbers gem from Hall of Fame writer Jayson Stark of the Athletic: The Rangers played 3,831 games in Arlington Stadium and Globe Life Park and got no-hit once, by the perfect game of California's Mike Witt on the final day of the 1984 season. They've played 52 games in Globe Life Field and have already been no-hit twice, by San Diego's Joe Musgrove on April 9 and by Corey Kluber of the Yankees on Wednesday.
• Mike Trout impact: Since 2012, the Angels are 661-627 (.513) with their star outfielder in the lineup – and 79-106 (.427) without him. They entered the weekend 1-4 since Trout suffered a calf strain Monday against Cleveland that could sideline him for six weeks.
• Seattle backup catcher Jose Godoy became the 20,000th player in MLB history when he made his debut Friday night against San Diego. Godoy, 26, came on with his team in a 12-1 hole and went 0 for 1 with a walk. He had been in the Cardinals' chain for eight years, not reaching Triple-A until 2019, before signing in the offseason with the Mariners.
