The relationships between a Triple-A baseball team and its major-league parent can often be tenuous. We've seen that first-hand. The Buffalo Bisons loved having the Pittsburgh Pirates through the early halcyon days of Pilot Field, but things got so sour during an 89-loss season in 1994 that players and front-office members were barely on speaking terms by the end of the summer and the Pirates were gone the next year – to Calgary. Ouch.
And don't even bring up the four years the New York Mets spent at the corner of Washington and Swan. With the Madoff scandal in full bloom and the organization in disarray, the Bisons wished there was somewhere much further than Las Vegas to send the Mets to following the 2012 season.
The Toronto Blue Jays have been here for nine seasons now and it's hard to imagine a parent club asking any more of its minor-league affiliate. The Bisons were sent packing to Trenton, N.J., and the top front-office officials don't even have access to most areas of their own ballpark right now because the parent club has moved in for the second straight year.
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The return of the Toronto Blue Jays – and fans – to Sahlen Field for the 2021 season also meant the return of many of the stadium's longtime employees.
The Bisons had no hesitation with the arrangement. Sure, it was Major League Baseball with (this year) a chance to have fans back in the park downtown – and get millions of dollars in upgrades done to the park at virtually no cost to them. But this is personal for both sides as well.
Blue Jays president/CEO Mark Shapiro has never prompted many warm fuzzies in Toronto, but by contrast is one of the most beloved parent-club figures in the modern era of Buffalo baseball. It dates to when he first walked into the ballpark in September, 1994, as a 29-year-old farm director and joined Cleveland General Manager John Hart in announcing the Indians were coming to town. Toronto GM Ross Atkins cut his teeth here as a farm director at the end of the Indians' glorious 14-year run.
Shapiro, remember, was the farm director who built the iconic 1997 and 1998 Bisons championship teams. And when he graduated to Cleveland and eventually became general manager, he developed a 2007 club that came within one win of a World Series and featured a manager (Eric Wedge), pitching coach (Carl Willis), broadcaster (Jim Rosenhaus) and many players who had come through Buffalo.
"To have fans pulling for us for the first time in two years at the ballpark was great," said manager Charlie Montoyo.Â
"When you go back as long as we have with those guys, and you know what they're about, what their intentions are, what their overall philosophy is, and you're comfortable with it, then doing deals like this definitely makes it more comfortable," said Mike Buczkowski, the president of Rich Baseball Operations. "It takes away any doubt you might have about what are the motives. We know what they're trying to do for the short term and how it blends in eventually for the long term of our ballpark."
On a media video call with Shapiro a few days ago, Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez made his feelings clear when he said, "I would suggest that you probably have as good a relationship with Buffalo as any major league/minor league team in baseball, and that must bode well for your thoughts about going forward with this organization."
Shapiro couldn't agree fast enough.
"I could not be more pleased with what the upgrades to the facility will mean for our player development going forward. That's a linchpin that everything we're trying to build here," Shapiro said. "But there are relationships here and minor league baseball is about relationships. And while those relationships for the Blue Jays have been a while, certainly for Ross and I they have been more in decades than years.
"So when I think back to the relationships built with (owners) Bob and Mindy Rich, with Mike Buczkowski and (former team president) Jon Dandes, among others, I think how minor league baseball player development is built upon that alignment and those relationships. We could not have pulled off what we pulled off here without their partnership and their support."
"I felt like I was going to a town that was full of history when I came to Buffalo," the Astros manager said of his 1969 trip.
With Sahlen Field now its 34th season, it was going to need upgrades to meet the new player amenity standards for Triple-A ballparks established by Major League Baseball. Those are all taken care of now.
Said Shapiro: "We will leave Buffalo with not only historical memories of Major League Baseball being played here, but also with a facility that will be much closer to major league standards, and certainly will be elite by minor-league standards," Shapiro said. "We're appreciative on so many levels for the ownership here, the organization here, the city, the county, the state. We've had nothing but support and we're looking to build off that and create an alternate home for ourselves this year."
The Blue Jays have certainly done that so far. They're 3-1 in their first four games after Saturday's 6-2 win over the Houston Astros. The ballpark has been alive with cheering the Jays simply didn't have at their spring training home in Dunedin, Fla. And as pandemic restrictions continue to get looser, the numbers in the stands will grow as the summer moves on.
Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo knows all about Buffalo, too. He started coming here in 1991 as a player with the Denver Zephyrs and spent eight years (2007-14) visiting town as the manager of the Durham Bulls. In Montoyo's American Association days, Buffalo and then-Pilot Field were a gold standard in the minor leagues. The years have passed, but the Bisons remained one of the flagship clubs in the International League as well.
"It's been great, the trust in giving us this ballpark so we can play big-league games," Montoyo said before Saturday's victory. "When we're done here, it's going to be a great Triple-A ballpark to come in and play because it is a beautiful place. Credit to the Blue Jays staff and to the Buffalo people for letting us play here and it's been a great combination."
We found out last summer the Blue Jays enjoy playing at Sahlen Field. We found out Tuesday night they will have a real home field in 2021, Harrington says.
The Bisons could have soured on the Cleveland connection when the Tribe left them high and dry in 2008 to go to Columbus. But that was an ownership call to move to a new ballpark in the Ohio state capital to accommodate the fledgling SportsTime Ohio television network and curry favor from state officials when Progressive Field needed upgrades.
Buczkowski said Shapiro was upfront in 2007 about what was looming. Everyone understood the Indians' baseball department wanted to stay but had no choice in the matter. The relationship remained intact. There were texts and chit-chats at Winter Meetings. When Shapiro and Atkins resurfaced in Toronto in 2016, things got rekindled.
"From the very first meeting after they were hired there, it was apparent that their philosophy was the way we remembered it being in Cleveland," Buczkowski said. "Their goal was to develop from within and hopefully have the beginnings of a year after year wave of good players coming to Buffalo like they did in Cleveland."
Sure seems like that's worked. Now, players don't stay in the minors as long as they used to. We didn't even get a full season of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Bo Bichette or Cavan Biggio in Buffalo. But we see the same development pattern. Those three, along with names like Teoscar Herndanez, Lourdes Gurriel, Jonathan Davis and Danny Jansen, were all regulars in Buffalo.
Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette congratulates first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on his two-run homer.
Right now, Guerrero is the MVP of the American League this year. The fans roar when he comes to the plate like no one we've seen here since Jeff Manto was sending baseballs to Oak Street more than 20 years ago.
"I don't like ranking moments because I know I'm going to forget some but that Opening Day here Tuesday night has got to rank right up there," Buczkowski said. "Just the reaction from the crowd the first inning standing up and cheering when the guys got two strikes, Guerrero's home run to the chanting of 'Let's go Buffalo" and 'Let's go Blue Jays' and just the atmosphere.
"The concourse right around first pitch was a ghost town. There was nobody in the concourse from the anthems on. They were in their seats locked in to be able to watch Major League Baseball in Buffalo, to be able to see the Blue Jays and a lot of our guys. You'll always remember that."
