Major League Baseball in Buffalo, New York?
Naturally.
Not long after the Toronto Blue Jays nomads announced Triple-A as their temporary home on Friday, Michael Billoni began to wonder who Roy Hobbs of the club might be.
“Fortunately, it is (Vladimir) Guerrero Jr. who will hit the ball on Oak Street and win the World Series for the Jays in Buffalo,” said Billoni, the former general manager of Triple-A Buffalo Bisons.
It took the Blue Jays nearly a week, and several health-related rejections of the coronavirus, to finally settle in at its minor league affiliate park as a temporary home for this season on Friday. Although the city has not hosted a major league team since 1915, Buffalo’s baseball roots run deep.
Hobbs, of course, is the tough, fictional fighter who became famous for Robert Redford in the 1984 film “The Natural,” which was shot in Buffalo at the old and worn out War Memorial Stadium.
The film is part of the city’s rich hardball history, regardless of whether Hobbs played for the New York Knights, which dates back even beyond Buffalo’s fascination with the chicken wing.
The Bisons started as a National League team and had a record of 314-333 from 1879-1885. In 1901, the then prosperous center of the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal was a candidate to join the newly formed American League, before losing to Boston.
The Buffalo Blues, also known as the Buffeds, had a brief career between 1914 and 1915 as members of the Federal League.
And baseball reemerged in the 1980s with the construction of what is now called Sahlen Field, the downtown stadium where the Blue Jays will roost for much of the next two months. Completed in 1988, it was built as part of Robert and Mindy Rich’s bid to land a major league franchise in a city that already had the NFL Bills and NHL Sabers. Their hopes were dashed once Colorado and Florida were chosen for expansion in the 1990s.
A global pandemic was needed, and Canadian health officials denied the Blue Jays permission to play at their home in downtown Rogers Center, so Buffalo finally reappeared on the major league map.
“If you had sent this as a movie script, it would have been rejected because people would have said it was not credible enough,” said Bisons President Mike Buczkowski.
“Fortunately, we are lifting a World Series championship in Buffalo,” he said. That would be the dream. It is just a very exciting time for our city. It is something we can talk about in the coming years. ”
The stadium’s dimensions are 325 feet along the lines and 404 feet to the center and it is narrow in alleys, like Camden Yards in Baltimore.
The capacity is at 16,600 and overlooks a parking ramp, an interstate driveway, and cars passing an elevated highway, which doesn’t make it as scenic as Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, the Blue Jays’ first choice .
Numerous updates are also required, and lighting needs to be improved to meet MLB standards. Bullpens are exposed along the left and right field lines, the clubhouses will need to be expanded, in addition to other improvements made throughout the facility to meet safety standards.
The Blue Jays players, many of whom had stops in Buffalo, made it clear that they preferred a major league park, with outfielder Randal Grichuk describing Buffalo as the “worst case.”
With the decline in options, the Blue Jays were left with few options, except, perhaps, to play the entire season on the road.
“Every time we have a chance to participate at the highest level of the sport, it’s a great day,” said Bisons archivist and curator John Boutet. Almost none of us were alive the last time it happened. Even though fans can’t see it, it still puts Buffalo in the national and international eye, making it a fun time. ”
Billoni is so excited that he is already eager to make the playoffs.
“You can’t bet on baseball, so I’m going to bet Labatt’s beer chicken wings to win a World Series here in Buffalo,” said Billoni. ” They will have to do a double flag ceremony, here in Buffalo and Toronto. I can see it now. ”
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Associated Press writers Rob Gillies in Toronto and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo contributed to this report.
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