Toronto? Buffalo? Dunedin? Somewhere else?
With fewer than 10 days to their season opener, the Toronto Blue Jays know where they want to play their home games this season, but they have no idea where the 30 games will actually take place.
The Jays remain heavily focused on playing their home schedule in Rogers Centre, but it's unclear if they will get approval to do that from Canadian federal and provincial health officials.
If they can't play at their real home, Sahlen Field is still a possibility as a substitute. But the Bisons' home needs a lot of work to fill the role of a major-league park and with Toronto's home opener set for July 29 against Washington, the timetable may simply be too tight to get the job done in Buffalo.
The Blue Jays' hierarchy has spent the last three days pushing officials north of the border to get approval to stay home, where their summer camp is currently taking place. The issue is that both the Jays and visiting teams will be coming back and forth over the Canada-U.S. border.
Citizens of either country allowed to cross the border have to first quarantine for 14 days. Baseball players, obviously, would need an exemption to that rule.
"We’re trying to do the best thing for the safety of our players, the safety of the community and competitively,” an unnamed senior Jays official told the Toronto Sun. “Everybody knows the time frames and is working hard to clarify.
“It’s still a lot to navigate … There are a lot of moving parts with very little certainty. But everybody does recognize we have to come to some sort of conclusion relatively soon.”
Mike Buczkowski, the president of Rich Baseball Operations, had no comment Tuesday on the potential of the Blue Jays playing in Buffalo because discussions were still ongoing.
The Blue Jays are still trying to determine if major systems work needed for Sahlen Field such as lighting and control rooms for instant replay could be taken care of in the short window remaining before the schedule begins.
Sources say the Bisons' parent club also has concerns about areas that include social distancing in the clubhouses, workout rooms and batting cages, repairs needed to bullpen phones and the fact the pens are in foul territory down the lines and not behind the outfield fence.
TAKE2: How is Buffalo trending as an option for #BlueJays home games in 2020? @ByMHarrington broke the story over the weekend and joins with the latest. @wgrz #Bisons @TBNSports More here: https://t.co/mxmh0A9bm2 pic.twitter.com/Zsc5nWBs4b
— Adam Benigni (@AdamBenigni) July 14, 2020
The MLB schedule is slated to start July 23, with Toronto opening July 24 at Tampa Bay, and the regular season doesn't end until Sept. 27. The Jays' home opener against the defending World Series champion Nationals is part of a five-game homestand that includes a three-game set against the Philadelphia Phillies.
"At the end of the day, we don’t have any control over that, we’re not making the decision and a lot of guys are just ready to play,” Jays pitcher Trent Thornton said over the weekend. “It would be nice to have that peace of mind knowing where we’re going to be playing at home. Obviously we’d love to play in Toronto. We’re the Toronto Blue Jays, not the Buffalo Blue Jays or the Dunedin Blue Jays. It’s weird to not know. At this point, just have to roll with the punches and be flexible.”
Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy public health officer, acknowledged to the Canadian Press Tuesday that talks continue between the Blue Jays and the federal government and that border crossings remain the biggest hangup.
"The issue of the regular season, I think, I was speaking to the potential of travel across the U.S.-Canadian border, not just the Blue Jays leaving town and coming back after a road trip but also for teams coming in, that also is obviously a totally different ballgame,” Njoo said.
“Those discussions are ongoing, but what I would say, and you can certainly look at the data, is that the situation in Canada and the U.S., I would say, from a pure epidemiological point of view, is vastly different.”
With cases exploding in Florida and potentially knocking the Blue Jays' spring training home in Dunedin out of the running, the team has been told by Major League Baseball to keep exploring its options. The Blue Jays may look to share another big-league park, and it's also believed they're looking at much newer Triple-A parks such as Truist Field in Charlotte, which opened in 2014, and First Horizon Park in Nashville (2015).
