It’s time to welcome the Toronto Blue Jays to Nature’s Air-Conditioned City. As the replacement team for the legendary Bluefield Orioles, the Blue Jays have some pretty big shoes to fill as the newest affiliate for Bluefield’s Appalachian League baseball team. After all, they are replacing a team that had a 53-year relationship with the city of Bluefield.
In fact, the Baltimore Orioles and the city of Bluefield were believed to have the longest such relationship between a city and a minor league club in all of professional baseball.
However, we are confident that the Toronto Blue Jays — or should we call them the Bluefield Blue Jays — will do just fine.
We join the city of Bluefield, the Bluefield Baseball Club and baseball fans across the region in extending a big welcome to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Toronto, which was in Pulaski from 2005-2006, will replace the Baltimore Orioles as the newest tenant at Bowen Field. The Blue Jays will begin play in Bluefield in June of 2011. We eagerly await their debut in Bluefield, and we encourage baseball fans across the region to show up at the ballpark next year and support the new team.
The Blue Jays, led by Charlie Wilson — Toronto’s director of minor league operations — have committed more resources to scouting and development since Alex Anthopoulos was hired as general manager last October, according to team officials.
Among those changes, according to Wilson, was working to get back into the Appalachian League. Fortunately for Bluefield, and baseball fans across the region, the Blue Jays wasted little time inquiring about the opening in Bluefield after word spread concerning the departure of the Orioles.
George McGonagle, president of the Bluefield Baseball Club and acting general manager of the organization, announced during Monday’s press conference that he had talked to several other teams, but said the Blue Jays stood out for several reasons. In particular, McGonagle said the Toronto Blue Jays reminded him a lot of the Bluefield Orioles. McGonagle is calling the Blue Jays a “class act and a quality organization.”
While the Appalachian League season may be over for now, excitement is already building for the debut of the Toronto Blue Jays. While we don’t have an official name yet for our new team, we think the Bluefield Blue Jays sounds great. So does the Bluefield Blue Birds for that matter. If we want to keep everything simple, maybe we can still call our new team the Baby Birds — or Baby Blue Jays.
We applaud the Toronto Blue Jays for stepping up to the plate, and helping fill the Appalachian League void. It is our hope that the Blue Jays will also enjoy a long and harmonious relationship with Bluefield just as the Orioles did.
A big thanks to Toronto for bringing baseball back to Bluefield.
Editorials
September 9, 2010
Welcome Blue Jays — A new bird lands in Bluefield
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