Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.- Mike Tyson

Okay, maybe it’s not exactly funereal, but the sad music is playing for the Toronto Blue Jays 2018 Master Plan. The design that was supposed to make Jays fans forget departing GM Alex Anthopoulos and worship new Jays president Mark Shapiro and his GM Ross Atkins. That was the legacy plan predicated on three hot prospects with famous baseball names— Vladimir Guerrero, Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio—and a pitching staff of gaudy free-agent signings—José Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Chris Bassett— returning the Jays to their 1990s glory

What did Iron Mike say about plans? The peak of the 2024 season probably occurred last winter where, for a few short days, some Toronto media convinced the fans that Shohei Ohtani was taking Toronto’s money over Dodgers’ green. He didn’t, and with no Plan B, Shapiro started talking about the re-design of the Rogers Centre. Anything but the fact they were in big trouble on the field.

As the 2024 season winds down the Blue Jays now resemble their Baseball America Top 20 prospects roster more than a Shohei powerhouse on par with the Yankees, Dodgers and Astros. Yes, there have been some encouraging glimmers from the farm in this phoney war since the season collapsed months ago. In Spencer Horowitz, Addison Barger, Will Wagner, Joey Loperfido and Leo Jimenez there are hints at a more promising future. The no-hit bids by Bowden Francis have been a pleasant surprise.

Just not the Golden Boys + rented-pitching formula advertised for years by president Shapiro and GM Atkins. This formula, much-touted by Jays media, hasn’t worked out for a number of reasons. Briefly, the injury plague that laid low the bullpen this season occurring concurrently with Guerrero and Bichette slumping early was more than manager John Schneider could handle.

An offence that promised fireworks at the plate reminiscent of the 2015-2017 Gun Show has been more like a pop gun. While the starting pitching has stayed relatively healthy it has not dominated in a way that justifies the huge salaries doled out to its component parts. The abject failure of a series of Jays pitching prospects— typified by dumping uber-prospect Nate Pearson recently— has also scuttled the promise of catching the Yankees and Orioles. Will Francis break the schneid?.

Nor does the prospect of heading into 2025 with these components augur well. Before they get to next year there remains the vexing question of signing Guerrero and Bichette to longterm deals before 2026. Vladdy will get the moon and stars after rehabilitating this career midseason, becoming one of the top five hitters in baseball. (He also appears more grounded.) The question remains will he take that money in Toronto or go catch steam with a title contender. Because Toronto is not that team in 2025.

Bichette is the sticking point. In 2023 it looked as though he was the rock to build on. But his production suddenly cratered and injuries robbed him of about 250 at bats this year. There was talk he wanted out, that he was available at the trade deadline, that he’s in funk over family issues. Whatever, he’s not getting Vladdy money now as a free agent. He says he wants to stay, but will someone else pony up the full meal deal for him?

Yes, there’ll be primo free agents available to overpay. Juan Soto, Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso would all answer some need in the Blue Jays lineup— at astronomical costs (if they were even interested in playing in Canada). But as a second-tier location Toronto may have to bring back old pal Edwin Encarnacion or Arizona’s Christian Walker to distract from the decline of the team.

Which leaves the real question: will the phone salesmen at Rogers re-up with the Shapiro/ Atkins/ Schneider troika for one more try at pushing the rope the hill? It’s clear that Rogers loves Shapiro’s handling of the reconstruction of the playing surface, even if the work seeks to have turned Rogers Centre from a launching pad to a power neutral/ power negative one for the home team’s offence.

For the Rogers shareholders Shapiro’s Loonie Hot Dogs, Bobblehead nights  and Oktoberfest specials are swell. The stands remain populated despite the dreck on the field. But the team they watch has been a painful failed strategy. Perhaps there will be enough feedback from disgruntled season ticket holders to force the hand of the Rogers paymasters.

But even if there isn’t, how can you let this front office handle the contract decisions on Guerrero and Bichette when another bad season will seem them gone? Perhaps this hinge point is a good time to reload the C suite with new eyes and something better than doing Western Night or the Westjet Flight Deck. The fans of MLB’s largest home market may seem content with bells and whistles.

But it’s half past tomorrow, and the alarm is ringing.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

In sports it’s well-known that if you’re complaining about refereeing you must have lost. Judging by the tsunami of criticism launched by Republicans at ABC News’s moderators after Tuesday night’s presidential debate it would tell you that Donald Trump lost his first— and likely only—debate with Kamala Harris.

“Three against one” was the persistent complaint about the work of ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis. And you could make the case for that criticism. A media analysis of ABC’s leftist news coverage before Tuesday showed that it gave Harris positive coverage 95 percent of the time, while Trump received just six percent positive coverage (most dedicated to his being shot). Further, Harris is a close pal of the woman who runs ABC News. Davis is Harris’ sorority sister. Really? Where were Trump or viewers informed of these conflicts?

Muir thought moderator meant fact-checker and inserted himself by debating Trump on his claims. On at least a half dozen occasions an unctuous Hume debated Trump about, among the topics, the eating of family pets by Haitian immigrants in towns and cities overrun by migrants. (A claim supported by Ohio’s attorney general.)

Snippy co-moderator Davis challenged Trump’s assertion that Harris was in favour of unlimited abortion until the moment of delivery (Davis was wrong) and then quickly moved on to softball Harris. Fair enough, if you or your bosses think your job is to correct in real time the assertions of the politicians.

Except they never upbraided Harris on a series of her own whoppers that have clearly been debunked. (“Fine people”, “bloodbath”, etc.) With that comfort zone, Harris lost her jitters and avoided mistakes. It was now a home game. Hence the chorus of “Unfair” that followed.

But let’s be honest, what was Trump expecting? This was Trump’s charge of the Light Brigade expecting another outcome. After the past decade, making a headlong charge into cannons is not a wise career move. But like the doddering generals of the 1850s British Army, an aging Trump has reached peak self delusion after dodging a bullet himself this summer. He is like the psychotic Maggott character Telly Savalas played in Dirty Dozen. Everything is going well on the mission till he sees a German woman he likes. Then he abandons the script. And hell breaks loose.

Sadly, his lieutenants now do a better job articulating his talking points these days. (It wouldn’t be a surprise if the GOP let RFK Jr. and VP candidate J.D. Vance do the more talking from here on in.)

Whether this debate was a missed opportunity or a campaign turning point will be decided in the coming weeks. For those who think it’s going to change the polls, remember that Biden’s epic debate meltdown from June only cost him a couple of points in popularity. Trump advanced but one point. Still, the DEMs panicked in June, launching a coup against the man who’d overwhelmingly won the primaries. (Mirror to January of 2017 when they launched a three-year attempted coup to remove Trump.)

Trump mentioned Harris not getting any primary votes,  but ABC wrinkled its nose at a real story, preferring to delve into how Trump’s father made money 50 years ago. What was definitive about Tuesday is that the DC Media Party is again in the tank. The son of the President of the United States of America had just pled guilty to tax evasion for bribes he received from foreign adversaries in exchange for selling access to his father, the vice president at the time. This should have been the first, last and every question from ABC’s Mod Squad. Nope, let’s talk about E. Jean Carroll.

There’s no price to pay for burying uncomfortable stories. Example: Here’s John Kirby, spokesman for the Defence Dept., “Was anyone ever held accountable by the president directly for what happened with the withdrawal in Afghanistan?” KIRBY: “We have all held ourselves accountable…”

Oh good. Let’s move along. As Louisiana senator John Kennedy noted, “I know many people in Washington D.C. that would unplug your life support to charge their cell phone.” That explains a media mob that now talks openly of banning anyone who doesn’t sing from their anti-Trump hymn book..

This cheerleading has metastasized in the past generation. As veteran journalist Matti Friedman wrote this week on Substack in When We Started to Lie: “The practice of journalism—that is, knowledgeable analysis of messy events on Planet Earth—was being replaced by a kind of aggressive activism that left little room for dissent. The new goal was not to describe reality, but to usher readers to the correct political conclusion… 

The activist-journalists, I found, were backed up by an affiliated world of progressive NGOs and academics who we referred to as experts, creating a thought loop nearly impervious to external information. All of this had the effect of presenting a mass audience with a supposedly factual story that had a powerful emotional punch and a familiar villain.”

What’s interesting is that no one in the U.S. has had to pay journalists to do this. In Canada the Trudeau federal government is taking no chances. It has taken to threatening media outlets it now supports through its media slush funds. Here’s Taleeb Noormohamed, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage dressing down a media critic who mentioned Noormohamed’s sketchy real estate flipping history,

. @Taleeb Your paper wouldn’t be in business were it not for the subsidies that the government that you hate put in place – the same subsidies your Trump – adjacent foreign hedge fund owners gladly take to pay your salary.”  Translation: Nice little business you’ve got there. Too bad if something were to happen to it.

This behaviour has cowed many establishment journalists who, instead of carving Justin, write Trump thought-loop diatribes so they don’t get the Roman Polanski Chinatown nose surgery. (Nosy boy?”) Long, long after even the Dems have moved on from the most demented Trump fabrications the CDN media will still be slavishly regurgitating the pablum served to them by their heroes in American spy craft.

As such CBC newscasts are now time capsules of 2016 Think, indistinguishable from PMO press releases and leaks. We recently watched a newscast while in the lobby of the CBC building as the network adopted the missionary position on the latest Obamite Russia propaganda campaign. Followed by yet another deep swallow on Hottest Year on record. CBC had its senior reporter wheel out a single embedded “source” it’s used since the 1990s– w/o any conflicting “experts” as CBC reporting code requires– to re-varnish the narrative it has excreted since it decided that hot, not cold, would kill us all.

Unapologetic propaganda for imbecile liberals. That’s why it’s easier to blame the refs.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.