Border a key hurdle to Blue Jays' return north

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It’s been 611 days since Major League Baseball was played in Toronto.

The Blue Jays beat the Rays, 8-3, on Sept. 29, 2019, to finish that season 67-95. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette were rounding out their first year in the big leagues, Clay Buchholz threw five innings and Justin Smoak started at first. It’s been a while.

As the Blue Jays open their residency at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field for the second consecutive season, one question continues to hang over the organization. When will the Blue Jays return to Toronto, ending the most unique two years that this organization ever has experienced -- and ever will, hopefully.

• Sahlen Field heath and safety guidelines

The Blue Jays continue to speak with the city of Toronto, province of Ontario and Canadian federal government, holding conversations that president and CEO Mark Shapiro describes as “more substantive” of late. There’s optimism, as there has been all along, that the Blue Jays will play baseball at Rogers Centre in 2021, but regardless of how well the club handles COVID-19 protocols and regardless of its clear desire to return as quickly as possible, there’s one big, 5,525-mile-long factor in the way.

The border.

“Any proposal would have to deal with that and create a set of circumstances that allow cross-border travel for players, families and visiting teams,” Shapiro said. “That is not an easy thing to do. It’s not impossible, but it’s not an easy thing to do. What I would suggest to you is that, until the border is open, there are significant challenges with us returning to Toronto to play.”

Under the current border closure to non-essential travel, those entering Canada (or Canadians returning) must isolate for 14 days and undergo testing. That doesn’t work with a baseball schedule. Vaccination rates and the loosening of restrictions offer a glimmer of hope, along with more MLB-specific factors such as chartered air travel, but all of these conversations lead back to the border closure.

“The players know we don’t have any control over that,” said manager Charlie Montoyo, “but that’s the good thing about these guys. They don’t complain. It’s just, ‘OK, we’re going to be in Buffalo and that’s where we’re going to play.’ Let’s make this our home until something else happens. Hopefully they open the border, but for now, this is home.”

The Blue Jays are finding the silver lining here. Shapiro believes that, when the Blue Jays finally do get back to Toronto, no challenge they face will compare to these past two seasons.

“The no-excuses, resilient approach that our players, coaches, front office and everybody has taken -- it’s never been feeling sorry for ourselves,” Shapiro said. “It’s never been complaining about a situation. We’ve had objective reasons to make excuses. Despite making the best of it, we were playing in a Minor League facility, an A-ball facility, and instead of spending energy on that, which would have been a crutch, our guys have battled the toughest schedule in baseball, a ton of injuries and stayed right in the race.”

This is a complicated conversation involving multiple levels of government, public health and so much more, but the simple answer is to keep an eye on the border regulations. If those ease, this immediately becomes a simpler conversation for the Blue Jays. Until then, nothing about this will be simple.

Taking an optimist’s look down the road, though, there could be other decisions to be made. If the Blue Jays were allowed to return to Toronto but without fans, would players prefer that to playing in front of fans in Buffalo? Playing out of Dunedin, Fla., left the Blue Jays feeling like the visiting team most nights, but given Buffalo’s connection to the Bisons and its proximity to Toronto, there’s a built-in fan base.

“We feel the support of our fans even from a distance,” Shapiro said. “We know they’re watching. We know they’re engaged. We know they care. But there’s nothing like hearing them and feeling them in a stadium. That part of the experience for our players and our fans, that relationship that makes up the beauty of baseball, which is as intimate as any in sports, it’s something that’s lacking from our experience.”

For now, Shapiro and the Blue Jays will stay on course. These conversations with the federal government take place every couple of weeks, but that’s for the front office to worry about. Now that the players have their living arrangements sorted in Buffalo, they can exhale and settle in for however long this lasts.

“No one will appreciate playing in front of their home fans more than us when that finally happens,” Shapiro said.