Mark Shapiro Pitch Talks: Bautista, Rogers Centre, Beer, And More!

The Clevelander, Mark Shapiro, was at Pitch Talks on Thursday night to take questions from a bunch of hosers on his night off. What a terrible dude, right? The more and more we push forward on the conveyor belt of time – with him as the President and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays – the more I am starting to believe he was exclusively brought in by corporate Rogers as a ploy to set fire to the franchise.

And to some of those ‘shapkins’ people out there, he has already begun his journey of destruction by not blowing the team up when he should have, or by trying to stay competitive, or by not staying competitive?!?!?! I’m not sure which one it is anymore, to be honest, but the ticket sales have been down this year and it’s all Shapiro’s fault – his malicious American plan to take down the only Canadian MLB franchise is working and the cork has popped on that bottle of Veuve Clicquot and Rogers CEO Joe Natale and CFO Tony Staffieri were, of course, there to toast the end of the Toronto Blue Jays, amirite? … ugh.

Now, clearly I’m being hyperbolic here and I don’t believe any of that ‘crony-trash-discourse’. It’s just kind of funny how certain fickle Blue Jays fans push so hard against Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins… whatever. And I’m not about to try and understand where this nonsensical garbage comes from. If you’re a pragmatic thinker, you would realize that not enough time has passed to make a fair assessment of the new regime – just sayin’ for the sake of sayin’.

On Thursday night, Shapiro spoke at another great Pitch Talks event and fielded questions from the fans. Apparently, his wife was not happy about Mark spending his first day/night off of the 2018 season away from home. It’s pretty cool that he took the time out of his busy schedule to take part in this awesome event. So, let me just cut to the baseball chase and share some of the quick juicy responses that were shared in the land of Twitter.

Shapiro has been pretty vocal about how the success of the 2018 season is going to depend on pitching. He has alluded to the fact that the 2016 team wasn’t a team that put a lot of runs on the board, and that it was the pitching that helped them punch their ticket into that awesome wild card game against the trash Birds, where uncle Eddie made Showalter regret leaving *lmao* Zach Britton in the pen.

This question is a bit whatever. However, Winter Fest was an awesome event and something that brought baseball back to Toronto during the dire month of January. Again, Shapiro has been a very open GM and seems committed to fan engagement and, more importantly, to listening to what the fans have to say. He is a smart businessman and understands that in order to have success in this market, you need to understand it, but that should go without saying. How about a ‘GOAT Fest’ with some of the great players of the past? I dunno – just spit balling.

It certainly has been shitty not seeing Bautista’s name in the Blue Jays lineup. And with the Birds in Arlington this weekend, it just adds to the melancholy. It would be great to see a team give Bautista a shot the way the Mariners did with Suzuki. There definitely is something missing this year and it’s number 19.

I can’t wait for the day that he is celebrated in Toronto and his name is put on the Level of Excellence and his number is retired, so that the GOAT can live forever. Sometimes you can try and type up sentences and come up with some sort of emotional something, but sometimes words don’t do justice to the feeling.

There is a love that we all share for everything that Bautista did here in Toronto. He was there with me on those maudlin Saturday nights, when his cardboard cutout would look at me while I waited in line at 2AM to get a slice of shitty Pizza Pizza. And he was pretty much everywhere. And we all loved everything Joey Bats for so many different reasons.

Maybe it was the quick wit and one-liners he delivered in the scrum. Maybe it was the passion that he played with. Maybe it was the way he killed trash Birds, or bat-flipped the shit out of Dyson and the dumb Rangers. Maybe it was because he became Toronto. Maybe Rogers should build that bat-flip statue.

More Blue Jays history? Hell yeah! Now that’s the type of stuff we all want to hear, amirite?

I interviewed Shapiro in November and asked him about some kind of ‘Row of Excellence’ outside of the Rogers Centre with some bronze statues of greatness and he had this to say:

This project is going to cost a lot of cash-rules-everything-around NATALE, so it will be interesting to see what will happen and what this stadium could potentially look like in 5 years or so… or if Rogers will still own the team… or who might have the TV rights to Jays games… or if a World Series banner will fly forever… Anyway…

Great request.

The question was asked and … sort of answered. The MLB should be embarrassed, but I’m not sure that filthy rich billionaires give a shit about much – maybe some do – but it just isn’t right. Providing players with food, training facilities, and coaching is all good and stuff, but everyone needs to be fairly paid. We are living in 2018 and it’s a human right – not a privilege.

Goddamn bunch of toque wearing hosers. But, seriously – YES!

And, finally:

This might end up working out to be one of the better Blue Jays contracts in team history if Smoak continues doing Smoak. But… FYRE Shapiro. And FYRE Atkins.

And that’s pretty much it from Mark Shapiro at last night’s great event put on by the cool people over at Pitch Talks. There was, however, one more thing and that was a cool ‘John Gibbons AND Time Travel’ cartoon created by the very talented Cashew Mirman and it’s gold. It’s pure gold.