The Toronto Blue Jays are on the verge of their first playoff series victory in nearly a decade.
It’s a proud time for Blue Jays fans across the country, including here on P.E.I., where one of the driving forces behind creation of the team has been eagerly watching the series.
Don McDougall is a founding director of the Jays and was key player in bringing the franchise to Toronto back in the 1970s.
“It’s quite thrilling and I must say, like everyone else, I’m filled with hope,” McDougall said while speaking with CBC’s Island Morning.
Game 3 of the American League Division Series is Tuesday night, with Toronto holding 2-0 series lead over the New York Yankees in the best-of-five series. The Jays need just one more win to move on to the next playoff round, the American League Championship Series (ALCS).
All these years later, McDougall still watches the team and said it’s been exciting to experience the ebbs and flows, wins and losses over the years.
“Of course this year it’s been so exciting to follow it.”
McDougall, who owns Mill River Resort and was the former president of Labatt, was born and raised on the Island. He now lives in Ebbsfleet, P.E.I.
He was named to the Order of Canada in 2023 “for his visionary leadership as the founding director of the Toronto Blue Jays club, and for his entrepreneurship and philanthropy,” McDougall’s citation read at the time.
McDougall was tasked with bringing a Major League Baseball team to Toronto and was part of the team that secured a franchise for the city in 1976.
“At that time we were primarily focused on getting Major League Baseball for Toronto,” McDougall said.
“We got caught up in it, of course, and I think we were very successful in putting together a good leadership team from the beginning.”
The team played its first MLB game the following year.
A lot has changed since then.
The franchise was purchased for $7 million in 1976, McDougall said, and the total payroll for the 25 players who started with the team the following year was just $750,000.
“Now, I mean Fortune Magazine says the Blue Jays are worth $2.1 billion, so it’s numbers that most of us can’t even relate to,” McDougall said.
There are some things — like the focus on giving opportunities to young players who show promise — that have never changed.
“There’s young players that we really hadn’t heard tell of before all of a sudden being heroes of the day,” McDougall said.
McDougall said he was recently reflecting on the season with former baseball manager and the Jays’ current colour commentator Buck Martinez, and said he was reminded of what it was like to watch the team back in the 1980s and early 90s — a game-changing decade for the Toronto squad.
“[From] 1985 to 1995, Toronto was the best team in baseball, and [Martinez’s] point was that they’ve got a good solid foundation, the young new players are good solid players,” McDougall said.
“I took considerable encouragement from that, not expecting to end up where we are right now.”
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If the Jays win Tuesday, their opponent in the best-of-seven ALCS series would be either the Seattle Mariners or the Detroit Tigers.
After that, it’s the World Series, another best-of-seven battle pitting the top American League team against the winner of the National League.
The Jays’ last victory at that level was more than 30 years ago when they became back-to-back World Series champs, taking down the Atlanta Braves in 1992, and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1993.
