We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of a dear friend, the Toronto Blue Jays 2015 season. It will be remembered by many as a dear companion and a source of great joy due to its continual ability to excite the masses. Its life started out as many baseball seasons do, a small infant with great expectations and many roadblocks to achieving success. Even its formative years were marred by trouble and pure mediocrity, despite the caressing of thousands of baseball fans nationwide. Halfway through its short life, the 2015 season's parental guardians decided it needed help to survive the dangerous world out there and made big changes with the best interest of their offspring in mind.
(crows circle overhead)
What came next could not have been predicted by anyone. What started as a young lost soul developed into a full-grown force to be reckoned with. All in a matter of weeks. With a newfound sense of purpose, our dear 2015 season knocked down all comers and showed it had more potential than any of its previous siblings born in the last two decades. Where many brothers and sisters lived a short life of underachieving disappointment, this year's version had a spark that was impossible to put out.
(The funeral party gazes around the baseball cemetery and sees tombstones marked "HERE LIES THE 2012 BLUE JAYS SEASON, A COMPLETE FAILURE". Dozens more with similar engravings surround the group.)
What could have been just another waste of life, the 2015 season rose above its predecessors and made everyone proud. Entering the final part of its existence on baseball earth, all signs pointed to the possibility of reaching the goal that no season had reached for so long. Eternal glory. It was knocked around by a hostile season from the south, but it responded with force and showed it had more fight than anyone expected. Next, a season from the midwest decided to tangle with it and got more fight than it bargained for. The chosen few who were supposed to nurture the season made some questionable decisions in its final days, but it all came down to a standoff on foreign territory. A life that had taken so many hits and persevered so well just failed to dish out one final blow in return. As the victorious opposition celebrated their survival, the Blue Jays season took its last breaths of existence before fading off into the abyss.
(takes a swig out of a flask filled with one of the Rogers Centre's questionable domestic beer choices)
The season certainly had its fair share of enemies who tried to take its life prematurely. Even the Amish, or at the very least an Amish impersonator, did their best to play a role in wiping it off this earth. So too did a man from Busan, South Korea. But the will of the Jays season was too strong and they remained full of life until late Friday night, when the heart beat decreased to a quiet beep. With Dalton Pompey doing his best to jumpstart whatever life it had left, the season slowly passed on into the baseball afterlife. The existence of this afterlife is known! Every March, 30 new seasons are reincarnated from the grave and given another chance to accomplish the ultimate goal of their existence on baseball earth. The Jays 2016 season will rise in this all-too-familiar way, with extra knowledge of what it takes to survive this dangerous world. We'll never forget its 2015 predecessor, but we will learn to love its successor just as much. It's the only hope we have after all.
(breaks down sobbing uncontrollably, is consoled by the floating ghost of Aaron Hill)
They say people die twice. Once when you leave this earth and once when your name is said for the last time. With what it did during its time on earth, the 2015 Jays season will not die in this second instance for a very, very long time. People whose life was touched by this gentle giant will remember its impact for as long as they live and carry on with its memory, knowing it was not taken from this earth in vain. Now surround yourself with friends during this time of loss as although the 2015 hockey season does not compare to the life we lost, it will have to do for at least four months.
(the coffin containing the skeletons of the 2015 season slowly begins being lowered into the ground)
GOODBYE 2015 SEASON! YOU WERE LOVED BY SO MANY! WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!
(sobs are heard all around as the grave is covered, marked by a tombstone that reads: HERE LIES THE 2015 BLUE JAYS SEASON, IT MADE PEOPLE BELIEVE)