Today in Bluebird Banter History

One year ago today:

• The Blue Jays released a statement on the Yunel Escobar eyeblack issue.The next day a press conference was held. I still think the Jays should have prepared Yunel better for it, that he shouldn't have said 'I have gay friends' unless, of course, he could name one.
• We found out that the Jays Triple-A team would be the Buffalo Bisons. Yay.

Two years ago today:

• New Hamshire Fisher Cats won the Eastern League Championship.
• We lost to the Yankees, after being up 6-1 after the 5th inning. The recap thread turned into a debate on whether strikeouts were such a bad thing for a batter.

Three years ago today:

• Jose Bautista set a franchise record with his 48th home run, in an 11-9 win against the Red Sox. My son and I were at the game in Boston. I really enjoyed Boston, but there were some jerks at the games.
• Vernon Wells won the 'Branch Ricky Award' for his charity work.
• The Jays announced they were partnering with the Vancouver Candians, giving us a minor league team in Canada, and ending our time with the Auburn Doubledays

Four years ago today:

• Jessef wondered if Vernon Wells could get his WAR up to 0 by the end on the season (spoiler, he didn't, Fangraphs has him at a -0.1 for the season).
• I posted the Best and Worst Seasons for Blue Jay DHes by WAR. Since then, Adam Lind's 2009 season would give him the 3rd best season for a DH and this year, if he stays at 1.7 WAR, he'd be tied for the 9th spot on the list. But then his 2010 season would put him tied for the 3rd worst season and 2011 and 2012 would also land him on the 10 worsts seasons, though the 2011 season he played mostly first base.
• The Jays announced their minor league awards. Moises Sierra was our player of the year for Dunedin. Most of the other winners are no long with the Jays.
• Jesse Carlson was suspended for three games for his part in a brawl with the Yankees. The comment thread became an argument about the value of Marco Scutaro and someone arguing that Randy Ruiz would hit 35 home runs in a season in the MLB. Yeah, someone actually thought that a guy that hit 25 home runs in Vegas, could hit 35 in the majors.

Five years ago today:

• Hugo tells us that Cito would be back to manager the Jays next season (2009) and he noted that it was very likely that this meant that J.P. Ricciardi would also be back.