All is supposed to be fair in love and war, and one would expect the same to apply to a heated AL East showdown between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays.
Hence, Blue Jays fan Alex Di Domizio was confused during Monday’s game at Rogers Centre. Di Domizio brought a sign reading “Yankees Suck” with a Blue Jays logo in the center, and had it confiscated before Toronto’s 4-1 victory.
Di Domizio told Canada’s CP24 that one usher allowed the flag, but another usher promptly came over and called security. Although Di Domizio feared that security would eject him, they instead asked him to give the sign to fan services.
As it turned out, the Blue Jays violated their own policies and publicly apologized to Di Domizio.
“We made a mistake and have addressed the issue to ensure it does not happen again,” the Blue Jays said. “We have spoken with the fan to apologize and invited him back to a future game, which he is looking forward to attending.”
Rogers Centre’s sign policy is pretty simple. Fans can bring anything that doesn’t “interfere with the game itself” and doesn’t feature anything offensive, whether that’s language or imagery. In short, you can bring a sign saying “Yankees Suck,” but you can’t hold anything up featuring Aaron Judge and your expletive of choice.
“At the end of the day, I’m a huge Jays fan who absolutely hates the Yankees,” Di Domizio told CP24. “Getting something confiscated sucks, but it doesn’t stop me from coming to future games.”
The Yankees have far bigger problems than Blue Jays fans’ signs
The tides have quickly turned in the AL East, and the Blue Jays entered Thursday holding a four-game lead over the Yankees. More importantly, Toronto has won seven of 10 against the Yankees, guaranteeing the Blue Jays will hold the tiebreaker.
Plenty can still change with two months left and the trade deadline only a week away. Only 7 ½ games separate the first-place Jays and the fourth-place Rays, and one can’t quite rule out the 55-49 Red Sox just yet.
Where do the Yankees fit into things? Great question, and it may not have the answer that Yankees fans currently seek. Although the Yankees are expected to be aggressive ahead of the deadline, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re only 21-24 since June 1.
Conversely, Toronto began June at 30-28 and 5 1/2 back in the AL East. They’ve since gone 30-14 with a plus-71 run differential.
If the end result is Toronto’s first pennant in over 30 years, we’ll see if Di Domizio makes it to Rogers Centre for the World Series — and which team is the target of his latest sign.