Blue Jays Move AAA Farm Team From Vegas To Buffalo

The Toronto Blue Jays have announced that, in 2013, their AAA farm club will leave Las Vegas and become the Buffalo (New York) Bisons.

Professional baseball in Buffalo began in  1879, when another team named Bisons joined the National League. There was also a Buffalo team named Bisons in the Players’ League, in its only season, 1890. (If you think MLB has had its share of recent labor trouble, research the Players’ League someday.)

The current Bisons are the New York Mets’ AAA club. Bisons’ ownership, dissatisfied with low attendance in four years of Mets affiliation, chose not to re-up with the  Metropolitans, and made the smart move by going with the Jays.

With use of the disabled list increasing, and the need for players more frequent, it’s better to have your top farm team close to home. The Jays had kept their best prospects at AA New Hampshire, still some distance from Toronto but closer than Vegas.

Replacements will now be 90 freeway minutes away. Hard core Jays fans who can’t get enough baseball can also check out the Bisons when the big club is on the road.

And now, demoted Blue Jays will be shuffled off to Buffalo. If there’s ever a prize offered the first blogger who works that and the 1933 musical “42nd Street” into a post, Your Jays Writer will be up late thinking of ways to do so.