Former Blue Jays players discuss Exhibition Stadium

Game 1 of the World Series on Friday is a chance for the Blue Jays to show off the refurbished Rogers Centre. Time had taken its toll on the futuristic building that opened as SkyDome, the first baseball stadium with a retractable roof, in 1989.

A $400 million (Canadian) renovation project completed in 2024 has once again turned Torontoâ€s baseball home into a state of the art facility.

So itâ€s easy to forget the franchiseâ€s humble beginnings at Exhibition Stadium, the outdoor venue that even former Blue Jays team president Paul Beeston once called “the worst stadium in sports.â€

The Blue Jays would become baseballâ€s model franchise in the early 1990s. But when they began play as an American League expansion team in 1977, they were far from it. And so was their home ballpark.

“Except for the people in the stands, there wasnâ€t one good thing about that stadium,†Rick Cerone said, laughing.

Cerone was the starting catcher in the first game in Blue Jays history, April 7, 1977, at Exhibition Stadium. The gametime temperature was 32 degrees and snow covered almost the entire playing field.

“The only thing you saw on the opening pitch was the dirt cutouts where the bases were,†Cerone recalled. “Everything else was covered in snow.â€

Torontoâ€s love for baseball was born that day in front of 44,649 fans packed into the converted football stadium on the shores of Lake Ontario. The fans turned out to watch the expansion Blue Jays struggle through 100-loss seasons in each of their first three years.

But the team would get better, winning 89 games in 1983, then winning 99 games and their first AL East division title in 1985.

But the playing conditions at the ballpark remained … questionable.

“It was windy and cold all the time,†said Buck Martinez, catcher on the â€85 team and currently a Blue Jays TV announcer. “In the summertime it was nice, but it just wasnâ€t a Major League ballpark.â€

Converted from a football field, home of the CFLâ€s Toronto Argonauts, Exhibition Stadiumâ€s baseball configuration had a temporary fence in right field, and a grandstand that ran from left field straight out beyond center field, rather than curving around the way a typical baseball stadium does. So some of the fans would be sitting as much as 800 feet from home plate facing the wrong direction.

“Iâ€m willing to bet there were 10-to-15,000 people who couldn’t even see the game because they were below the fence line in the outfield,†said former Blue Jays pitcher Tom Henke. “But they still came. It was amazing.â€

And because the artificial playing surface was built with a crown for proper drainage, the outfield sloped so severely that that hard-hit balls through the infield were almost destined to reach the fence.

The unusual playing surface made for some unusual sightlines for the players, too.

“I could barely see Lloyd Moseby in center field,†Martinez said. “I could only see half of his legs because of the way the field was sloped.â€

The real signature characteristic of Torontoâ€s first baseball stadium was the locale, the great outdoors. In other words, it was cold.

“Down the left-field line, there was a gap between what they called the north grandstand and the left-field bleachers,†Martinez recalled. “So the wind would come off Lake Ontario and go through that gap like a turbine pushing that wind across the field. Early in the season, late in the season, it was frigid.â€

The home team could get used to it, maybe. But the visiting players would suffer.

“Playing in Canada without the domes was challenging to say the least,†said former Expos and Orioles outfielder Ken Singleton. “You had every stitch of clothing in your locker on. To me it was just play the game, get it over with and maybe itâ€ll be warmer tomorrow.â€

“I can remember wearing my coat down in the bullpen until June because of the wind coming off the lake,†said Henke, Torontoâ€s All-Star closer who was told by his manager to not even bother going out to the bullpen until the seventh inning because it was so cold. “The dugouts had heaters, but the bullpen was just a bench sitting down the left-field line by a couple mounds.â€

Eventually the Blue Jays figured out they needed to embrace their home-field advantage. It took future Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox to set them straight early in 1985.

“I remember we were complaining so much about the conditions that Bobby Cox held a meeting and said, ‘You gotta stop complaining,â€â€ said former Jays outfielder Jesse Barfield. “‘Let the other guys complain. This is our home, so stop complaining and use it to our benefit.â€â€

Cold was just one element to deal with.

Fog delays were almost as common as rain delays, and when that fog rolled in, the fans werenâ€t the only ones who couldnâ€t see what was going on.

“We had a fog game, somebody hit a fly ball and it fell in because I couldnâ€t find it,†Singleton recalled. “We were leading at the time, and it was an official game, and when it fell in the second-base umpire, Don Denkinger, accused me of not catching the ball on purpose so they would stop the game and call it.â€

Seagulls would regularly converge on the stands to consume discarded hot dogs and popcorn. Dave Winfield famously nailed one of them while warming up between innings of a Yankees-Blue Jays game in 1983.

Cerone, by then playing for the Yankees, was the one playing catch with Winfield.

“For six innings we tried to hit one, and then Winnie finally did,†Cerone laughed. But it was a serious matter in Toronto, where Winfield was briefly taken into custody.

“They wouldnâ€t let us out of Canada until like 3 oâ€clock in the morning. Everybody on our team hated us,†Cerone recalled.

On the field, the Blue Jays of the mid-1980s became one of baseballâ€s best, and in 1989 they moved into their new digs called SkyDome.

“It was like they had gone to heaven,†Martinez said.

The fans agreed. The 1991 Blue Jays became the first team in Major League history to draw four million fans. Then they won back-to-back World Series in 1992-93.

And if it rains, theyâ€ll be able to close the roof and keep it dry.

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