Condolences to the Rogers family, both consanguineous and corporate.

And speaking of corporate, what does this mean for the Jays? I was under the impression that Ted was a big Jays supporter,a nd with him gone, what is the likelihood that the team will revert to something akin to the Interbew ownership, with little attention paid to them...and what are the chances that Mark Cuban (SEC problems aside) expresses an interest in purchasing this franchise?

RIP Ted.

Now to be completely insensitive, does anyone know if there's a "Hank Steinbrenner" equivalent.

The Globe's account of his articling days at Torys will provoke a smile from lawyers. Who can argue with someone who preferred gadgets to law?

My condolences to his family.

Was it Rogers Communications that owned the Jays or Ted Rogers himself?

Either way he was one of the better owners I've had in my life.  I appreciated him having the guts to throw some decent money at the team in an attempt to turn it into a contender.

I'm not quite sure where the franchise would be without Ted Rogers, and feel that he put the team generally in the right direction.

The good (bad?) news is that I'm sure MLSE would like to get their hands on the Jays, given their solid television ratings (unlike the Raptors, TFC), and any potential owner for that matter would see that the team is fairly profitable. But I'm not entirely sure that Rogers would consider selling--the Jays offer a lot to Rogers.

Rogers Communications owns the Jays, not the estate of Ted Rogers. Also of note is that the media is reporting that Mr. Rogers had a plan set up for how to replace him (he was obsessive on that point apparently after CFRB was lost to the family when his dad passed away years ago). Thus I figure for the Jays there will be no real difference.

The Jays are, have been, and will continue to be content for the Rogers media empire. That said, there were/are a lot worse options for the Jays than Rogers and I'm glad Ted bought them.

Rogers was pretty much hands off with the Jays and made very few public appearances or public comments about the ballclub. My thoughts and prayers go out to Ted's family and friends.

Being so far away I've been wondering for a while - what exactly is MLSE?

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.

Aren't Google and Wikipedia the best things since the Smartcar?:)

Ted was 75.

I'm 62 and I see 75 as a 20 year old sees 26. 75 is just too bloody young to pass on.

My condolences to your family.

Aren't Google and Wikipedia the best things since the Smartcar?:)

Indeed they are, as i often note to others. I did not Google this because it was - seemingly - so generic. Usually when all I have is an acronym it turns out there's 40 different things that the letters stand for.

Turns out it's the first thing that comes up for MLSE, but that's usually not the case, in my experience.

I think the Jays' minor league system is going to get some love this offseason. Klaw had it ranked the most harshly at around 24 or 25 in all of MLB. Others had it aound 21 mostly. Other fan sites and fans are more optimistic about it as a middle of the AL team. It will be interesting how Law and the usual American outlets see the farm system. It should definitely be in the top twenty this time. Does anyone know when Sickels will put out the Jays' ranking?  

Does anyone know when Sickels will put out the Jays' ranking?

He's doing the Reds next, then the Jays.

This offseason has had a lot of distractions already. We should not miss this time to compare seven years of Ash versus seven years of JP!

Ash 541-575    #14 in payroll average in MLB during his time

JP 594-540     #20 in payroll average in MLB so far

1995- Ash drafts (by some miracle) at #17 Roy  and Craig Wilson (later traded)

1996- Drafts at #4 Billy Koch, #17 Joe Lawrence (of Marucci Bats!), #31 Peter Tucci (and Casey Blake and Brent Abernathy gone for nothing) and Josh Phelps

1997- #5 Vernon (Michael Young traded), Hendrickson, Hudson signed this time

1998- #8 Felipe Lopez (Jay Gibbons gone for nothin')

1999- #19 Rios, Brandon Lyon, Reed Johnson

2000- #18 Negron, Vinnie Chulk, McGowan

2001 #15 Gabe Gross, League 

I guess if Ash had understood the value of some of the younger players, he could have managed to keep his job. Those last four drafts don't appear to be in Ash's favor.

 

Here's the link to the job cuts.

 TVO's Allan Gregg has an interesting "In Conversation" with Ted Rogers referencing the Jays takeover 20:00 minutes in. The whole interview is quite informative on the building of an empire.

 http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?video?AG_Full_20081114_907825_TedRogers

I guess if Ash had understood the value of some of the younger players, he could have managed to keep his job. Those last four drafts don't appear to be in Ash's favor.

One sometimes overlooked facet of that list you provided is that of all the good players he drafted, only three (Doc, Koch, and Young) were established major leaguers on the day he was fired. And of Course Young wasn't in a Jays uniform. not that there weren't other reasons to fire Ash, but there were a lot of unwritten chapters about his drafting when he lost his job. Heck Rios was in Low-A ball hitting like Eric Eiland...

Since the final out of the World Series, I have more or less turned my back on sports. Quite thoroughly. I spent a few weeks obsessing over the US election, and have spent the past month or so quite wrapped up in music. I've barely even loaded a sports-related web page. This is all probably some sort of weird psychological response to paying Too Much Attention - anyway, it's why you haven't heard from me for quite a while. I assume this will pass in due course.

But by the strangest coincidence, I've been reading Ted Rogers' autobiography. My other half works for Rogers and won a free copy in some work-related contest. She brought it home and asked if I wanted to read it. I said no, and put it in the bathroom. Where I've been reading it, three or four pages at a time. So a couple of observations.

First, Ted Rogers kept reminding me of Worf, son of Mogh. He was that obsessed with restoring the family honour. He regarded his father as a great man whose legacy was robbed by early death and his widow's loss of control of the family business. This is not all filial loyalty - Ted Rogers Sr really was a technological innovator and a broadcast pioneer. Anyway, it's the major theme of his son's life. While he did have some real interest in the technology of it all, the late Mr Rogers was basically a hustler (or "entrepreneur" to use his preferred term). It's the business of business, the art of the deal, that really excites him.

And certainly not baseball. George Steinbrenner's entire self-image was and is tied up in the Yankees. Not so for Ted Rogers. He simply wasn't much of a sports fan. He liked it, in a somewhat bemused way, when people would congratulate him on the Jays winning. He thought keeping the team in Canada was worth stepping up for - but none of his own self-worth was at stake in the fortunes of the team.

The stadium, however, has the family name on it - he wants that to impress people, and he was willing to spend money on it.