The recent Clearwater Threshers’ six-game series against the Dunedin Blue Jays at Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark didn’t exactly have the electricity of other big matchups in history.
It wasn’t the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox. Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants. Athens vs. Sparta. The games in Clearwater last week were spirited affairs, but they weren’t the sort of contests that generate bloodthirsty passions among partisans of either side.
The games provided plenty of reasons for enthusiasm. A night game on May 26 resulted in a 10-8 victory by Clearwater with 1,707 watching, the May 27 game, 16-6 Clearwater before 1,707 and the May 28 game brought a 12-11 Clearwater win with an inning of free baseball in the 10th inning and a walk-off single by the Threshers’ Robert Phelps in front of 1,770 enthusiasts.
While the scores were lopsided in Clearwater’s favor, the Blue Jays continued with their “play nine and never-say-die” attitude by scrapping for runs in each game but falling just short of victory.
The distance between the two coliseums is about eight miles as the egret flies, or about a 20-minute drive between the two, depending on traffic. Such proximity might lend itself to a nifty crosstown rivalry between the northside Chicago Cubs and the southside Chicago White Sox.
But at the May 28 game there was a distinct paucity of Dunedin devotees. A few Blue Jay blue caps could be spotted here and there, but the color of the night was distinctly Threshers scarlet. Clearwater fans were quite animated, while Dunedin’s contingent issued muted, polite applause and verbal encouragement to Blue Jays players, but little more.
Perhaps it was the unwritten rule that you don’t openly cheer your own visiting team while in the other team’s home stadium that made them clam up. Maybe it was dignified courtesy and deference to Clearwater fans, who have no inhibitions about crowing for the Threshers while visiting the Blue Jays’ TD Ballpark. Maybe there weren’t enough of them to make much fuss.
But the two teams are in the same county, the same stomping grounds. Only their ZIP codes are different — Clearwater, 33765, Dunedin, 34698. They’re crosstown rivals, and that should generate some heat.
Observations and a few box score numbers show Dunedin’s attendance is moving in a significantly upward trend, no doubt assisted by various Blue Jays promotions such as $2 Wednesdays when tickets are $2, as are hotdogs and certain beers.
But just as Dunedin appears to have only recently discovered that they have an exciting ballclub in town, they don’t travel well. Blue Jays Nation has yet to coalesce, even with last year’s near miss in the World Series by parent club Toronto Blue Jays. (Why, oh why, didn’t Isiah Kiner-Falefa take a bigger lead with the winning run at third base?)
The Threshers have no need to generate a following. While Pinellas County is not “Threshers Nation,” the Blue Jays have an opportunity to chew off a piece of their own territory.
Making the 20-minute trek between Dunedin and Clearwater might be the first step in claiming that turf and making this a real crosstown rivalry.