The New York Yankees franchise used to be the gold standard for MLB organizations, the undisputed king of the sport, and the world’s greatest baseball brand. That throne has now passed to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but are the Toronto Blue Jays also surpassing the Yankees in global appeal?
This would have been an outrageous question to ask at any point dating back to the Blue Jays’ founding in 1977, but times are a-changin'. The present offseason has been as potent a symbol as any that the Jays are positioning themselves to fight toe-to-toe with the Yankees in regard to international image, with Kazuma Okamoto’s recent press conference emphasizing that symbolism quite vividly.