The “unofficial” Ottawa Lynx blog

I’ve had a number of email questions looking for a response to the article that appeared over the weekend in the Morning Call.  I’m in agreement with Neate on this one: Let ‘em have their moment.  As far as J.J.’ s seemingly flippant response (” ‘Try seven or eight,’ quipped catcher Jason Jaramillo when talking about the size of last year’s crowds in Ottawa.”), well that’s just something we’ll have to live with.  The fact of the matter is, people in this city didn’t come out for these guys in numbers that they deserved, nor large enough to sustain the franchise.  And you could forgive Jaramillo for thinking he was insulated from any backlash; his experience here would lead him to believe that no one in Ottawa, and certainly not the local media were paying attention.

Unfortunately, people like you and I are still paying attention and it stings a little when guys we’d thought were classy take a gratuitous shot at Ottawa - deserved or not.  But of course, he’s just responding to the question:  Tell us J.J.  Just how awful was it to play in AAA last year?  (blogger: Of course, we just refer to it as “AAA”.  MiLB will no longer permit the use of the word “Ottawa”.)  No discussion of the fact that his season here in AAA got him to the All-Star game, or that he hit .271 here in AAA.  And certainly, no MSM report would be complete without a complete investigation oversight of the actual facts - nope, that’s left for the blogs.  Post June 2007 attendance of 2,172 wouldn’t support Jaramillo’s <cough> point, and it’s certainly not as catchy as that zinger, “try seven or eight”, is it?

Too bad.  At the end of the day, the Lynx had to leave.  They had to.  Expecting Ray Pecor to continually absorb seven figure losses wasn’t realistic, no matter how decent a person he was.  And they had to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the Lehigh Valley. 

Hopefully going forward they won’t need to rely on tearing the Ottawa experience down to build up their franchise.