Popularity
In 1977, after only 50 home games, the Blue Jays set an MLB record for a first-year expansion team, with an overall attendance of 1,219,551. By the end of the season, 1,701,052 fans had attended. In 1991, the Blue Jays became the first MLB team to attract over four million fans, with an attendance of 4,001,526, followed by 4,028,318 in 1992. Each of those records were broken in 1993 by the expansion Colorado Rockies, though the Blue Jays' 1993 attendance of 4,057,947 stood as an AL record for 12 years, until being broken by the 2005 New York Yankees.
Several Blue Jays became popular in Toronto and across the Major Leagues, starting with Dave Stieb, whose seven All-Star selections is a franchise record. He is closely followed by Roy Halladay, who was selected six times, and by Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter, who were selected five times each. José Bautista set a Major League record in 2011 (which stood for one year), with 7,454,753 All-Star votes.
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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)