Richard Griffin : People have discussed both sides of the argument -- whether last year can in any way be considered a success -- 74 wins, big bump in payroll, big attendance increase. I've written that in some ways it was a success in that, as you talked about at the State of the Franchise, the fan-base expanded. Road trips showed how much enthusiasm there was and the attendance, the real attendance, was boosted as you were hoping and expected. So in that way, was it a decent season?

Paul Beeston : I think it was from that point, but that's not how we measure it. You can only measure wins and losses. We're in it to win. We're not in it to just measure ourselves in pure economics. The economics will follow the winning. So look at what it could've been? We could say we drew 2.5 (million) and that's nothing to be dismissive about. I don't think you can be dismissive about it as a matter of fact, because we've taken the attendance right back up and it's charting the right way. On the other hand it could have been 3 million. It could have been 3.2, 3.3. But I think last year, the best part about it was the demographics. You do not need to hire some survey company to come in and tell you how young these people are. You can see it. You can feel it. You can just walk through the stands and you can understand how young the fanbase is. And we're not just talking people bringing their kids like they do on the weekend. But on Friday nights, Saturday nights, we're talking about the 18-39 crowd. And it's terrific and they're into the game.

RG : But most of these fans ... and what's amazing on the road where it's even easier to appreciate, is how enthusiastic they are. A lot of these fans were not even 10-years-old when you guys won. How do you explain that this whole new generation has emerged and you guys haven't won in that time?

PB : Well it's a tough thing to explain, although I think that we had this entertainment value, or at least this anticipated entertainment value last year, that people wanted to latch on with a winner. I think that it was fun to be here and I think that it was fun to wear the Blue Jay jersey. There was this anticipation and we were able to capitalize on that.

But I think of what could've, would've been, not what it is and we just did not win enough games. We increased our payroll by whatever it was, $35 million, and ended up winning one more game. And so you can't look at last year as saying there were a lot of successes, although there's no question attendance trended the right way. Our season tickets went up. Our television went up. What we draw on the road, whether it's in Seattle where it's almost like a home game for us right now, Detroit, or any other places that we went, there was this following for the Blue Jays.

RG : Was there a change in philosophy from that conference call two years ago at the winter meetings when you said that we'll pump more money in when fans start coming out. I mean that was the interpretation of what you said at the time...

PB : Yup.

RG : Then last year it was almost like you went against that, pumped more money in and then the fans came out. That's not what people thought you originally said. Was there a change?

PB : I don't think there was a change. I think that Alex, I didn't really believe that he could pull off the trade with Florida. I mean I really did not believe that could happen. And then we started talking about Reyes, we started talking about Buehrle, we started talking about Johnson, about Bonifiacio. It was kind of like, 'You mean you're going to get him, too? This guy might steal 50 bases for us.' All of the things that were there. Then he did the Dickey thing. You could monetize that. Because I think it showed that people were going to be involved, would become attached to the team, were going to start following the team. You look at it and say, well OK, this is a gamble worth taking. This isn't like going out and signing one free agent and hope that it's going to do it.

We're in this thing as a business. We don't apologize for it. We run this as a business. We're not in the business to lose money. But we're not in the business to make money either. We make the money we'll plough it right back in, either a) to the major-league franchise, or b) scouting and development so we can have a pipeline for the future. So when you say that one following the other, it was interpreted the wrong way. But there was no way that you could just go out and spend a lot of money and not improve your team, not give the fans what they want. It wasn't like we're going to spend money and you'd better come. It was 'if we spend the money wisely' – and I think we showed it last year. What Alex was able to prove when he pulled those trades off, our ticket sales went through the roof. You didn't have to be some type of a prophet to see that. You could feel it if you'd been in the game long enough. People knew who Buehrle was. People knew who Johnson was. People clearly knew who Reyes was, even though they had been in the National League. Dickey had won the Cy Young Award.

You start looking at Encarnacion and Bautista with their power. You know that Lawrie's coming along. You go, 'Man, we've got speed. We've got Bonifacio and Rajai Davis on the same team? We've got jackrabbits everywhere.' You've got to say, man, this is pretty exciting. Well, the fans bought into it.

RG : The other night you said this team wasn't built for one year. Youy've said that before, but does ownership buy into it the same way as you do because the dollar has gone doen to 89-point-something and the team won one more game last year than the year before. Does ownership have that same faith, that belief that you have in what's going on here?

PB : Yeah, absolutely. We were very fortunate to have had good owners. You could not have worked for better person than Nadir Mohamed and the Rogers family. The Rogers family has been very supportive -- Edward and Melinda, Loretta. I never worked for Ted Rogers so I can't answer that question about what Ted would have done. But you know we have not been capped anywhere. We've asked them for something and they've given it to us. We've never asked them for something that was really silly – like a 10-year contract. We've not gone that way. We've never asked them to spend $35 million on a player, but we were in on a lot of things.

When we need to go in the inetrnational market to sign a player. They signed off on (Aroldis) Chapman, OK. It was us that made the decision not to get Chapman. We didn't see him well in a workout, but they signed off on Chapman. They signed off on that (Marlins) deal last year. 'Paul, what do you think? Alex what do you think?' I mean they asked us what we thought about the deal with Florida and with Dickey. They signed off on it. They were prepared to take it. I said we can monetize this, because it will increase interest and more importantly than that, you're going to see the fans come and watch it on television too.

RG : I guess that's a huge part of being owned by a multi-media corporation. Did you swallow hard when you saw the NHL deal that they put together and wonder how that might affect you?

PB : It didn't even occur to me. One's buying content. We're a team. We're our own brand. We're the Toronto Blue Jays. Then there's the Rogers entity, whether it's wireless, whether it's cable, whether it's the media company, whether it's Sportsnet and all that. But we're our own brand. So, until such time as I see that impact on us.

The Rogers people are smart people. Trust me that they would have looked at that deal in a way that was beneficial overall to their overall business. So, I kind of looked at it and said, hmm, that's a pretty good comparison (for us) here. We may not be the NHL but we are still rights.

RG : You're old school. You don't even have a cellphone, right?

PB : Well, I've got one, but people don't have the number.

RG : So do you understand the multi-platform sales pitch that Rogers has and how it can affect your baseball team.

PB : Absolutely. Absolutely. The good thing when I was in New York and I was part of the founding of BAM (Baseball Advanced Media), I know what it's all about. When I came back here, the one thing that really scared me the most was that we couldn't watch our own games in our own territory. The best way of promoting your game is through people that are able to watch it. Because you take sports stars and make them television stars.

The only way that you could watch a game was on television. It made no sense with the proliferation of, No. 1 desktop, No. 2 the iPad or any type of tablet and No. 3 the phones. You had all three of them. So we worked with Major League Baseball Advanced Media. I kept on saying I don't care what their rights are worth, I'm saying we've got to be able to watch us. You mean I can sit in my backyard and watch basketball. I can watch hockey. I can watch the Masters. Because that was when it got me. You could watch the Masters when the Masters was streaming. I can watch the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox or I could watch the Dodgers play San Francisco, but I can't watch the Toronto Blue Jays play Kansas City. I said, tell me where this makes any sense.

So, what I wanted to do because all offices had computers at that point in time – this was in 2010. I said what we have to do is on the afternoon games, people will sit in their office. They don't have televisions aymore. They could watch it. I didn't know why, but I felt very strongly that if I was sitting on a dock at the cottage, sitting in my backyard or at a pool, they'll be able to watch a game. That was very, very important to do. So, while I don't know how to do it and I can't get it, I could get the concept more and more.

“If you've got kids like we do, they're on it all the time and they can stream it. They can watch it. This stuff works like, 'Hey, you've got to see this play.' You get a beep. The game is 2-2, it's the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded. Bam! Now you can turn it on your phone, so what we used to think of...now there's going to be two types of screen. There's going to be screens that are six feet wide and screens that are six inches or four inches. That's it.

RG : Does that have a value that can't be quantified at this point, in terms of to the franchise and to ownership? Like the fact that people can be watching any time, anywhere.

PB : I think it can be quantified. I actually think the more eyeballs watching, there's more people seeing ads and the more ads that are being seen, the higher the rate card. The higher the rate card, the more money you can get for your rights. That to me can be quantified, but the more important part is promoting your product. And you're giving the fans something they want. This idea of not being able to watch your product in your own territory is a question that baseball, I think, is in the Dark Ages on. We're fortunate we've done a deal with BAM so we can do it. We're able to watch our games. All you've got to do is be authenticated to Rogers or Bell and you can do it. They've done that deal so you can get both Sportsnet and TSN, either one of them, so you can watch it.

RG : Just changing topic a little bit, we talked about it briefly the other day, the alumni that you have. It seems to be almost a two-way loyalty that has come together and you're getting more guys to come back and help in the summer, you're getting more guys at spring training. I give you credit for that because you're the bridge between the old Jays and this group. Do you take personal satisfaction in all these guys coming back.

PB : Absolutely. I think it's affirmation of what the players thought of playing in the city of Toronto and playing in Canada and what they liked about it. These guys that are doing their clinics across the country, they're going from Newfoundland to Victoria. They've appreciated their time in Canada. They've appreciated what the ballclub was about and what it used to stand for and what it can mean again and I think it's fantastic.

The you bring in the new guys. (Roy) Halladay, at some time will be doing this type of thing. You've got Pat Hentgen who comes back and forth. I think it's a terrific thing. You've got Robbie (Alomar), you've got George (Bell). It's certainly not for the money because we don't pay them enough money to make it worth their while, but it's just the association...and we've got a history. We're not a 10-year-old franchise. We're not an expansion franchise. We're now 38-years-old. We do have a history and a history of success and more important than that we've had a history of some very good players here.

I found it interesting that Kyle Lowry was talking about DeMar DeRozan making the all-star game, how good it is for the city and the country and what it's all about. What can be better than that? And we just have to get the people up here then they fall in love with the city. And this is a city that has not had a lot of sporting success in the last few years...in the last few decades.

RG : It's something that the Yankees and the Dodgers have always done and for you guys to head in that direction, are there ways to use the alumni that's a work in progress.

PB : Two ways. Number one is that you can use them with the players themselves. To have a Freddy McGriff walk into spring training for a week and a half. To have Freddy McGriff go to all the minor-league teams. He still has the stature. To have Robbie Alomar walk in there. To have Paul Quantrill go in there, the number of years and the way that he pitched for a period. To have Hentgen go in, to have Roy Halladay if he comes back and does that thing. To have George Bell go in and reassess everyone's batting stance. Just one of those things. That part from a player's point of view is terrific, because they've got that history of the organization, the city and most of them not being Canadians says, 'Lookit, this is no different than playing in the States.'

On the other hand, you've got (Devon White) and you've got the (Duane) Wards, you've got the Mookie Wilsons, you've got the (Jesse) Barfields and those guys. They're out there actually teaching the game when they go there. And if the kids don't remember them, the parents do. It is no different than the Paul Hendersons and the Ron Ellises, the Johnny Bowers The parents, we all remember. It's fantastic and it's the best of all worlds.

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RG : What was your immediate reaction when you heard that Roy Halladay called and wanted to retire a Blue Jay?

PB : I was actually thrilled. I said to myself, 'Man, I mean Roy Halladay wants to retire as a Blue Jay. He signed here, he played here, he had great years here. He went to Philadelphia where he was kind of morphing over to the Phillies, the National League, whatever. He's going to retire and he wants to retire as a Blue Jay. But in his typical way he was respectful, he was thankful to Philadelphia. But it was his idea. So to me it indicated that his time spent in Toronto was meaningful to him, was impactful on him.

RG : There's an opening in the radio booth. Are you going to fill it with an alumni, with somebody that has a history here?

PB : It would be nice. If you've got somebody that knows the city. I thought Jack (Morris) was just coming into his own, myself. The time that he started he was good. By the time he finished I thought he was very good. There were various opinions on him, but you know what, he knew the game, he analyzed the game, he had the right sense of humour about what was happening. If you could bring in somebody that is familar with the organization, knows what it means, knows what it can be, I think it's a huge advantage. If it's not, if there's no one that's any good, it's a different story.

RG : The last question is with regard to Alex. You talked about Chapman and how the money was there and he backed away because he didn't think it was the right investment. It would have been easy for him to, after last season, go out and sign the first free agent starting pitcher that he had a chance to. Do you admire him for waiting until the market sort of came back to you guys and concerning himself with the team's bottom line as much as his own legacy.

PB : His legacy? He is only 36-years-old. (laughs)

RG : You're right.

PB : No, I admire him a lot for it. Last year was a learning experience, a humbling experience for everyone. I for one, based on the facts at the time, would do those deals again, every time. He got hung with them, but it was an organization decision. It was Tony (LaCava), myself, everybody in the organization was all for what we did. The team didn't perform the way it was supposed to perform. Alex kind of got hung with it. Could he have gone out and spent that money (right after the season)? He could have gone out if it was spent wisely, but he can't go out and spend it foolishly just to show that we need one more pitcher, let's grab the right pitcher, let's just put him in here and do it. Because, if you are going to be sustainable...I have the most admiration for (Braves president) John Schuerholz. Because Schuerholz said, we have these three great pitchers, but the farm system has to come up with something. That's what the farm system is all about. The baseball gods – and this isn't a prayer – the baseball gods are going to smile on us. We are going to get a (Drew) Hutchison or a (Kyle) Drabek or a (Marcus) Stroman, (Aaron) Sanchez or somebody like that is actually going to contribute. I forget the guy's name for St. Louis last year. He was drafted in 2012 (Michael Wacha). Why can't that happen to us?

RG : It has to happen to win.

PB : It has to happen to win. Or else all of a sudden you've got these long-term contracts, where you're like, 'God this guy can't pitch.' You've got to pay them. You can't really get the value for them. They can't contribute. It doesn't make any sense, so you have to be wise.

Alex, I've said this before and I'll say it again, he's got intelligence and smarts. Last year, he probably learned more about himself, about his assessment ability, about his management. He learned what this could be with the two-and-a-half million people. He saw the kind of love-in with Canada and what we could do here and he realized that it doesn't matter how much money you spend, there's no guarantee of winning.

RG : If the world hadn't been so giddy at the time of the Marlins deal and Melky (Cabrera's signing), would you have thought harder about the (John Gibbons) manager choice.

PB : I suspect we might have looked at it differently. I'm not saying that it would have changed. I don't think that you can put a person in charge like Alex, tell him to go get your players. I'm buying into all this, then tell him who his manager's going to be. It's Alex's choice. I mean, he's all in. And why not. I came back (to the Jays). Why can't Gibby come back? It's a tough argumernt for me to make. Someone else could make it. '(Beeston) shouldn't come back, neither should Gibby. But I can't make the argument. 'We're not going to make that mistake twice.' (laughs) We should learn.

RG : The game day tickets have gone on sale. You seemed confident and Alex seems confident in where he stands right now in terms of if you really need to bring in one of those remaining starting pitchers. Do you think it will affect ticket sales. Obviously the effects of last year's 74 wins will affect this year's ticket sales early.

PB : I don't think (a signing) will bring it in. I think Tanaka would have. I think that bringing in one of those pitchers will make the team a better team, I don't think there's any question about that. Will it affect ticket sales? I think people will say after last year, 'Show me.' We have an obligation and I cannot deny that. We understand that we have to show them. We can still be three million (in attendance) this year, there's no doubt in my mind about that, if we play well in April. So the people can say here is what they were supposed to be last year. I want to be part of this party this summer. That's the way I'm looking at it. I don't think one guy makes that difference. If you brought in one of the great pitchers that's a different thing, but there are not very many players or pitchers that are going to actually impact the sales.

RG : The reality used to be that winning generates sales for the next season, but do you think that with a younger demographuc fans now respond more quickly?

PB : Absolutely. It's a movement. It can become a movement more than anything else. As long as you have fun. We have an advantage here. It's just kind of occured to me over the last year and that is our location. With the Air Canada Centre down the street, with the waterfront opening up and then going over to Front Street and King and Queen, the bar scene there. There's a reason to come down here at seven o'clock. The game's over at 9:30 and you can have a good time and go from there. I think it's been advantageous to us. We're now used to the Go Train stopping close by and everything's moving this way.

RG : So bottom line is ... location is great, roof means all games are going to be played. If you put a grass field in it will enhance the baseball feel and a playoff spot would complete the picture.

PB : It would complete the picture. And I'm just thinking as we're talking. We took out centre field last year. You go to centre field now and you put 500 people out there, people rush to it. People rush to it because it's a good ambiance. We have to give people a reason to be here. You can be entertained, but we want the people that come for one game to come for three games. We want the people that come for three games to five games. Because there's nothing like going to a baseball game in the summer. It's just a great experience. I get that, but we want to give them a reason to come back. The way to have them come back is by winning.

RG : You've said it before, but your belief is Leafs success, Raptors success floats all boats.

PB : That's right. Look at what TFC has done. Raptors win right now, Leafs win and get to the playoffs, Raptors get to the playoffs. People start feeling good about their sports teams.