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TORONTO – Since arriving in Toronto, Mark Shapiro has pushed Alex Anthopoulos out the door, let David Price defect, overpaid for J.A. Happ and dawdled on contract extensions for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion.

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So goes the lament of the wounded Blue Jays fan. But that’s not all. The thrill of the grass apparently does not quicken Shapiro’s pulse. Speaking recently to the popular notion that his Blue Jays should play on natural grass, he was succinct. We don’t need it, he said.

That, judging from the immediate avalanche of outrage on talk radio and social media, was the ultimate insult. Paul Beeston all but promised natural grass in the Rogers Centre by 2018, didn’t he? Maybe the Blue Jays can’t win their division every year, but their fans – the loudest ones anyway – were damn well counting on real grass. Now they’re tagging their tweets with #FireShapiro.

The team’s new president and CEO has been on the job for eight weeks. That, for most baseball critics, is normally a small sample size. Apart from the tantrums of Twitter, some fans are probably inclined to give him a little more time to prove himself. Even Beeston, the man he controversially replaced, went on the radio Tuesday and said: “Let’s support him. Let’s give him a chance.”