Travis Shaw sends out long, heartfelt thank you to everyone in Buffalo for making it "home"

When the MLB season announced it would be restarting, we knew there were going to be a number of obstacles. We didn’t know what they were at the time, but with COVID-19 representing a huge obstacle in itself, it only made sense that there would be more to follow. 

For the Toronto Blue Jays, they found themselves with a very unique obstacle. An international border.

While the NBA and NHL decided the best course of action was to Bubble up their players in hopes of avoiding infection, the MLB decided that teams would continue to travel. For the Blue Jays, that posed a difficult situation when the Canadian government announced that they would not be making a closed-border exception for the MLB.

This meant the Blue Jays were without a home field. While their Dunedin spring training field seemed to be the obvious first choice, the massive COVID-19 numbers out of Florida influenced otherwise. For a brief time, it seemed as though the Jays would utilized the Pittsburgh Pirates home field, PNC Park, as their home. That was also not allowed.

In the end, the Jays settled for an option that was there every step of the way – Buffalo.

The Jays moved into the Sahlen Field, home of the Buffalo Bisons, their Tripe-A affiliate, and became the only MLB team to not play in their usual home park. Many saw this as a distinct disadvantage, but now that the 60-game regular season is wrapping up and the Blue Jays are officially headed to the postseason, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all?

Infielder Travis Shaw made sure to take the time to thank all those in Buffalo that supported them through their very unique experience.

“As we wrap up a crazy 2020 regular season I wanted to give a special shot out to EVERTYONE behind the scenes that made Buffalo our “home” this year. We were dealt a losing hand from the start but you all did an amazing job making this place our home for the season. The amount of work that was done in an extremely short period of time was very impressive. I know every player on this team is greatly appreciative of everyone that helped make this our summer home in 2020. You all deserve individual recognition for all the time and effort that went into getting this place ready for us so quickly."

So from everyone in the locker room we send out the biggest THANK YOU (Clap Emojis) on a job well done!”

The best thank you would to bring back a World Series title, to both Buffalo and Toronto.