Blue Jays Cleared for Return to Canada

The last time the Blue Jays played a game at Rogers Centre, their stadium in downtown Toronto, was Sept. 29, 2019. Since then, because the coronavirus pandemic led to the closing of the Canadian border, the country’s only big-league baseball team has been forced to find makeshift regular-season homes in Dunedin, Fla., its spring training site, and in Buffalo, where it displaced the franchise’s top minor league team.

Finally, after nearly two years away, the Blue Jays are coming home.

On Friday, the team announced that it would be back in Toronto beginning July 30, with a three-game series against the Kansas City Royals. The Blue Jays said that the Canadian government had granted them a “national interest exemption,” which allows Major League Baseball games to be played at Rogers Centre “with robust health and safety protocols in place.”

Marco Mendicino, the Canadian immigration minister, said in a statement posted online that the Blue Jays were given the exemption after “a careful review” by public health officials “at every level of government.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/sports/baseball/toronto-blue-jays.html