Has Blue Jays fever hit your part of the country?

Sunday on Cross Country Checkup: Blue Jay Fever. For the first time in 22 years the Toronto Blue Jays are poised to make the playoffs. And fans around the country are voicing their support. Has the excitement reached your part of the country? Join guest host, Suhana Meharchand.

CBC Radio · Posted: Aug 27, 2015 3:15 PM EDT | Last Updated: September 2, 2015

The Blue Jays' Edwin Encarnacion, right, celebrates with teammates Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista after hitting a grand slam against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday night. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Cross Country Checkup1:53:00Blue Jays

Sunday on Cross Country Checkup: Blue Jay Fever. For the first time in 22 years, the Toronto Blue Jays are poised to make the playoffs. And fans around the country are voicing their support. Has the excitement reached your part of the country? Join guest host, Suhana Meharchand.

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INTRODUCTION

Take me out to the ball game. Please...'cause the Blue Jays are the hottest ticket in baseball right now. It's been twenty two years since Canada's only professional baseball team has made the post-season. That's a long time! But this summer, the Toronto Blue Jays, Canada's boys of summer, have been working hard to end that streak. Over the past month the Jays have risen to first place in their division. Television ratings for Jays games have soared. Jays stories are dominating the front pages of Canadian newspapers. And Jays fans across the country have been taking to social media to voice their support for the team. Heck, you can't see me because this is radio after all, but I've got my Jays jersey on. Number 19. You know who that is.

Today's Jays' game is a great example of the excitement surrounding the team. The Jays tamed the Detroit Tigers 9:2. And the fans are wild with enthusiasm.

All this is a reminder of the 1990's when the Blue Jays were one of Canada's most successful sports teams. The club won two consecutive World Series championships in 1992 and 1993 and their star-studded rosters made thousands of young Canadians fall in love with baseball. When the Montreal Expos left Canada in 2004, the Jays became the country's only professional baseball franchise and many fans across the country did the unthinkable: they shifted their allegiance to a Toronto sports team.

But the past two decades have not been kind to the Jays and their supporters. Their twenty two year absence from the playoffs is the longest post-season drought in North American professional sports. Many long-time fans have criticized the team's front office for displaying too much "Canadian caution" to compete against perennial contenders like the New York Yankees.

That cautious approach has vanished under general manager Alex Anthopoulos, a Montreal native who took over the Jays in 2009. This summer the team made a pair of blockbuster trades and the gamble has paid off: Over the past two months, the Jays have scored more runs than any other team in baseball and right now, they are first place in the American League East.

We want to know if the excitement over the Blue Jays has reached your part of the country. Are you a long-time fan revelling in the team's newfound success? Are you a new fan discovering the game of baseball for the first time? And do you think the Jays have what it takes to keep up their winning ways?

The writer Roger Angell famously called baseball "The Summer Game" and as another summer winds to a close we want to hear your stories about baseball in Canada. Has Blue Jays baseball become one of our country's great summer past times? And have the boys of summer finally lived up to their billing as "Canada's team"?

Our question today: Has Blue Jays fever hit your part of the country?

I'm Suhana Meharchand ...on CBC Radio One ...and on Sirius XM, satellite radio channel 169 ...this is Cross Country Checkup.