Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays entered the American League in 1977 as an expansion franchise, giving Toronto and Canada their first Major League Baseball team. The early years were predictably difficult - the Jays lost 107 games in their inaugural season and didn't post a winning record until 1983. Playing in Exhibition Stadium, an outdoor football venue converted for baseball, the franchise endured harsh Canadian weather and sparse crowds.

Despite the losing, the organization invested heavily in player development and international scouting. General manager Pat Gillick, who would later be inducted into the Hall of Fame, began building the infrastructure that would produce a championship team. The drafting and development of players like Dave Stieb, Jesse Barfield, and Lloyd Moseby gave the franchise a homegrown core.

By the early 1980s, the Blue Jays were no longer pushovers. The 1983 team finished 89-73, and the franchise was clearly on an upward trajectory. The pieces were being assembled for what would become one of the most exciting eras in Canadian sports history.

The Blue Jays won the AL East in 1985, their first division title, and moved into the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) in 1989. The revolutionary retractable-roof stadium could hold over 50,000 fans and became a symbol of Toronto's arrival as a major league city. Attendance regularly exceeded four million, the highest in baseball.

The 1992 Blue Jays, featuring Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, John Olerud, and a deep pitching staff, defeated the Braves in six games to win the franchise's first World Series - and the first for a Canadian team. The celebration in Toronto was the largest the city had ever seen, as millions of Canadians embraced the championship.

The 1993 team repeated the feat, capping the title with one of the most dramatic moments in baseball history: Joe Carter's walk-off home run in Game 6 against the Phillies. Carter leaped around the bases in a scene of pure elation, and the back-to-back championships cemented the Blue Jays' place in baseball history. It was only the second time in a decade that a team had won consecutive World Series titles.

The post-championship years were brutal. The 1994 strike disrupted the franchise's momentum, and the Blue Jays didn't return to the postseason for 22 years. The franchise struggled with the economic realities of operating in Canadian dollars while paying players in American currency, and free agents were often reluctant to play in Canada.

The franchise cycled through eras of mediocrity and occasional competence. Roy Halladay's dominant run from 2002 to 2009 - including his Cy Young Award-winning 2003 season - gave the franchise its best individual player since the championship years, but the team around him was never good enough. Halladay's emotional trade to the Phillies before the 2010 season underscored the franchise's inability to build a contender.

Rogers Communications' purchase of the team in 2000 provided deep-pocketed ownership, but translating financial resources into on-field success proved challenging in the hyper-competitive AL East.