MONTREAL - The distance from Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, where the Toronto Blue Jays play their spring training games, to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where they open up the regular season on Sunday, is 30.32 kilometres.
But instead of just driving the 30 clicks to open up the season, the Jays flew 2,082 kilometres to Montreal on Thursday to play two final pre-season games, on Friday and Saturday, before flying all the way back to Tampa to open the regular season on Sunday. Not the most convenient way to transition from spring training to the regular season.