Blue Jays Bus 600 Miles Through the Desert After Plane Gets Grounded: Manager Says It Felt Like the Northwest League

The Toronto Blue Jays turned Sunday night into something out of a minor league road trip when a mechanical issue with their charter plane forced the entire team to load up three buses and drive six hours across the dark desert from Phoenix to Southern California. They didn't roll into their Orange County hotel until around 12:30 a.m., and yeah, it was exactly as fun as it sounds.

The Joystick Problem Nobody Wants to Deal With

Manager John Schneider got the call from traveling secretary Rodney Hiemstra around 4 p.m. Sunday while the Jays were wrapping up a 10-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The problem? A broken joystick, which, as Schneider put it, is "pretty important" because it's used for takeoffs and landings. The team faced two options: wait for a replacement plane to fly down from Vancouver and land around 10 p.m., or hit the road immediately. So they took a vote. The players chose the bus.

One notable exception: pitcher Dylan Cease, who was scheduled to start Monday night against the Los Angeles Angels, flew commercial instead. The rest of the traveling party, about 40 people including coaching staff, packed into those three buses with all the luggage and food from the grounded charter.

Max Scherzer Was Not Happy About This Vote

Here's where it gets good. Scherzer wanted the team to wait for the plane and fly to Orange County. He lost the vote. So he printed out a letter and handed it to Schneider as a formal complaint, which the manager showed to reporters before Monday's game. Schneider's response? "Max, why don't you just buy a plane? You've got plenty of cash." Most of the guys who needed to play the next night just wanted to get moving.

Schneider himself paid the price for the bus decision. While the players had it relatively good with dedicated seating, the coaching staff got cramped. "The math was a little off," he said. "I had my own two seats, and I still had cases of water around me, and you feel bad reclining on people." He even joked about the whole thing beforehand, saying he felt like he was back in the Northwest League.

The Jays made it work and got ready for Monday's series opener. That's what road games in April look like sometimes.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.