Pearson Cup
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| First meeting | June 30, 1997 SkyDome, Toronto, Canada |
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| Latest meeting | July 4, 2004 Estadio Hiram Bithorn, San Juan, Puerto Rico |
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| Statistics | |||
| Meetings total | 43 | ||
| Regular season series | 24–19, Blue Jays | ||
| Largest victory | 14–2, Blue Jays (June 22, 1998) | ||
| Longest win streak |
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| Current win streak | defunct | ||
The Pearson Cup was an annual midseason Major League Baseball rivalry between former Canadian rivals, the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos. Named after former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, it was originally created to raise money for minor league baseball in Canada. In later years, it was incorporated into the interleague baseball schedule.
The series began in 1978, and ran until 1986. Due to a strike, no game was played in 1981. In 2003 the series was revived as part of the Blue Jays-Expos interleague rivalry. It continued on into the 2004 season, before the Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals. The cup is now on display in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Mary's, Ontario.
From 1978–1986, the Cup was awarded after a one-game exhibition, that had no effect on the major league standings. The game was suspended in 1987 as the two teams could not find a mutually agreeable date to play the game. There was discussion about reviving the game in the preseason, or playing it in another Canadian city such as Vancouver, but this never took place. However, the Jays did play a number of exhibition games at BC Place in Vancouver including three game series against the Milwaukee Brewers prior to both the 1984 and 1985 seasons (the Vancouver Canadians were the AAA farm team of the Brewers at the time), as well as single games against the Detroit Tigers and Brewers in 1993 and against the Montreal Expos and Seattle Mariners in 1994 in a series billed as the "Baseball Classic". The Jays also played the Cleveland Indians in an exhibition game at War Memorial Stadium in nearby Buffalo, New York in 1987. More recently, the club has hosted a pair of exhibition games at Olympic Stadium in Montreal prior to the start of the season, New York Mets (2014),Cincinnati Reds (2015),Boston Red Sox (2016), and are scheduled to host two versus the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to the start of the 2017 season. The club has also discussed playing more games at BC Place with the President of the Vancouver Canadians.
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