The Blue Jays made the playoffs a total of four times during the 1980s, making three straight appearances from 1984-86. The ‘84 squad made it to the finals with a 3-1 series win over the Nashville Sounds, but couldn’t muscle past Charlotte, losing the series and a shot a title 3-0. The 1985 and ‘86 squads both suffered first-round losses to Huntsville, with each series favoring the Stars three-games-to-one.

The 1990s brought change to the Toronto Double-A affiliate. In 1993, the Blue Jays ended a run that lasted more than a decade, reverting back to the monacher “Smokies” for the first time since 1967. The Smokies were owned by the Blue Jays for a period of eight years until Don Beaver bought the team from the Major League club in 1994.

Bill Meyer Stadium served the Knoxville area and Minor League Baseball well, but in the 90s the facility was showing its age as one of the oldest ballparks in the Southern League. The Smokies began the process of finding a new home. The late 1990s will forever be marked in Smokies’ history as a turbulent period as it became painfully appearant, after exhausting all options, that the Tennessee affiliate of the Blue Jays would have to look outside the city limits of Knoxville and even Knox County to find a new home.

The City of Sevierville welcomed the chance to host its first-ever professional sports team in 1999 with the approval of a brand new, state-of-the-art facilty. Elected officials from both the city and Sevier County pushed the $19.4 million facility through and in 2000 the Tennessee Smokies opened the ballpark located just off Interstate 40 at exit 407. With the 1999 season in the rearview mirror, the club opened Smokies Park with a 10-7 win over arch-rival Chattanooga.

Tennessee wasn’t finished with the sweeping changes, however. At the conclusion of the 2002 season, the Smokies ended their longtime relationship with Toronto. The run with the Blue Jays lasted for 22 years before the Smokies ushered out one bird for another. The St. Louis Cardinals were on deck for the ‘03 season.

In the first year of the player development contract between St. Louis and Tennessee, the Smokies made the playoffs for the first time since the 1999 season. The Cardinals’ farmhands did even better in 2004. After winning the first half of the season, Mark DeJohn’s Smokies coasted in the second half and headed into a match up against Chattanooga in the Eastern Division Championship Series. The Lookouts were favored by some in the EDCS due to the fact that they were playing well heading into the series, but the Smokies pounced on the red and white squad, taking the series 3-games-to-1. After such a hard-fought series, the Smokies were ready for a showdown with Mobile for the SL crown. Tennessee never had the opportunity to face the BayBears due to Hurricane Ivan. Southern League President Don Mincher made the decision to cancel the series rather than risk lives and property, so Mobile and Tennessee were declared co-champs. It was the fourth championship for the Knoxville area and a fitting end to the Cardinals short run in East Tennessee.

In 2005, the Smokies made the switch from St. Louis to Arizona. The Diamondbacks’ farmhands finished their inagural SL campaign with a record of 64-76.

Bill O’Neal’s book, “The Southern League” and Baseballlibrary.com were used to fill in some of the historical gaps.