Dave Zalenski, general manager of Minute Print, holds two of the 1,550 fan cutouts his company has made for Blue Jays games at Sahlen Field.

Blue Jays fans were showing up at Sahlen Field on Friday for the coming slate of home games.

But they seemed a little stiff.

Actually, these spectators were images attached to boards, arriving on pallets and ready to be fastened to seats. The cutout fans are a trend that has caught on at pro stadiums around the country, as teams compensate for the absence of actual people in the stands due to Covid-19.

A Cheektowaga company, Minute Print, was given the task of bringing the fans to life, so to speak. The business has produced about 1,550 of the fan cutouts, said Dave Zalenski, the general manager. 

"I'm honored and excited to be part of history of baseball in Buffalo," said Zalenski, who is a Buffalo Bisons season ticket holder. With the Jays' first scheduled game at Sahlen Field on Tuesday, installation of the cutouts was starting on Friday. 

The Blue Jays last week on social media invited fans to submit photos of themselves to join the "Jays Cutout Crew," the team's "home away from dome." For $60 Canadian (about $45 U.S.), fans could buy a stand-in a presence for all of the Jays games in Buffalo. The program quickly sold out. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Jays Care Foundation, to support families disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

As Minute Print received batches of digital images, the company printed them and mounted them on Coroplast, a type of corrugated plastic stock. Minute Print partnered with another company for die cutting, adding grommets so that zip ties could be looped through the lower part of the cutouts to affix them to the seats.

"This was the crunch, to get this done in time for the game," he said.

The cutouts are designed to keep the fans looking cheerful in the sun or rain over the next couple of months, Zalenski said. "It's the same type of material and ink that's used for realty signs – same material, same kind of process, just on a grander scale."

The cutouts will feature fans who paid for the privilege, but also look for some local notable faces in the crowd, including Mayor Byron Brown. Children of Jays players will also appear on cutouts.

Sahlen Field is undergoing all kinds of changes to create a temporary home for the Jays – some of them temporary, some permanent. The cutouts will help fill the stands for the telecasts.

Sahlen Field is being temporarily transformed into the Blue Jays' home field.

Buffalo baseball has a history with fan cutouts. They were famously used in 1983 during filming of "The Natural," to supplement the real-life crowd at War Memorial Stadium for game scenes.

The Bisons have a long relationship with Minute Print, said Anthony Sprague, the Bisons' general manager. The company handles some of the Bisons' marketing materials, such as brochures and pocket schedules, and items the team needs help with during the year, like poster giveaways and team photos, Sprague said. 

"The Jays have been great about asking us who we locally work with on projects through this whole thing," Sprague said.

Zalenski said the cutouts project was a "shot in the arm" for his company, which has seen activity pick up in some other printing categories, including social distancing signs for businesses.

He's looking forward to seeing the cutouts in their seats on TV.

"I won't say it will create a tear, but I'll be full of pride," Zalenski said. "It's a lot of hard work, and working together with these guys and the others, it's part of a team approach. So there's a sense of accomplishment."

Best of all for the Jays fans who will be represented: the cutouts were printed with coded information for the buyer. When the season is over, the cutouts will be sent to the fans, a souvenir of a most unusual baseball season.

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The Blue Jays have their pitching rotation set up with their two big names getting the start for their opening two games in Sahlen Field.

Fans can get their image into the game with a cutout for $60.

Dave Zalenski, general manager of Minute Print, holds two of the 1,550 fan cutouts his company has made for Blue Jays games at Sahlen Field.

Sahlen Field is being temporarily transformed into the Blue Jays' home field.

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