Blue Jays**Yankees**Red Sox**Orioles**Devil Rays
Those are the teams currently in Major League Baseball's AL East Division. As you all already know, I grew up near Toronto. So I pretty much grew up with the Blue Jays.
I remember the Blue Jays in 1985, when they clinched the AL East, but couldn't progress any further in the playoffs, thanks to George Brett and his Kansas City Royals. The Blue Jays from those heyday were
George Bell, Jesse Barfield, Rance Mulliniks, Lloyd Moseby, Tony Fernandez to name a few.
Of course, the AL East Division back in 1985 didn't have the Devil Rays. The Devil Rays were an expansion addition in recent years. Competition was fierce in the AL East, but the Yankees of that year are not the same as the Yankees in recent years.
Fast forward a few years, basically to wrap up those few years in between, Toronto had a lot of close calls, typically having to steal the AL East or losing the division to Cal Ripken Jr., and his Baltimore Orioles. It wasn't until 1989 when they finally won the division outright, trying and failing each year to make it into the World Series thanks to the Oakland Athletics and their "Bash Brothers", and 1991 thanks to the Minnesota Twins and Kirby Puckett.
**THE YEAR THEY FINALLY HIT IT BIG**
In 1992 - when I was 15, the Blue Jays made it past those pesky Athletics, playing Atlanta in the play offs. It was a historical series... it marked the first time a world series game was EVER played on Canadian soil. However the World Series was NOT won on Canadian soil, as the Blue Jays clinched the World Series IN Atlanta after getting Nixon to ground out to Mike Timlin (who ironically is the only remaining player from the World Series Championship team to still be playing, and he's playing for the Red Sox - our rivals). We had "The Terminator" the closer, Tom Henke, who to this day is still one of my most respected players of the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays have been around for 30 years, but Henke stands out as well as some players that we got from other teams. That to come later. Pat Borders was World Series MVP for 1992.
1993 proved to be even better - Toronto came back from their World Series win, only to return to the play offs again (remember this was before the Yankees had Jeter, A-Rod, Giambi, Abreu, and Damon), and this time they beat out the Chicago White Sox in the ALCS and went into the World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies as their opponents. This Series was a lot more interesting, and a lot more nail-biting than the first one. A lot of questions went through our heads, wondering, would they repeat? Would they fail? Would they establish themselves as a Cinderella story or would they be able to show the world that even though the AL East Division may be the strongest and the toughest of them all, the Blue Jays were just on the same level as the rest of them. For the 1993 season, we had this line up: (not in order of course, even my memory's not that excellent) Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Joe Carter, John Olerud (who flirted with .400 the entire season before ending at .363), Ed Sprague, Pat Borders (and the last two I can't remember who played shortstop and I can't remember who was the last outfielder!) Like I already mentioned, my memory's not that excellent. 7 out of 9 starters ain't bad! Kelly Gruber was, if memory serves me correct, the only Blue Jay ever to hit for the cycle. He was also on this team. Of course, I can't neglect the pitchers: Juan Guzman, Jimmy Key, Pat Hentgen, closer Duane Ward, again - my memory isn't that excellent. :)
The series opened with the Jays coming out of the gate strong, however we faltered, with Dave Stewart showing that he was human, and handing the Phillies a win on a silver platter. One of the games in Philadelphia went 9 innings and it was a high scoring game with the scoring going back and forth with the Blue Jays finally winning it 15-14 with Duane Ward closing down the Phillies at the bottom of the 9th to secure the win and to send the series back to Canadian soil.
There on Canadian soil, the sixth game of the World Series was played in Toronto, and the score was close in the bottom of the 9th, and we had the top of the order due up, we were trailing by a score of 7-6, when Paul Molitor got on base with a two-out hit, and then Joe Carter came up to bat. My father said to me around that time, "Carter has not hit a home run in a while, he is due for one." Truer words were never spoken - Carter took several pitches, and when it seemed like the Series would go to 7 games, Carter took a swing at Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams' offering and sent it out of the park for a World Series ending homerun. This was only the second of its type. Before Carter, the only world series-ending home run was hit by a Pirate, I could never spell his last name, Mazerowski (I think). Now this time it marked the first time (and er... the last time since) that the World Series was won on Canadian soil. Paul Molitor was named World Series MVP.
It was also this season that the top three batting averages for the entire league belonged to three members of the same team - Olerud, Alomar and Molitor.
Like I promised I would name some notable Blue Jay players that came to Toronto from other teams. The earliest big-name player I can remember that we "got" from other teams were: Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar who we got in exchange for Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez when we did a trade with the San Diego Padres. Devon White came over from the Anaheim Angels, now known as the Los Angeles Angels to fill in the centrefield position. We also signed Candy Maldonado. The 1993 World Series MVP, Paul Molitor played in Toronto only that 1 year, after playing in Milwaukee for so long. We also got Dave Winfield, years after the seagull "beaning" incident that happened at the old stadium in Toronto, when he was visiting as a Yankee. The story here with the seagull incident is this: When throwing a warm-up ball to the ball boy, the ball got away and hit a seagull that was sitting by the outfield fence, killing it. I mean, this was obviously an accident, and no way Winfield would have dubiously tried to kill the seagull. It flew into the stadium, and sat there, it could have flown out on its own at any time! But since it was an endangered species, Winfield was "charged" with something, I just can't remember exactly what, but as memory serves, the charges were dismissed or downplayed because it was an obvious accident. Other players include, Roger Clemens, coming from the Boston Red Sox, who won a Cy Young award with the Blue Jays, but never a World Series. David Wells pitched for the Blue Jays as well. We can boast that we had the Stolen Base King, Rickey Henderson play for the Blue Jays for a year too! Accompanying Rickey Henderson to Toronto from Oakland was Dave Stewart, a pitcher who had a no-hitter against Toronto! Jack Morris came to us from the Minnesota Twins. Even though I don't want to, but I need to mention Jose Canseco also played for the Blue Jays, he's been around, so other teams can't deny that he played for them either. We got Otis Nixon from the Atlanta Braves in the off-season following our victory over them in the 1992 World Series. There have to be a lot of other notable players, however over and over again, my memory doesn't serve me that well as much! In the most recent off season, we just got A.J. Burnett from the Florida Marlins and B.J. Ryan from the Baltimore Orioles in hopes of strengthening our pitching roster and bullpen staff.
The only players I can think of who have played for all 3 of the AL East Division teams that rival each other (the Blue Jays, Yankees and Red Sox) are the following: Roger Clemens and David Wells.
After the World Series heyday, we had a lot of young players who we developed from scratch, and we have never won a World Series since 1993 as the 1994 season was cut short due to the strike, and then once 1995 rolled around, the Blue Jays were never the same again, forced to "re-build" their players with mostly rookies. Some of those rookies can now boast great success: Carlos Delgado, now with the New York Mets, who was always dubbed the next Joe Carter in Toronto; Shawn Green, who played with the L.A. Dodgers, then with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but today it was announced that he was traded to the New York Mets, there he joins Delgado, a former teammate; Roy Halladay, the pitcher that the Blue Jay fans dubbed "Doc" started out with Toronto and to this day, he still pitches for Toronto, and he now leads all of Major League Baseball with 16 W's; Eric Hinske was a promising rookie who started out with Toronto and now he's playing for the Red Sox, due to a recent trade; Orlando Hudson, playing second base, now with the Arizona Diamondbacks; Alex Rios, outfielder, who led the majors for a short with with the highest batting average before he went on the DL and lost that lead to Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins, and he's still in Toronto; and Alex S. Gonzalez, played shortstop for the Blue Jays for a long time before being shuffled around a few teams before announcing his retirement this year.
Most of the other players who have played for Toronto were not that well-known to outside of Canada - Jimmy Key, Pat Hentgen, David Stieb (boasts a no-hitter to his credit), Duane Ward, Pat Borders to name a few. Those players were well known to the loyal Blue Jay fans and very few of them have pitched for other teams and enjoyed the same success they did with Toronto.
I had followed the Blue Jays very closely throughout high school, through their re-building. Once I went off to college in Rochester, NY, I had to bear up with the Yankees being on TV all the time as Rochester was in the same state as New York, even though Toronto was a lot closer, being right across the lake! This was when I started to overlook some of the players, just because they were rookies, but I was still a Blue Jay fan throughout college. It's in my blood, my father and grandfather were both huge baseball fans, especially the Blue Jays. In my 6 years of college, my father would update me here and there on the Blue Jays, but during those six years, the Blue Jays had the worst record and would end up either in the basement or next to the basement in the standings, it was frustrating to watch the Yankees win all of those World Serieses, knowing that they were coming from the same division as my Blue Jays and knowing that that division is the toughest one in all of Major League Baseball.
Once I moved to Sioux Falls, my love for the Blue Jays intensified, even though I'm further away from the Blue Jays than when I was living in Rochester, this loyalty increased only in part due to my current AND former co-workers; a Padres fan; a Yankee fan; a Twins fan and a Cubs fan. The 5 of us would "butt" heads over baseball to the point where we would be making bets just for fun. I have a standing bet with the Yankee fan that the Yankees CANNOT keep their losses to 50 or below. Well, the Yankees have been quite on a streak lately (sweeping FIVE games from the second place team in your division - unheard of, but it JUST happened with the Yankees taking 5 games in Boston over the weekend) but they do have 48 losses, which means 3 more losses before I'm right and before I win the bet. This bet was originally made between 4 people, myself AND the Twin fan against the Yankee fan and the Cub fan. But the Cub fan moved to Nebraska and the Twin fan moved to (where else?) Minnesota, leaving the two of us left, and both on opposing sides of the bet, we decided to keep the bet so, as a result, I have this standing bet. *grins* looking forward to my pizza already, which is the prize that was agreed upon.
And this year, oh my goodness, the Blue Jays have improved! I've been keeping an eye on them... Reed Johnson, Frank Catalanotto, Vernon Wells, Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, Bengie Molina, Greg Zaun, Alex Rios, Aaron Hill, John McDonald - potential power hitters balanced out with reliable hitters as well as hitters who are learning the ropes... and of course cannot forget the pitching staff: Doc Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Ted Lilly, Scott Downs, Jason Frasor, B.J. Ryan, Justin Speier, and all of the other constantly changing pitchers in the bullpen. We had a chance this year, I repeat, we had a chance this year, regardless of what other people say, until we lost 7 in a row, that put us so far behind the first place team in both the AL East Division and the AL Wild Card, there is no hope for this year. However there's always next year, and we are looking good for next year. We might need to bolster our pitching staff a little bit, by adding 1 or 2 more ptichers then we should be good to go!
There's only a month and a half left in the regular season with the World Series coming up in a few months, it's going to be interesting to see who wins this year. It's still anybody's game, Detroit? Cincinnati? L.A. Dodgers? San Diego Padres? Minnesota Twins? New York Mets? Oakland Athletics? St. Louis Cardinals? and oh yeah... those New York Yankees. Only time will tell - and it's bound to get exciting as the time dwindles down towards October.
As I promised, this is a LONG post about baseball, for this is a passionate hobby of mine. Hope you enjoyed this post as I enjoyed the memories that it brought back!
