Franchise bests/worsts: Toronto Blue Jays
Born as an expansion team in 1977, the Blue Jays have won the World Series twice and made the playoffs five times. Roberto Alomar is the only Jays player to have his uniform number (12) retired.
We are venturing through the history of each of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, discussing some of the best and worst moments, players, teams, etc. It's more a fun snapshot for discussion purposes than a be-all, end-all declaration. We continue with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Although the city of Toronto was considered as a possible landing spot for several franchises in the late 1960s and early '70s, MLB didn't come to Ontario until March 1976, when the American League voted to expand. By developing a farm system through all form of drafts, along with making themselves a presence in the Dominican Republic, the Jays by the mid-80s went from 100-game losers to contenders in the tough American League East.
Best team(s): 1992 and 1993
It's hard to argue against back-to-back World Series champions. Two in a row; now that's making the most of your resources. (How did the New York Yankees of various eras, or the Oakland Athletics of the 1970s, win three straight?) Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, John Olerud, Devon White, Juan Guzman (not Jose), Pat Hentgen, Duane Ward — all among a great collection of talent assembled by general manager Pat Gillick.
Best team that didn't win a World Series: 1985
Bobby Cox's crew won 99 games, the most in club history, with dominating players in all phases. The outfield of George Bell, Jesse Barfield and Lloyd Moseby was the envy of every other team in the majors, so it seemed. The third-base platoon of Rance Mulliniks and Garth Iorg sounded funny, but few teams were better off. Tony Fernandez and Damaso Garcia were the weakest links in the lineup, which got plus offense from catcher Ernie Whitt (and everywhere else in the lineup).
Dave Stieb, Doyle Alexander, Jimmy Key and Jim Clancy all pitched above average in the rotation, as did a deep bullpen of Dennis Lamp, Gary Lavelle, Jim Acker, Bill Caudill and Tom Henke.
The '87 team also was very good, but the pitching that for season — which was effective by 1987 standards — just wasn't as deep. The team's defense in '85 was better than in '87, too.
Worst flop: '85
They led the Kansas City Royals three games to one in the ALCS, and couldn't put them away.
Worst team: 1979
Lost 109 games, a team record, and had the worst combined offense and pitching relative to the league. The 1977 team also was bad, particularly on defense (like, holy moly, they were bad). But '79 also signaled the coming of Stieb, perhaps the franchise's best pitcher until Roy Halladay. Alfredo Griffin also debuted, helping to signal a payoff from the Dominican Republic.
Best player: Roberto Alomar
The only player in the Hall of Fame wearing a Jays cap on his plaque, Alomar did more than hit a key home run against Dennis Eckersley to help turn the 1992 ALCS, but it's probably the moment that most Jays fans remember most about him:
The Jays led the series two games to one, but trailed the A's by as many as five runs in Game 4. Alomar came to bat in the ninth against Eckersley, who would win the AL MVP and Cy Young that season. Instead of closing out the Jays, Eckersley allowed a two-run homer that tied the score. The Jays went ahead in the 11th and won 7-6, and came within one victory of the franchise's first World Series.
Best manager: Bobby Cox
He managed only four seasons, but was 63 games above .500 from 1982-1985 and took the club to its first postseason.
Worst manager's résumé: Tim Johnson
In what remains one of the strangest stories in MLB history, Johnson went 88-74 in 1998 as a rookie skipper, but was fired the following spring training because of complications from telling tall tales. Johnson wasn't a combat vet in the Marines during Vietnam, and UCLA never offered him a basketball scholarship, though he led people to believe otherwise. From the New York Times:
Under threat of losing his job, the 49-year-old Johnson met early in spring training with players who were with the team last season and apologized to them. He said he felt the meeting enabled him to put the matter behind him.
''I wanted to talk to them about a problem I had, guilt I had for so many years, 30 years,'' Johnson said two weeks ago in Tampa, Fla., meaning guilt he felt for never having served in Vietnam while he was in the Marines. ''We talked about it and the response was unbelievable. I got all choked up because of the support I got from these players.''
Gord Ash, the Toronto general manager, said Johnson did what he had to do to try to make his presence as manager work.
''I think he tried to get things settled,'' Ash said by telephone from Dunedin, Fla., ''but there continued to be an unsettled feeling in camp, a distracted feeling that interfered with players getting the job done on the field. My intuition told me if not now, it would happen 30 or 45 days from now. I couldn't risk the season.''
The Jays hired Jim Fregosi and won 84 games, finishing in third place.
Best opening day: 1977
It happened to be the franchise's first opening day, April 7, 1977, when Doug Ault hit two home runs against the Chicago White Sox in a 9-5 victory. In the video above, Ault tells funny anecdotes about the game itself — which was played in sub-freezing temperatures with snow and ice having to be Zamboni'd off the Exhibition Stadium field — and also about a prize he won for his performance:
"A dealership wanted to give me use of a car for the season. A Datsun 280-Z. Fine, great! Little did I know, they plastered my name with "Blue Jays" on the side of it. Well, I couldn't go anywhere — naturally! That was the biggest mistake I've ever made in baseball."
Ault also noted that fans were booing in the first inning, as soon as the first two Jays batters had made outs, with the home team trailing 2-0. It might have seemed rude and impatient, but consider this:
Worst prohibition: 1977-1982
Ontario government regulations prohibited the sale of beer at the park.
What the heck, eh?! A beer ban at a ballpark? And in Canada, no less, where beer is consumed in earnest? Well, it's true — the Blue Jays didn't sell beers at home games until 1982, five whole seasons into existence. In the years that followed, isolated incidents led to the provincial government banning alcohol sales again from time to time.
Best moment: 'Touch 'em all, Joe'
Only 16 game-ending home runs have been hit in the World Series, and Joe Carter's blast in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 in 1993 was the second Series-ender in history. Tom Cheek, the Jays' legendary radio play-by-play guy, gave a memorable call to Carter's history making moment.
Best tease: Dave Stieb
Four times, Stieb took a no-hitter into the ninth inning and lost it. Two of his near-no-no's came with one out to go in consecutive starts in 1988. A year later, Stieb lost a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning, the infamous Roberto Kelly non-strike-call game. And then, finally, in 1990, a real-live no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians:
Best trade: Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar
It's likely that the Jays don't win one World Series, much less two, without trading Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez for Alomar and Carter before the 1990 trade deadline. They got the best player in the deal (Alomar), along with a guy who actually won a World Series with a home run. Fred McGriff was awesome, though — a much better hitter than Carter overall. (Like, it's not even close, don't try to argue, not gonna listen.)
Best lopsided trade: Robinzon Diaz to the Pirates for Jose Bautista in 2008
Spelling his first name with a "Z" instead of the usual "S" is cool and all, but Jose Bautista has hit 203 homers since joining the Jays. Diaz, still something of a Class 4-A player, has one career homer in 148 plate appearances.
Worst trade: David Wells and Matt DeWitt for Mike Sirotka, Mike Williams, Kevin Beirne and Brian Simmons in 2001
Not only did Wells continue to be effective from age 38-43, but Sirotka had a bum shoulder (it turned out) and never pitched for the Jays or anyone else again. Toronto appealed to the commissioner's office, saying the White Sox had withheld information, but commissioner Bud Selig wasn't sympathetic. From the Associated Press:
Selig's ruling basically said the Blue Jays were responsible for checking out the health of the players it wanted to acquire. He used the Latin phrase for "buyer beware."
"The 'caveat emptor' rule, as developed in baseball, to which exceptions are exceedingly rare, is meant to decrease the potential for disputes by placing the burden on the acquiring club to seek the medical information it feels it needs," he said.
"It is my wish and expectation that disputes such as this will be rare, and that clubs will continue to deal with each other in trade matters in a forthright and professional manner."
Jays GM Gord Ash was fired later that season.
Best view: Anywhere inside of Rogers Centre with a line of sight into the hotel rooms
The ballpark, formerly known as SkyDome, has an exhibitionist history, which is funny because the Blue Jays used to play in Exhibition Stadium. Need more details? This NSFW link is, to repeat, not safe for work.
Best sign stealer: 'The Man in White'
Or so goes the story, that a mysterious man wearing a white shirt, perched in the center-field bleachers, "would stare 400-plus feet ahead, spot the catcher’s sign, then make the appropriate signal: arms raised over his head for any off-speed or breaking pitch, no signal for fastballs." Supposedly this is why Jose Bautista hits all of these home runs now. It sounds like sour grapes, though MLB history is rife with cheating — or attempts at cheating, anyhow.
Best game: Got to be June 3, 1989, when the Jays beat the Red Sox 13-11 in 12 innings after overcoming a 10-0 deficit. The victory capped a three-game sweep at Fenway Park in which Junior Felix went 8 for 16 with two homers (including an inside-the-park grand slam) and 11 RBI. The series would have been considered a coming out party for Felix, but the rest of his career wasn't as good as those three days in Boston had promised.
Up Next: On Monday, we'll look at the bests and worsts of the Tampa Bay Rays.
>> Want more franchise bests/worsts? CHC | MIL | STL | CIN | PIT | CLE | DET | MIN | CHW |KC | NYY | BOS | BAL
