If These Walls Could Talk: Toronto Blue Jays: Stories from the Toronto Blue Jays Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box

By Bob Elliott and Pat Gillick

Since their inception in 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays have been one of the most dynamic franchises in all of baseball. As an award-winning, longtime Jays columnist, Bob Elliott has witnessed more than his share of that history up close and personal. In If These Walls Could Talk: Toronto Blue Jays, Elliott provides insight into the Jays' inner sanctum as only he can. Readers will gain the perspective of players, coaches, and front office executives in times of greatness as well as defeat, making for a keepsake no fan will want to miss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Apr 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641254243

Book preview

To those who saved my life: Angela, Savannah, Lou, and Geoff, plus John, William, Angie, and Allen in Okotoks, Alberta.

Contents

Foreword by Pat Gillick

Introduction

Part I: 1992

Ken Dayley, Pittsburgh Loses NLCS; Toronto Wins ALCS, Jays Win World Series

Part II: 1993

Joe Carter’s Walk-Off Home Run, The St. Paul Connection: Molitor Replaces Winfield

Part III: The 22-Year Lull

Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado: Two Who Should Have Stayed, Manager Jim Fregosi Could Light Up a Room, The Rocket’s Back-to-Back Cy Young Awards, The Scouts Are the Backbone of the Blue Jays’ Success

Part IV: 2015–16

Jose Bautista, Anthopoulos Wins His Bets, Bautista and Encarnacion Go Deep

Part V: A Pair of San Antonio Roses

Cito Gaston and John Gibbons

Part VI: Hall of Fame Blue Jays

Robbie Alomar, Roy Halladay, Pat Gillick, Tom Cheek

Part VII: The Present and Future

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Kids

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Pat Gillick

The first time I met Bob Elliott was at the 1983 Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee. He was there covering the Montreal Expos, but on this day, the Blue Jays’ and the Expos’ daily press briefings were at different times, so he visited our suite.

That day we had selected two players in the Rule 5 draft: Kelly Gruber from the Cleveland Indians organization and catcher Terry Cormack from the Atlanta Braves. Our public relations man, Howard Starkman, had written releases on both players, and the statistics that were handed out to writers and a few other papers were laying in a stack on the coffee table. Halfway through our daily question period, there was a knock on the door—like in Parliament—and a young man from room service arrived with a cart. He had two fresh coffee urns, bottles of water, and cans of soda.

He looked tired, so I asked him to sit down, gave him the two press releases, and asked, Which one will play the most games in the majors? The young man studied all the stats and decided on Cormack.

Why Cormack? Because Gruber is an ugly name, he said before he headed back to work.

It was funny, but Elliott was howling. I guess there wasn’t much fooling around in the Expos’ suite.

Gruber played 10 years in the majors—nine for us—winning a Gold Glove at third base and being part of our 1992 World Series champion team. Cormack never made the majors. He peaked at Double A Greenville, South Carolina, and two years later at Double A Chattanooga, Tennessee.

That incident from the Winter Meetings was my first memory of meeting Elliott. It wasn’t my last. He was always around when he moved to Toronto before the 1987 season and was always phoning me at home. Finally, I put an end to that during the 1987 postseason. He had phoned Starkman and asked him a question about a contract. Then he phoned assistant general manager Gord Ash and asked the same question. Ash told him to talk to me. By the time Elliott called me, I had already called his boss, Wayne Parrish, and told him I did not like Elliott’s style.

Elliott used the phone as a weapon and he would continually call back with one more question. It got to the point that when we were sitting in our offices around the speakerphone, we’d hang up, and five seconds later, the phone would ring again. Ash was the first to say, Ah, a supplementary question from the member from Kingston and the Islands.

Our president Paul Beeston always used to get Elliott, the former Expos writer, going by congratulating him. He would look puzzled, and Paul would say: On being promoted to the majors—enough of the minors for you. No more National League.

After I stopped working for the Blue Jays, I got to know him better. We went north to Brampton one night to see a friend of his son’s pitch. Of course, I didn’t trust him with the directions to the park. His were wrong. It was lucky I had called someone. I drove the Jaguar I bought from Dave Stieb to the game. Someone stole the hood ornament that night, and Elliott still hasn’t paid me to replace that.

Jim Fregosi, who managed both the Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies, knew Elliott helped out as a pitching coach on off nights at the sandlot level. Fregosi called him Mississauga’s Mel Queen.

I have read and known plenty of writers over the years. The thing about Elliott is that he always worked hard and he always respected our scouts and the work that they did. We had plenty of good reads when I was in Toronto, including Trent Frayne, Milt Dunnell, Jim Proudfoot, Dave Perkins, Larry Millson, Wayne Parrish, and Ken Fidlin. Elliott was not the best. He was the most persistent.

When the Baseball Writers of America Association elected him one morning in Dallas, I snuck inside their meeting. He started to speak, and I did my impression of columnist Mark Whicker impersonating Elliott, but he heard me and tried to get the sergeant-at-arms to kick me out. I’ve heard him speak when he was honored at Cooperstown and St. Marys. Well, mumble is probably a better word. I have no idea how he won the Brian Williams award named for the Canadian sports broadcasting icon. Elliott could not have been honored for his speaking.

From those who read the newspaper when I came to Toronto to those who read the Canadian Baseball Network now, I think Blue Jays fans will enjoy this compilation of stories.

—Pat Gillick, Toronto Blue Jays general manager 1978–1994

Introduction

Credit Lance Hornby, the hockey writer. Or blame Lance Hornby.

Since June 1, 2016, when I left the newspaper business to focus on my Canadian Baseball Network website, I had five people ask me to write books. I said no to all of them. Then one day in the winter Lance, author of If These Walls Could Talk: Toronto Maple Leafs, asked me to write a book. I was about 80 percent hooked and then I spoke with Chris Haft, who wrote the great read If These Walls Could Talk: San Francisco Giants. He ought to be in sales. I was convinced.

My debut covering the Toronto Blue Jays wasn’t really about the Blue Jays at all. The boss of the Ottawa Citizen sports section thought it would be a good idea to do a couple of features on former Triple A 1951 Ottawa Giants managing in the majors. George Bamberger, who pitched for Ottawa, was managing the Milwaukee Brewers while Billy Gardner, who played third base for Ottawa, was running the Minnesota Twins in 1985.

Bob Ferguson and I shared the Montreal Expos beat from 1978 to 1980, and then I took over in the spring of 1981. The Expos lost 3–2 to the New York Mets on July 29, 1985. The next morning the constant ringing of the phone in my Manhattan hotel room finally won a war to wake me up. The boss said, You’re in the wrong city. Get to Baltimore. The Blue Jays just brought up Tom Henke.

So off I was on the train to Maryland…and spent the final six weeks of the 1985 season either at the Sheraton Hotel in Toronto or on the road with the Blue Jays. There was a distinct difference in covering the two teams. In Montreal everyone would get on an elevator and head into the manager’s office—whether it was Dick Williams, Jim Fanning, Bill Virdon, or Buck Rodgers, my fave. At Exhibition Stadium everyone would pile into the cramped elevator, head into the clubhouse, and, especially if it was a tough loss, the manager’s office was empty. Bobby Cox could be found sitting on a stool talking with some of his coaches.

My first byline was April 4, 1966, for The Kingston Whig-Standard. And 50 years later I had another byline. There was a time when being a sportswriter meant traveling the world, and I went to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Greece, and Moscow. A three-day trip arranged through the Cuban consulate in Ottawa resulted in a week’s stay in Havana and seeing the best player not in the majors: Omar Linares.

Visits to Puerto Rico were to interview the likes of Carlos Delgado and Robbie Alomar as well as the Blue Jays–Texas Rangers opener. I became a regular visitor to the Dominican, making maybe eight trips there while writing my George Bell book, plus visits to see Alfredo Griffin, Tony Fernandez, and Raul Mondesi.

In 2004 I headed to Italy for a pre-Olympic tournament. The bottom line in the gold-medal game was a victory for Canada that ­featured a total of five home-plate collisions. Stubby Clapp played like a ­linebacker. And then I went off to Athens, where Kevin Nicholson hit a drive into the wind in left. Off the bat it looked like a three-run, game-tying homer. Watch the Cuban third baseman hang his head when you see the replay.

The trip to Moscow didn’t involve a lengthy flight. Actually, in 1989 I was on my way to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, when I read a sign that Moscow, Idaho, was roughly 10 miles away. I followed the sign, stopped at a 7-Eleven for a soda, and headed back on my way to Pullman.

One year on the way to the annual Chipola College Indians alumni game, featuring Jose Bautista, in Marianna, Florida, I read another sign which read Dothan, Alabama, 10 miles. I did the same. As I left, I said, Roll Tide. The woman said she was part of an Auburn family. The point of going to Alabama was to check another state off my list since I was attempting to go 48-for-48 visiting U.S. states. I fell short, missing these 11: Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont.

Apparently, my conversation starter is usually, So…what’s going on? Pat Gillick had been in Pullman the day before to see John Olerud. Between games of the doubleheader, I introduced myself to Olerud, and he said, So…what’s going on?

Before covering baseball there were trips to Nykoping, Sweden (hockey), Gevinghausen, Germany (skiing), and Karlstad, Sweden (curling). Through my travels I have been to 28 of the stadiums still open and 25, which have closed. (I have not been to Nationals Park or Sun Trust Park.) Omar Vizquel and I used to play the game of who has been in the most major league parks. We used to have a running total. I ended at 53.

If you ask anyone in North America about Canada’s largest city, Toronto, they will say, It’s a hockey town. Well, it wasn’t a hockey town in October of 1992 when the Blue Jays brought the first World Series trophy north of the border. It wasn’t a hockey town a year later when Joe Carter homered against Philadelphia Phillies. Fans filled the streets waving flags and honking horns. There was some indication that a few had had a beer or two.

It was not a hockey town when Alex Anthopoulos remade the roster at the trade deadline, turning a .500 club into one with World Series aspirations in 2015. Walking into the Rogers Centre was like walking through a sea of blue. Fans tossed beer cans from the upper deck. And it was not a hockey town the next year, as fans wore even more blue and made the old barn almost as noisy as the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome.

Whatever the year, it has been fun to watch the Blue Jays. There’s been nothing like watching Devon White hit a triple, Alomar dive in short right-field before there was a shift, Olerud kick up chalk in back-to-back at-bats on the left- and right-field lines, Juan Guzman throw the ball in the dirt and Pat Borders block it for strike three, Delgado turn on an inside fastball, Vernon Wells’ cheeks swell like a puffer fish as he connects, or, of course, Duane Ward overpower hitters.

Part I: 1992

Ken Dayley

Reliever Ken Dayley threw a grand total of five innings for the Toronto Blue Jays in three seasons. Since the Blue Jays’ debut in 1977, Dayley entered the 2020 season tied for 362nd in total innings pitched. The list goes from all-time leader Dave Stieb (2,873 innings), Jim Clancy (2,204 ⅔), and Roy Halladay (2,046

⅔

) to John Bale and Ryan Feieraband (5 ⅔ innings), and Don Cooper (5 ⅓). But among club insiders, Dayley’s presence in Toronto will never be forgotten.

When the Blue Jays attempted to recruit the free-agent Dayley, it was at the end of the 1990 offseason. At the time the Blue Jays had put together eight straight winning seasons with homegrown talent. They reached the American League Championship Series in 1985 when they brought a 3–2 lead home to Exhibition Stadium against the Kansas City Royals. They lost Game 6 by a 5–3 score and by a score of 6–2 in Game 7. When the upstart Jays won the division on October 5 by beating the New York Yankees, the Toronto Sun’s front-page headline read, WE DID IT! On October 17 the headline in The Globe and Mail read, They blew it.

Toronto reached the ALCS in 1989, losing in five games to the Oakland A’s as they were outhomered 7–3 by the Bash Brothers and outscored 26–21. The Jays were not just beaten…they were humiliated. Rickey Henderson ran wild with eight stolen bases, including two in which he stopped at 88 feet with his hands on his hips and taunted catcher Ernie Whitt to throw the ball. Dave Parker went deep and took the great Northern Circle route to first—almost entering the dugout. After Game 2 insults were tossed by both sides, including Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, Todd Stottlemyre, and Kelly Gruber. In the final game, Cito Gaston insisted that the umpires search A’s closer Dennis Eckersley for an emery board. When Eckersley showed an empty glove, Gaston demanded umpire Rick Reed search Eckersley.

The Blue Jays experienced the Meltdown in Motown after the Jays took three of four while shortstop Tony Fernandez was injured in the first game. The Blue Jays lost the final game at the Ex when they were three outs away from sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the series and being four-and-a-half games up with six games to play. Kirk Gibson homered off closer Tom Henke to lead off the ninth. Both teams scored in the 11th inning, and Gibson blooped a single to center field, while facing Jose Nunez, to score Jim Walewander with the game-winner in the 13th inning.

Writers entered the Jays’ silent clubhouse on the Sunday after the extra-inning miss. Players were thinking about the one that got away. Finally, the silence was broken as Rance Mulliniks yelled in his high-pitched voice: If you don’t like three wins out of four, you don’t like big tits.

The silence was broken.

Ken Fidlin of the Sun reported the quote as Mulliniks said it, but another paper changed it to: If you don’t like three wins out of four, you don’t like ice cream.

The Jays lost their next six—three at home to the Milwaukee Brewers, as Whitt hurt his ribs, and three in Detroit. The three-game series with the Tigers was close, but Jimy Williams’ Jays got swept as Doyle Alexander won the opener 4–3. Alexander wore the same yellow sweater to the park that he did when he pitched for Toronto and beat the Yankees to clinch in 1985. The Jays allowed three unearned runs in the series against the Tigers, losing the second game 3–2 in 12 innings when Mike Flanagan outpitched Jack Morris. Then lefty Frank Tanana blanked the Jays 1–0 on a fence scraper of a home run by Larry Herndon.

Mulliniks, Lloyd Moseby, Juan Beniquez, and Rick Leach spent time in front and behind MVP winner George Bell in the three games at Tiger Stadium, combining to go 7-for-31 while Fernandez and Whitt were injured. Bell finished the season 2-for-26, including an infield single. So into the 1990 offseason the Blue Jays—except in news­papers they were often called the Blow Jays—headed.

Pat Gillick was in the midst of his Stand Pat days, not making a major deal from August 31, 1987 (Jose Mesa and Oswaldo Peraza to the Baltimore Orioles for lefty Mike Flanagan) until April 30, 1989 (Jesse Barfield to the Yankees for lefty Al Leiter). That span lasted 609 days.

All of which brings us to Dayley. The Jays went all out to sign the free-agent reliever, who was coming off six full seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals (1985–90). The lefty was 23–26 with a 2.98 ERA in 324 games, walking 141 and fanning 287 in 369 innings. Former Atlanta Braves and Jays reliever Jim Acker called Dayley to sell him on Toronto since the two had roomed together with the Braves. Acker told Dayley that Tommy Lasorda, the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were also competing for his services, was an arm killer because he got relievers up at the slightest hint of a rally.

Meanwhile, the turning point of the offseason happened during the Jays’ organizational meetings. Jays scout Wilbur Moose Johnson will never be confused with the Seattle mascot. The Mariners’ Moose attempts to entertain; the Jays’ Moose attempts to motivate.

When the deep thinkers gathered at the end of the 1990 season, the club’s special assignment scout owned the room. Looking back, those meetings were the main reason the Jays’ roster was overhauled. The executives went under the hood for some heavy duty customizing. Those two days of meetings charted the course for the 1991 season that sent the Jays charging into December’s Winter Meetings with seldom-seen ­bravado. A third of the way through the first day, Moose stood up and said it was time we started to focus on winning a World Series, said assistant general manager Gord Ash. Moose was saying there comes a time when you have to move on to another level of success. Having a winning record and finishing first in the AL East wasn’t good enough anymore. We needed to be good enough to reach the World Series—and win it.

Ash recalled veteran executive Al LaMacchia getting up and saying, He was sick and tired of being a bridesmaid.

Developing players was fine, but we had to target our weakness and improve now, Ash said. It wasn’t like we had never thought of winning the World Series before, but it had always been an unspoken goal. Outside of Paul Beeston and LaMacchia, we didn’t have a whole lot of rah-rah, ‘Let’s-go-get-’em’ guys. We had always tried to win and we had been successful for a long period of time. But…we’d never won it all.

Johnson’s speech was not forgotten. The words sunk in. The Jays set about to identify their weaknesses and went completely out of character. Gillick and his aides targeted their needs in the same manner a prudent Granny makes up a Christmas list in July so she can spoil her grand­children, who already have everything. Our goal was always to win it. That’s understood, Gillick said. But I think it was good the way Moose stood up and made the point.

First on the Jays’ list was a left-handed reliever. In November they outbid the Dodgers and signed Dayley, who became only the third free-agent acquisition in franchise history. Since the SkyDome had become a mailing address for line drives in the gap, the Jays next wanted to improve their outfield defense.

On December 2 the Jays, the same team that went 609 days without a major league deal, made a trade. Stand Pat shed his nickname by moving problem child Junior Felix and infielder Luis Sojo (projected as a backup) along with minor league catcher Kenny Rivers to the Angels for Devon White and