The weekend of August 7-9 was very special to baseball fans in Toronto, as members of the 1992 and 1993 World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays reunited for a number of events to raise money for the Children’s Aid and Jays Care Foundations.  I was thrilled and honored to be a part of it, as these may be the only Toronto sports teams to win a championship in my lifetime.  J

 

This was the first time these players had been reunited since the 1992 and 1993 seasons.  For many of them, it was their first visit to Toronto since the mid-90’s and the first time they had seen their former teammates in over a decade.

The Friday was spent getting 38 players to each autograph almost 300 pieces that were to be given to sponsors and donors, with the remainder sold off to raise money for the worthy causes.  Jimmy Key arrived at the hotel meeting room shortly before 8:00 a.m.  He wanted to get this done early as he had a fun day planned for his family.  Key was surprisingly quiet, but extremely accommodating.  The strange thing was that he signs his autographs with his right hand.  While well-known as one of the top left-handed pitchers in Blue Jays history (not to mention a no-hitter for the Yankees), Key does everything else right handed.

 

Apparently you do always have to watch out for the quiet ones, as Key was known as the prankster of the clubhouse.  Duane Ward told me how he once found his cleats nailed into the floor, with Key being the guilty party.

 

A short time later, the room was a zoo.  There were as many as twelve players signing at a time, accompanied by fifteen Frozen Pond staff, friends, and volunteers.  The biggest problem was that I didn’t recognize anyone.  These guys have definitely changed over the years.  I felt myself embarrassed to ask who players were. 

Joe Carter was an early signer.  He spearheaded the efforts to put this reunion together and deserves much of the credit for an extremely successful weekend.  Carter is still the most popular of all Blue Jays autograph guests, both locally and within the hobby in general.  

Candy Maldonado was extremely personable and funny.  With English not being their primary language, most Latin Americans are somewhat introverted and reserved.  Candy was the exact opposite.  The fact that he calls games for Spanish television probably has a lot to do with his bubbly demeanor. 

Where was Dave Stieb’s moustache?  The top pitcher in Jays history was as well known for his facial hair as for throwing the only no-hitter in team history (not to mention two other no-hitters and one perfect game broken up with two outs in the ninth).  Stieb was a great guest and definitely deserved his World Series ring.  But what was with that unnecessary comeback at the age of 40?  Both Stieb and Pat Tabler were upset that I took pictures of them wearing glasses, so I promised them both that neither photo would be published.

Woody Williams only retired from baseball last year and still looks like he could pitch today.  It bothers me that some of these guys are still roughly the same age or younger than me. 

 

Part-way through the morning, we had to take nine of the players a few blocks away to the TD BBQ; another of the sponsored events for the weekend.  Little did we know that we would be greeted at the 45-minute autograph session by almost 1,500 people in line and over 5,000 fans in total.  Some good money was raised for Children’s Aid, but a lot of people went away upset over their inability to obtain autographs.  One person actually brought his unused ticket into Frozen Pond the next day and asked for a refund.  Uh – sir.  That says TD BBQ on it, not Frozen Pond BBQ. 

 

Back to the hotel, and the place was a madhouse.  While all players had been given a designated time to sign, they pretty well just ignored their itinerary and showed up whenever they wanted.  So our well planned, evenly spaced autograph sessions turned into overcrowded rooms followed by needless periods of down time.  Major League Baseball was conducting interviews with all the players in the room next door, and several of the player’s friends and family members sat in on the festivities.  There was a lot going on.

Roberto Alomar was accompanied by his gorgeous wife, Maria.  I have always liked Robbie and feel he gets a bad rap in the press.  We have worked together previously and I find him to be extremely easy going and personable.  He is eligible for Hall of Fame induction next year and I would love to see him get in on the first ballot.

I was one of the million-plus people parading up Yonge Street after the Jays ’92 Series victory.  Co-incidentally, so was Rob Butler.  The local boy was celebrating with the rest of us in ’92, and in ’93 he was actually part of the team.  That’s a great story.  Butler finished his career with a .500 batting average in the World Series (1 for 2).

It was nice to see Pat Borders.  He and I hit the road a couple of times in 1993, appearing at Shopping Malls across southern Ontario to sign autographs.  He would draw 800-1,000 people each time and a ton of money would be made.  Ahhh – the good old days.  I had not seen or heard from Pat in over fifteen years, and today he is pretty much a recluse.  He lives in northern Florida, his eighth child is due next month, no one has his phone number, and he has no interest in reliving his past.  He is still a great guy though, and he definitely enjoyed rekindling some old friendships, especially with Todd Stottlemyre.

Numerous players told me that Danny Cox is the funniest guy you will ever meet and sometimes their sides would hurt from laughing so loud.  He also looks a lot like “East Bound and Down’s” Kenny Powers.

Dave Stewart taught me that his evil stare down was nothing but an act, as the guy could not have been any friendlier.  Stewart was the Jays Assistant GM for a while and is now a player agent.  He was the 1989 World Series MVP while a member of Oakland.

Alfredo Griffin is the first base coach for the Los Angeles Angels.  If the reunion had been two weeks later, he would not even have had to make a special trip into Toronto.  He told me that Damaso Garcia, my childhood favorite, is still fighting a brain tumor and is an “extremely strong individual”.  He did not make it sound like “Damo” had a lot of time left with us.

I will not comment on Kelly Gruber.

Tom Henke is extremely tall (they all are to me) and still has that down-home southern drawl that made him such a “regular guy” fan favorite during his time here.  I’m telling you, most of these guys were so nice that they could be classified as hockey players.

Dave Winfield works for ESPN and was basically in and out.  He signed a handful of pieces for the corporate sponsors, but his exclusivity contract with a U.S. company prevented him from affixing his signature to all the team-autographed product.  We did manage to sneak a few in though.

 

We tried to bring all the players in to Frozen Pond for public autograph sessions over the course of the weekend, but busy schedules and early-Sunday flights prevented a number of them from participating.  Some of these players’ signatures are in extremely high demand by Jays collectors because they are seldom seen in this neck of the woods.  Guys like Manny Lee, Mark Eichhorn, and Al Leiter would have drawn large crowds if they were able to stick around.

 

By about 4:00 p.m., the only player that had not signed all the merchandise was David Cone.  I had seen him at the BBQ earlier in the day, but he did not make his way into the hotel meeting room and no one was able to find him.  It turns out that he had a migraine and was out like a light all afternoon.  It’s too bad, because his is another high demand signature for Jays fans.  A perfect game and a Cy Young Award have obviously helped contribute to his popularity.

 

By the time the day was finished, almost 12,000 autographs had been signed. 

 

Randy Knorr was originally scheduled to attend, but an illness in his family prevented his participation.  Darnell Coles had to cancel when the Washington Nationals had coaching duties for him, and Mike Timlin was a last-minute scratch when the Colorado Rockies talked him out of retirement and signed him to a minor league deal.

 

Rickey Henderson was being honored by the Padres the same weekend, and David Wells had much earlier booked an African safari with his family.  Derek Bell was unable to attend as he is either in jail on possession charges or in rehab, depending on the source.

The Jays were honored on field at the Rogers Centre that night, and it would have been really great if more than 30,000 fans had decided to attend.  Back in the glory days, there were 51,000 plus people at EVERY game, as the Jays became the first team ever to draw more than 4 million fans in a season.  I watched the game with the players from a very large, fully catered private suite, which was a really cool experience.

The next morning, we had WAMCO (White, Alomar, Molitor, Carter, Olerud) in the store for a public autograph session.  The place was a mad house.  Collectors came from all over North America to attend, the first getting in line at 4:00 a.m.  I’m just angry that we did not have more time, since I would have loved to get a couple hundred pieces done for ourselves.  Since it was a charity event, the players were appearing for a fraction of their normal appearance fees, and our efforts were entirely donated.  Needless to say, a lot of money was raised on this morning.

John Olerud was easily the player most in demand.  The 1993 batting champion made one appearance at a Jays game in 2006, but aside from that has rarely been back to visit.  Olerud was always known for being one of the quietest and friendliest baseball players you could ever meet, and he did not disappoint.  He is also ridiculously tall and I truly enjoyed his company.  Olerud has a special needs daughter (as does Henke) and spends much of his time raising money for various charitable causes that target special needs children.  You don’t wish something like this on anyone, but John and wife Kelly feel blessed that their daughter Jordan has given them a unique opportunity to give back to others through the foundation they created in her name.

 

From WAMCO, we were off to the Gala Dinner, where another $45,000 was raised through the Live and Silent Auctions and the raffle.  It was a great night filled with video clips, interviews, and trips down memory lane.

Sunday morning had us at a hotel ballroom near the airport, where 11 more players were poised to take part in public autograph sessions.  Ed Sprague had originally refused this appearance, but then changed his mind six days earlier and was added to the list.  He ended up being our top-seller.  I had no idea how much demand there was for Ed Sprague signatures.

Pat Hentgen, the 1996 Cy Young winner, said that miscommunication was the reason he was not originally scheduled to appear.  He told me a day earlier that he would be driving Dave Stieb to the hotel for his autograph appearance, as they were going fishing immediately thereafter.  Since he was going to be there anyways, we may as well include him in the lineup.  I let Pat know that it was too late to include him in any ads and that we didn’t have any merchandise of him available, but he said he didn’t care and hopefully he could help raise a little money for the charities.

 

I was shocked when he ended up taking in over $1,000.  I asked him to imagine how well he could have done with 48 hours notice.

Duane Ward turned out to be the anti-Key.  Ward was a fire-balling righty, who signs autographs and does everything else with his left hand.  He said Dale Murphy was the same way, but what are the chances of having two of these guys on the same team?  Who writes with one hand and throws with the other?  Ward is an extremely knowledgeable baseball guy who would love to be a TV or radio analyst for the Jays one day.

In fact, most of the players would love jobs with the Jays.  Paul Beeston (the only guy ever to conduct an autograph session with an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth the entire time) estimated that at least twenty players would ask him about employment over the weekend, with Alomar perhaps being the most public one.  While these guys do not need the money (with a few notable exceptions), they all miss the camaraderie and really want to be part of a team again.  These were the most spoken words in interviews over the weekend; that they all miss the team concept.  These players spent more time with each other than they did with their wives and families, and constant winning made showing up for work every day a ton of fun.  They would love to be invited to Spring Training as guest instructors, even for nominal pay.  They live for Fantasy Camps and wish these reunions could be a regular event.

The Sunday concluded with Shopping Channel appearances featuring Rob Butler, Duane Ward, and myself.  A lot of money was raised through these shows.  The team-signed merchandise actually turned out quite well.  We had developed a lithograph to get signed, but the Blue Jays rejected it and came up with one of their own.  I still like ours better, but it would not have signed nearly as well.  We still have some multi-signed product available for sale (shameless plug), but I really wish we had done a whole lot more.  This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The weekend would have to be construed as an unqualified success. Huge crowds greeted the players at all public appearances and most everyone went away happy.  The players were thrilled, the sponsors were thrilled, and the fans were given a special treat.  Hopefully a similar event will happen in the near future.