Having played ball, mostly fastball, all of my life it is still a basic part of my life. And while too old, or too lazy, to continue playing, I do manage to stay with the game thanks to television and the Toronto Blue Jays.
Since they became World Series champions, although that was too many years ago to recall, they have become my favorite team. I watch even though that playing in the same division as New York’s Yankees and the Boston Red Sox you get used to the fact that another World Series is beyond reach without a lot of help.
This year, though, that help may have arrived. And one can start thinking about the playoffs, at least, once again, with that Series title now a distinct possibility.
The change came about when general manager Alex Anthopoulo decided to go out and challenge those other teams in that American League East Division.
And challenge he did.
One of his moves was to get knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey from the New York Mets in a multi-player deal. In Dickey he has the defending National League Cy Young award-winner who recorded 20 wins and a league-high 280 strikeouts while starting 33 games last season. He also got some insurance in the deal by grabbing catcher Josh Thole, who was Dickey’s main backstop last year and one of the few guys who can handle a Dickey knuckler. If you haven’t caught a real knuckleball you really can’t fathom what a difficult pitch it is, not only to catch, but to hit.
Earlier, Anthopoulo worked a huge deal with the Miami Marlins that netted him two more pitchers, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle, not to mention a talented shortstop in Jose Reyes.
It was pitching on the mind of the general manager. And to tell you what kind of a job he did in making that position stronger, his best pitcher of last year, Ricky Romero, went from being first in the starting rotation all the way down to fifth. He could fall further if he can’t prove he can get back to where they think he should be.
So as the Blue Jays continue daily workouts and pre-season games at spring training in Florida, they’ve already penciled in their starting pitchers. Dickey will start on opening day to be followed by Brandon Morrow, Buehrle, Johnson and then Romero.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I can assure you there is not a better group of starters in the majors today than the one Anthopoulo has put together.
And to show you that the GM has a desire to get his Jays back into the playoff picture, he took what I think is quite a risk in getting outfielder Melky Cabrera from the San Francisco Giants. Yes, that’s the same Cabrera who got hit with a 50-game suspension last year while on the way to an all-star and most-valuable-player season. The Jays feel Cabrera learned his lesson and will not reoffend. In fact, they think so highly of this talented fielder they gave him a two-year deal worth no less than $16 million. To be truthful, I question the move but agree that everybody deserves a second chance.
In short, what you have now is a team with as strong a pitching crew as you can get, an outfield led by sluggers Cabrera and Jose Bautista and an infield anchored by an up-and-coming star in third baseman Brett Lawrie. So things are looking good and I can’t wait to hear those words I’ve cherished for so many years: an umpire yelling “Let’s play ball!” It’s going to be a fun ride this year, I think. Or at least hope.
Having gone on last week about the treatment of goaltender Leland Irving by the Calgary Flames, I missed passing along my weekly joke. So today I’ll make up for it by providing two.
The first is about the boy showing his grandmother a school photo of him. And when she tells him it’s a lovely photo, he says his mother doesn’t like it. When the grandmother asks why, he says: “She keeps saying she wants to blow it up.”
And, finally, I was at a party the other day and found out that one of the guests did sculptures. So I went over, introduced myself, and then asked how he would sculpt an elephant. He replied: “Ever so easily. All you have to do is get a 4,000 pound brick of granite and then chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.”
