The home run that changed Jays
Next Wednesday, it will be 25 years since Roberto Alomar hit the home run that changed the DNA of the Toronto Blue Jays. Because both teams finished the 1992 regular season with the same record, it would be easy to forget this: The Oakland A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays were not equals, despite their identical 96-66 won-lost marks. The A’s had it all over them, historically and psychologically. And completely. Oakland had won the American League West four of the past five years, had won the World Series in 1989, were in the midst of their steroidal rampage, and revolved around some of the most intimidating forces in all of baseball: Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson and pitchers like Bob Welch, Dave Stewart and, most of all, Dennis Eckersley. Toronto, meanwhile, was still known as the Blow Jays. They’d allowed Kansas City to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the 1985 American League Championship Series; lost seven straight one-run games to end the 1987 season, blowing a 3.5 game lead over Detroit in a week; were never really a factor in a five-game ALCS loss to the A’s in 1989; and had chosen the wrong pitcher (Tom Candiotti instead of Juan Guzman) to start the 1991 ALCS, which they lost to the Twins in five rather simpering games. Then they lost the opener of the 1992 ALCS, right in SkyDome, to Oakland, and although they won Game 2, they headed west with only a split at home and with three games in California, many baseball fans didn’t expect them to get another game in Canada. But a return trip was indeed guaranteed when Toronto won Game 3. Oakland was always a slightly odd stop on the baseball caravan, at least in my time travelling with the Jays. For one thing, there was the “bling.” All rookie players were counselled by the veterans to save their meal money for the Oakland trip, where a high-end jewelry seller or two always seemed to be around the clubhouse. It was a rite of passage to buy rings and necklaces (diamond, with your number on it) in Oakland. And there was all that foul territory, by far the most vast in baseball, which actually didn’t suit their team makeup. Canseco hit a lot of long, loud fouls for outs that would have been out of play anywhere else, and used to complain about it all the time. Then there was the sheer force of the A’s, much of it chemically-induced as we now know. That gave them a permanent swagger that the Jays could not match … yet. In Game 4, the pivotal game in Blue Jays’ history, Eckersley made the mistake of stressing that swagger. The Jays had trailed 6-1 through seven innings but got three in the eighth, including two off Eckersley before he retired the final three batters. The last, Ed Sprague, was a strikeout and the game’s most reliable reliever not only pumped his fist, which he was prone to do he stared, hard, right into the Blue Jays dugout. You think the Rangers were a trifle upset at Jose Bautista two years ago? That was child’s play compared to the Jays’ resentment of Eckersley that day. In the ninth, Devon White led off with a triple, then Alomar came to bat. Here’s what a lot of people didn’t know about that weekend. On Saturday, Alomar’s father Sandy Sr., who had been a talented middle infielder in the major leagues, severely chastised his son for basically having too big a head. Sandy Sr. is the reason Roberto was the almost-psychic ballplayer he was, and he took his father, and older brother Sandy Jr., very seriously. The father was disappointed in his son on this Saturday — both Sandy Sr. and Roberto confirmed with me that day the no-nonsense, disciplinary nature of the discussion — and on Sunday the son came to bat, two runs down, one on, to face baseball’s best closer. And Alomar launched a screaming vector over the wall in right to tie the game. He flung his bat to the ground — just as obviously as Bautista would flip his 23 years later — and punched both his arms in the air, with two very loud messages. One to Eckersley, “Universal-Adjective You, Eck!” and one to his teammates: “We have arrived!” And the Blue Jays had arrived. After winning 7-6 in extra innings, they had come back, for a change not been come back upon, to become just the second team ever to erase a five-run deficit to win a post-season baseball game. Even though they lost the next day, they had won two of three in Oakland, and came home to finish the job in six. They were a very different 24-man bunch than they had been when they left for Oakland. Alomar, who had hit .474 in his first postseason the previous year, hit .423 against the A’s, had five stolen bases, and two home runs. He had now managed at least one hit in all 11 of his post-season games, and was voted the ALCS most valuable player. There have been some huge homers in Blue Jays history, but only two have been in the ‘momentous’ category. Joe Carter’s in 1993, because it was one of only two World Series walk-off winners, and Alomar’s because it reversed team history, arguably setting the psychological table for Carter the next October. Carter hit a home run to help win the sixth and clinching game against Oakland in 1992 and it was suggested he could be voted prime minister for that. “Don’t they have a vice-prime-minister, or something?” Carter said. “I think Robbie has the other one wrapped up.” Veteran Spectator columnist Steve Milton has pretty much seen it all in his 40 years covering sports around the world, and, in Being There, he will relive special moments from those stories, from the inside out, every Friday. If there’s a memorable sporting event you would like Steve to write about, let him know at smilton@thespec.com. Chances are, he was there.