Ex-Jay Gruber turfed from hall of fame festivities
The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame removed former Blue Jays third baseman Kelly Gruber from its induction weekend festivities Friday after his actions during a Pitch Talks panel discussion a day earlier.
Gruber made a brief, awkward appearance on stage at the Homestand Sports event Thursday night with host Ashley Docking and Rogers Sportsnet broadcaster Kevin Barker in Toronto.
In a joint statement, Pitch Talks and the hall said the proceedings at the downtown Rec Room venue were stopped 45 minutes early due to Gruber’s “unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour.”
“Basically what happened was by the time he got on stage he appeared to be inebriated,” said Homestand Sports founder Kevin Kennedy. “He was just acting sort of obnoxious, kind of erratic, he was confrontational with our host, Ashley, and quite quickly I knew that this wasn’t going in the right direction.”
Gruber was one of several former Blue Jays tabbed to participate in various hall events in the lead-up to Saturday’s ceremony.
Gruber’s representative, Don Graham, emailed a statement from the former player to The Canadian Press on Friday evening.
“There’s two sides to every story and I would love to tell mine,” Gruber said. “Maybe what I said was taken the wrong way. My intention for being there was to honour my teammate and buddy Lloyd, and the interview part went south for a variety of reasons which I will detail at a later date.”