Ash, Bay, Dempster head to Canadian Baseball Hall

ST. MARYS, Ont. — Former Blue Jays general manager Gord Ash wasn’t thinking about a lengthy career when he took a part-time job with the Toronto team’s ticket office in 1977. He just wanted to watch some baseball.

Ash — who started his Blue Jays career in their inaugural season before working his way up to the team’s GM job — was announced Tuesday as a member this year’s Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame induction class along with slugger Jason Bay, pitcher Ryan Dempster and coach Rob Thomson.

“I was just happy to have a job in baseball,” Ash said hours after the inductees were announced. “I enjoyed the history, the strategy, the whole aspect of the game. Just to get involved in some small way was a significant achievement at the time and [I was] clearly not thinking about the opportunity to get an honour like I have today.”

The Toronto native served in numerous roles with the team, and was the Jays GM from 1995 to 2001, drafting Roy Halladay, Vernon Wells and Alex Rios.

The four members of the 2019 induction class own a combined eight World Series rings and five all-star selections.

They will be inducted this summer in a June 15 ceremony.

Bay, a 40-year-old from Trail, played 1,278 Major League games over parts of 11 seasons with San Diego, Boston, the New York Mets, Seattle and Pittsburgh, where he won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2004 — becoming the only Canadian to do so.

The right-hitting outfielder ended his career with Seattle in 2013. He got his start with the Montreal Expos in 2000.

Dempster, from Gibsons, was selected in the third round of the 1995 draft by the Texas Rangers. The right-hander pitched in 579 games over 16 seasons for Florida, Cincinnati, Texas, the Cubs and the Red Sox, earning a spot in two all-star games, and winning the World Series with Boston in 2013.

Thomson played NCAA baseball for the University of Kansas and was chosen in the 32nd round of the draft by Detroit in 1985. The catcher/third baseman shifted his focus to coaching in 1988, serving as a minor league coach in the Tigers system for two seasons before joining the New York Yankees in 1990.