Glory Jays: Memories of the 1993 World Series
Jays bullpen coach started Game 3 of the Fall Classic, but says greatest moment of his career came when he was on the bench
DUNEDIN, FLA.— Pat Hentgen paced. It was Oct. 19, 1993, Game 3 of the World Series, and rain was delaying the 24-year-old’s debut in the Fall Classic.
Back and forth, back and forth inside the visiting clubhouse at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, Hentgen willed the rain to stop so he could get to business on the mound.
He didn’t know it at the time, but it would be his one and only World Series game.
The Blue Jays had split the first two games in Toronto and Hentgen knew it was important to regain momentum by taking at least one game on the road.
As the delay stretched on for more than an hour, he extended his pacing route outside the clubhouse into the tunnel underneath the stands.
That’s where he bumped into his father, Pat Sr., who was also pacing nervously to kill time.
“I remember saying to him, ‘This is awesome, this is awesome,’ ” Hentgen recalled recently. “And he said, ‘Yeah, this is awesome.’ And I said, ‘OK, OK, let’s relax.’ He goes, ‘Yep, I’m relaxed, I’m relaxed.’ ”
Both men knew they weren’t fooling anybody.
Eventually the rain stopped and Hentgen struck out the first batter he faced, the free-swinging Lenny Dykstra. Immediately, a burden lifted.
“Getting the first guy is big. Once you do that it feels like someone takes a 50-pound bag off your shoulders.”
From there, he pitched six solid innings en route to a decisive 10-3 victory and a 2-1 series lead.
Four days later, Joe Carter hit the home run that made the Blue Jays back-to-back champs.
This season marks the 20th anniversary of that series against the Phillies — their second straight title — and their last visit to the post-season.
It was the first time a team had won back-to-back championships since the New York Yankees did it in 1978 and ’79. The Yankees are also the only team to accomplish the feat since, winning three straight from ’98 to 2000. Current Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie was just three years old when Hentgen pitched in Game 3, while 42-year-old reliever Darren Oliver had made his big-league debut just a few weeks earlier. Now Lawrie, Oliver and all the Jays in between — including Hentgen himself, who has returned as the team’s bullpen coach — are hoping they can reach similar heights. For now, it’s back to the past and Carter’s homer. Hentgen was watching from the dugout’s top step when Carter came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two on, one out and the Jays down 6-5. Hentgen was scheduled to pitch Game 7, and as was the custom then, he was charting the previous game’s pitchers. “As it came down towards the end of the game I thought, ‘Oh gosh, we’re really going to play Game 7’ and I thought, ‘What the heck is Cito thinking, man? I’m 24 years old, my second year in the big leagues and I’m going Game 7? We’ve got (Dave) Stewart and (Jack) Morris and all these other guys.’ ” Before he could spend any more time worrying, he watched the ball jump off Carter’s bat. “As he hit the ball, your first instinct is to hope it stays fair because Joe was such a hook hitter — everything that leaves his bat in that trajectory is usually hooking foul — and when he hit the ball I remember saying, ‘Stay fair! Stay fair!’ ” Of course it stayed fair and Hentgen didn’t have to worry about pitching in Game 7. All he remembers from the celebration is chucking the clipboard aside and joining the mob. “I’m claustrophobic so I didn’t get into the middle of the pileup. I was on the outside looking in.” Hentgen considers neither Carter’s homer nor his own start in Game 3 as his personal highlight of the series, though. For Hentgen, the highlight came after Game 4, a game in which he didn’t even pitch. In fact, he ranks the moment as the highlight of his entire career, ahead of his 1996 Cy Young and three all-star appearances. “I’ll never forget it.” Overshadowed by Carter’s walk-off dramatics in Game 6, the Jays’ lateinning rally in Game 4 may have actually been more improbable. Down 14-9 heading into the 8th frame, the Jays looked all but beaten while the Phillies were primed to even the series. But the Jays batted around, pummelling the Phillies’ bullpen for six runs on five hits and two walks to take a 15-14 lead. Mike Timlin and Duane Ward kept the Phillies at bay and the Jays had a 3-1 stranglehold on the series. What happened next is what Hentgen will never forget. In the clubhouse after the game, all 25 players spontaneously formed a circle and started clapping in unison. “Like high school football,” Hentgen says. “It was the most unbelievable thing. I get chills thinking about it. I don’t know if it affected other players back then the way it affected me, but man, I’ll tell ya, it was the highlight of my career.”
He isn’t sure who started the clapping or how it came about, only its inspirational heft.
After that spirited comeback, Hentgen says, the Jays knew the series was theirs.
“There’s such a huge difference between 2-2 and 3-1 and I think it was just that combined with the great comeback in the ninth. We knew going up 3-1 with Guzman, Stewart and myself coming back we had a good chance to win one of those games and win the World Series again.”
At his introductory press conference back in January, R.A. Dickey referenced the ’93 World Series on two occasions when he spoke of Toronto’s “baseball pedigree.”
“I watched on TV as Joe Carter hit that ball out and the place going wild, seeing the energy of this community as it got behind the Blue Jays.”
Dickey would have been just shy of his 19th birthday back then, beginning his collegiate baseball career and studying English lit at the University of Tennessee.
He said part of the reason why he signed an extension to stay in Toronto was the potential for this latest incarnation of the Jays to return the organization to its former glory.
“The thought that could happen again is so exciting,” he said. “I want to be a part of that — reinvigorating this city with baseball pride.”