The makers of the Shaker
A couple of acts of kindness helped Lloyd Moseby on his road to Toronto
As a teenager in the California Bay Area in the 1970s, Lloyd Moseby was not aware of the Blue Jays. Then when he was drafted second overall by Toronto in June 1978, his world turned upside down.
His baseball heroes? The Oakland A’s had won three straight World Series (1972-74). The Giants had Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays and others. His MLB dreams included those two teams … and the Yankees. But the Blue Jays? Nah!
His outlook turned around due to two simple, human gestures in the first three months with the Jays. It was two of his new bosses Moseby fondly remembers as making the difference, leading him 40 years later to this hallowed place in rural St. Marys, Ont., as an inductee into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
“They made me feel a part of something special,” an emotional Moseby said on Saturday prior to his induction. “It’s just been a tremendous journey. My girlfriend lives in London, Ontario. I spend most of my time there. I live on Queen’s Quay in Toronto. I tell people all the time, I’m Canadian – in heart. A Canadian not in a passport, but in heart. We’re really simple people. We’re not trying to do anything that’s extraordinary because it’s an extraordinary country. We already know that. We don’t have to prove anything to anybody.”
The first Jays’ influencer, who continues to be a friend and mentor, was current president emeritus Paul Beeston, the original Jays employee who was there outside the tent on the weekend to watch his friend Moseby be inducted.
“When I went to Toronto (right after signing), Mr. Beeston gave my mom $5,000 cash to go shopping,” Moseby said. “I fell in love with the guy. Remember, my mom had never touched, ever, a thousand dollars in cash. So, it’s been a love affair. It’s been a huge respect for people that they loved me first. I didn’t love them. They loved me first because they showed respect to my family. It could have been because of baseball, yes. But it’s now evolved into something great.”
Beeston recalled the moment with Moseby’s mom and smiled. “Yeah, it was Canadian, though,” he said with his usual self-deprecating humour.
After that, when the contract was signed, Moseby left home and travelled to the Jays’ mi- nor-league camp at the dumpy Engelbert Complex in Dunedin, Fla. It was Moseby’s first time away from home and he needed emotional help.
“I was so homesick,” Moseby admitted. “(Jays minor-league executive) John McLaren let me talk in his office, talk to my mom every day. I’m happy Johnny’s not coming (to the induction) because I would fall apart if I’d seen him, because he took a chance. He wasn’t supposed to do that. I just told John, ‘I’ve got to talk to my mother, man. I miss my mother.’
“Cuz I’d never left home. I never left my mother, so it was a huge deal. And so going to Engelbert and having John McLaren in the complex made me feel good. I didn’t know anybody else. I was a hotshot type of guy, but John McLaren always kept me down. He kept me rooted and he became my coach in the big leagues, the third-base coach. I can say players (made the difference) but I’d be lying. It was John McLaren who was my comfort zone.”
Moseby has a special place in his heart reserved for Bobby Cox, who took over as manager as the Jays made their move toward excellence, and for Cito Gaston, who was his batting coach and outfield instructor as the best American League outfield of the ’80s — one that also included Jesse Barfield and George Bell — began to emerge.
“Cito has been a huge, huge, massive influence,” the 58year-old said. “Cito is a kind guy … he doesn’t come through the front door all the time. Sometimes you can lose a guy. He would come through the back door. He would allow you to fail, then he would ask you, ‘What do you think about this?’
“I had some stances that were not very good and I was kind of a hard-headed kid. But he came through the back door. When he came over that’s when my talent really came up, because he simplified what I needed to do. Also he was my outfield coach and so he developed me full circle.”
Others that were inducted on Saturday included former Expos Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez and iconic Canadian
>SWINGS & MISSES
baseball historian William Humber. The Jack Graney Award handed out annually for a lifetime of contribution to Canadian Baseball, was awarded to the late Alison Gordon, the first woman beat reporter in MLB history when she was appointed to cover the Jays in 1979 for the Star and the first female member of the Baseball Writers’ Association. Her brother Andrew accepted for Alison, delivering an emotional speech.