Shi Davidi - Great Expectations: The Lost Toronto Blue Jays Season

To my sons Adyn and Zev, whose boundless energy will serve them well once they find their own field of dreams, and my wife Stacey, who continuously inspires me to keep striving on mine.

Shi

To John Reindollar, my uncle, who handed me a baseball and taught me to play; to Joan Thomas, my grade 10 English teacher, who said my essay on Ted Williams reminded her of journalism; and to Nancy, for everything.

John

How my great expectations had all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not understand.

Charles Dickens,
Great Expectations

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. Theres no better rule.

Charles Dickens,
Great Expectations

PROLOGUE

THRILLED. The word fairly flew from the tongue of Alex Anthopoulos. A reporter had just asked the Toronto Blue Jays general manager how he felt about the performance of his manager, John Farrell, who, on this day in mid-August 2012 , clung to the whirling tiller of a sinking ship. Before the question was fully formed, Anthopoulos spat a one-syllable vote of confidence.

Thrilled.

That was a stretch, and Anthopoulos knew it. Especially now, as rumours out of Boston claimed the Red Sox coveted Farrell to replace the pratfall-prone Bobby Valentine as their manager. Reportedly, Farrell was eager to oblige, not that he was about to say so in public. Earlier in the day, Farrell had cut short the daily media scrum in his office after a reporter asked about the Boston buzz. Im not going to comment on speculation or conjecture, he said testily before halting the session four minutes after it started.

Two and a half hours later, just before game time at the Rogers Centre, several reporters cornered Anthopoulos in the media dining room behind the press box and asked him about the Boston rumours. The -year-old general manager has an amiable way with the media, but he was starting to feel ambushed, in more ways than one.

Echoing Farrell, he refused to comment on rumours. Club policy is clear, Anthopoulos said: a contract employee may join a rival team only if the new job represents a promotion. Smug Red Sox fans probably figured a move from Toronto to Boston should qualify; after all, Farrell had gone to a foreign country to do his apprenticeship with an inferior club. It was only right that he return in triumph to Boston, where he had been a popular pitching coach for a storied franchise, to assume one of baseballs iconic jobs. Never mind that he had a year left on his Toronto contract.

No, Anthopoulos was not thrilled. He had begun to feel a vague sense of unease toward Farrell back in the spring, and with more than a month left in a season of perpetual torment, he did not need a public debate on the loyalty of his manager.

Absent from the playoffs for nearly two decades, the Blue Jays had entered the 2012 season on a familiar breeze of false hope. Within two months they were riding the cliffs edge, although the division race was tight and they remained in playoff contention, at least in a nominal sense. Then came an improbable plague of injuries that crippled the club in June and July.

By seasons end, six pitchers had undergone elbow or shoulder surgery and another needed an operation to fix a broken foot. On July in Yankee Stadium, slugger Jose Bautista wrecked his wrist while taking a swing that appeared innocuous, at least by his severe standards. Surgery subsequently ended his season. Two days later in the same venue, Canadian dynamo Brett Lawrie tried to run through an iron railing in pursuit of a foul ball and fell seven feet into a camera bay. Shortly thereafter, he missed a month with a muscle strain in his side. Capping a star-crossed July, a foul ball broke the hand of catcher J.P. Arencibia. He was out for six weeks.

Thin to begin with, the team was a virtual skeleton. But behind the scenes, Anthopoulos and Farrell surveyed the same scene and drew different conclusions, as they often had throughout the season.

As early as spring training, Anthopoulos felt his comfort level with Farrell start to slip, almost imperceptibly at first, when Farrell privately expressed doubts that the Blue Jays had the pitching depth they needed to contend in the American League East. Tension arose again as the July trade deadline approached. Although the Blue Jays record was - on that date, they were also five games away from a playoff berth. A long shot, to be sure, but with games left, a shot worth taking, at least in the managers view. Farrell prodded his GM to make a bold move or two to improve the team, but Anthopoulos stood pat, unable to find a deal he considered sensible for the long term. The manager was annoyed; so were some of his players. Farrell felt compelled to convene a clubhouse meeting in a bid to defuse the dissatisfaction. Anthopoulos offered to address the troops as well, but Farrell said, Ill handle it.

Then in September, with the team battling Boston for last place, shortstop Yunel Escobar added insult to the injury epidemic. Before a Saturday game at the Rogers Centre, he scrawled three Spanish words on his eye black and became an overnight poster boy for homophobia after a fan took his picture and posted it online. The story broke as the Jays landed in New York for a series against the Yankees. In a hastily arranged news conference, Escobar apologized and said he had learned a lesson. He also said he meant no harm; after all, the offending word maricon, loosely translated as faggot is commonly, innocently, and jokingly used among Latin players, he said. In the clubhouse, several teammates backed him up. Its just a word we use on an everyday basis, said Omar Vizquel. I dont know why people are taking this so hard.

The team suspended Escobar for three games and ordered sensitivity training, but there was no graceful escape from this unseemly mess. Flanking their shortstop at the news conference, Anthopoulos and Farrell listened uncomfortably to Escobars ambiguous mea culpa. When they spoke, they tried gamely to walk a narrow path that led inevitably into quicksand. They said they understood Escobar did not mean to offend, but condemned his behaviour as tactless and stupid. Their message lost some of its edge when several prominent Blue Jays including Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion chalked up the controversy to cross-cultural confusion.

Many observers were incredulous that Farrell and his coaching staff did not spot the message on Escobars eye black before he took the field. If they didnt know what it meant, they should have, according to one rival manager. Thats a very common word around clubhouses. It should never have gotten out of the dugout, he says.

Anthopoulos and Farrell pride themselves on attention to detail and meticulous management of the message. They dont like surprises. The Escobar controversy blindsided them and undermined the myth that sports teams take pains to foster: through thick and thin, everyone is on the same page, pulling in the same direction.

Behind the scenes, the GM and his manager were pulling in different directions on another matter. With the season lost and Escobar disgraced, Farrell wanted to put prospect Adeiny Hechavarria in the lineup every day, preparing him for possible daily duty in 2013 . Anthopoulos said no. Rival scouts had seen just enough of Hechavarria during a late-season call-up, he reasoned. Let the tease run into the off-season. In the right trade, Hechavarria could become a vital chip. No sense giving him a chance to diminish his value.

With a - season mercifully put to bed, one piece of nasty business remained. During a year-end review meeting, Anthopoulos put the question to Farrell: if Boston calls, do you want to go? Farrell said yes. Managing Boston was his dream job, he said. Had Anthopoulos consented, he would have gone a year earlier. He insisted he had not neglected his responsibilities to the Blue Jays, but yes, he would jump at the chance to manage the Red Sox.