April 24, 2020

The following is an excerpt from Bob Elliott’s just released book, If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Toronto Blue Jays Dugout, Locker Room and Press Box.

This excerpt is printed with the permission of Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please visit Indigo, McNally Robinson, Amazon.ca, or www.triumphbooks.com/WallsBlueJays.

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Jose Bautista

On the Level of Excellence in Toronto are the names of Carlos Delgado, broadcaster Tom Cheek, Tony Fernandez, World Series hero Joe Carter, former MVP George Bell, seven-time All-Star Dave Stieb, two-time World Series manager Cito Gaston, Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick, Hall of Famer Robbie Alomar, and Hall of Famer Roy Halladay. Who might be next?

Well, it says here it should be Jose Bautista. Besides his bat flip homer— and five others in postseason play—he hit 288 home runs in 10 seasons with the Jays. Bautista trails only Carlos Delgado, who hit 336 in his career with Toronto. The next four are Edwin Encarnacion (239), Vernon Wells (223), Joe Carter (203), George Bell (202), and Jesse Barfield (179).

Barfield led all American League hitters in 1986 with 40 homers. Bautista led the majors with 54 in 2010 and repeated that the next season when he had 43. He also led with 132 walks, slugging .608 with an OPS of 1.056 and 24 intentional walks.

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He was hoping to head to Florida in the fall of 1999, hoping to get on a plane with a $300,000 signing bonus from the Cincinnati Reds and fly from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to training camp in Sarasota, Florida. It wasn’t one of those “missed him by $5,000” stories scouts talk about.

Carl Lindner was buying the Reds from Marge Schott, and the Reds said no to the $300,000 expenditure. So Jose Bautista took a different path on his way to the majors. He boarded a Florida-bound plane and enrolled late at Chipola College, a junior college powerhouse in Marianna, Florida.

Bautista arrived on campus and walked into a meeting with eight or 10 players, including catcher Robbie Fleck. “We turn around, and here is this skinny kid with big ears, carrying his cleats in a plastic bag,” said Fleck, who is now a life insurance agent in Marianna.

This is how Day One in America began for the 18-year-old Latin American player. “We’re a bunch of country rednecks. We say, ‘Did you just get off the boat?’ We’re all laughing, picking on the new guy,” Fleck said.

Later players headed to the field. “Someone hits a ball to straightaway center, Jose catches it over his shoulder, plants two feet from the fence—385 feet away—turns, and throws a laser,” Fleck said. “We were shocked.”

And then Bautista had his turn in the batting cage. “Our gym is beyond the left-center-field fence,” Fleck said. “They pump an inside fastball on him. The ball landed in the parking lot and hit the gym on the bounce…about 460 feet, like 90 percent of his bombs this year. We quit messing with him. We knew he was legit. This was before we knew his character or work ethic.”

Fleck invited six players, including Bautista to his house, which was in Altha, a zero stoplight town with two blinking caution lights that was 12 miles from Marianna and had a population of 5,500, for an American Thanksgiving prepared by Fleck’s mother, Janet, that first year. “They got to experience some good Southern food—better than staying at the dorm and going to Wendy’s,” Fleck said. “He was very polite, well-mannered. Good Southern food like turkey and dressing, ham, homemade mac and cheese, green beans, fresh cream corn, collard greens, chicken and dumplings, potato salad, fresh field peas, sweet potato souffle fried corn bread, and for desert…homemade pecan pie and 12-layer chocolate cake.”

Fleck later came to Tropicana Field to see his pal and the Jays play the Tampa Bay Rays. Sometimes they talk as often as every other day, but it’s not always about ball. “We talk about life. I’ll ask, ‘What city are you in?’” said Fleck, who also told his pal how his son, Bryson, often would say, “Daddy, your friend is on TV again.”

Once Bautista earned respect of his fellow Chipola Indians that first practice, a nickname soon followed. Jordan Keller of Melville, Saskatchewan, began calling him “Hoser” after the “second time he threw me out from right field, trying to score from second in an intrasquad game” in 1999. “All the Canadian players called me that,” Bautista said.

Outfielder Eric Bernier of Laval, Quebec, Ivan Naccarata of Longueil, Quebec, and Montreal infielder Russell Martin were recruited by coach Jeff Johnson, who played with Bautista in 2000. Johnson has had experience with Canucks, including Adam Loewen of Surrey, British Columbia, who was selected fourth overall in 2002, and Drew Parker, of Surrey, British Columbia, who pitched Chipola to the 2007 Alpine Bank World Series title.

Johnson saw Bernier and Naccarata with the Canadian Junior National Team at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. “We sent scholarship offers off and didn’t hear back and didn’t hear back, not a good sign,” Johnson said from Mariana. “Somehow we got in touch with Russell Martin’s father, who was watching Team Canada at the Worlds in Edmonton. He said, ‘Give my son, Russell, schooling. I’ll get the other two.’”

When the threesome arrived, the Canucks were ranked in order of talent as Bernier, Naccaratta, and Martin. A decade later Bernier, who showed power and hit leadoff but “never put it all together,” according to Johnson, never played pro. Martin, an infielder at Chipola, has earned All-Star honors while catching with the Los Angeles Dodgers and later the Blue Jays.

Drafted in the 21st round by the Houston Astros in 2002, Naccarata transferred to LSU where he played third—Aaron Hill was at second in 2003—and went undrafted a year later. He signed as a free agent with the New York Mets and then joined the Dodgers’ system, playing three seasons in the minors.

But the best swing he saw? “Jose,” Johnson said matter of factly.

Bautista hit .289 with 15 doubles, seven homers, and 25 RBIs for the 2000 Chipola Indians and was drafted in the 20th round by the Pittsburgh Pirates and scouting director Mickey White. Unable to reach an agreement, Bautista returned to school.

Johnson recalled Chipola needing to win “something silly like eight of our final 10” in 2001 and trailing Pensacola by two runs one day. “They have a guy on third, one out. Off the bat it looks like the ball is over Jose’s head. It’s hit that good,” Johnson said. “The runner breaks from third. Jose catches it over his shoulder 10 feet from the fence. The runner goes back, tags, and heads home. Jose throws him out. We came back, won the game, make the playoffs.

Johnson remembered Bautista hitting a ball so hard off the top of Chipola’s 10-foot chain-link outfield fence that he knocked off part of the fence. Two hours after practice one day, players were goofing around after catcher blocking drills, and Bautista climbed onto the mound, wearing flipflops,and threw a 94 mph fastball. “That’s where coach got the idea of making him our closer,” Fleck said.

Besides hitting .306 (two points ahead of Martin), 15 homers (in 186 at-bats or six more than Naccarata to lead the team), and driving in 41 runs, he led the team with five saves. Chipola won its conference. When Kyle Pawelcyk had a tender arm, Johnson tabbed Bautista to start the third game of the state championships. He pitched a complete-game win in the semifinal with a 96 mph fastball, struck out 12, and dropped down “for sort of a ‘slurvey’ slider,” Johnson said.

Bautista threw 130 pitches, as his agent Jay Alou, son of former San Francisco Giants outfielder Jay Alou, paced. His client was about to go pro—but not as a pitcher. What if he injured his arm? Fleck told Alou: “We were young and dumb.”

“I played center the next day, but my arm was sore,” said Bautista, who had not thrown more than 30 pitches in a game. He had a 2.43 ERA and a 41 strikeouts in 33 ⅓ innings.

Having signed a letter of intent to play for South Carolina, as well as having B-plus average in business at Chipola, Bautista had leverage when he spoke with the Pittsburgh Pirates again. They gave him a $600,000 bonus less than two years after he’d walked into Chipola carrying cleats in a plastic bag.

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There is much more about Jose Bautista in the large section devoted to him in the book.