Elliott's 9 innings: Morneau, Olerud, Ward, Doucet and more
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
We’re going to try something different this year ... nine innings at a time:
Singing our national anthem just like opening day at both Exhibition Stadium and SkyDome will be: Annie Murray.
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First inning: We’ll start with some Hall of Fame memories and leading off is John Olerud, because it is the best memories we have of the four inductees headed to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont., in June.
In March of 1990, the Blue Jays visited Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater for one of many trips south that spring ... and every spring.
In camp with the Jays was 1B Olerud, fresh off the college campus with all of eight at-bats under his belt from the previous September.
First time up he pulled a double down the right field line, the ball kicking up chalk.
The second time he doubled again, this one spraying chalk down the left field line.
In those days the visiting clubhouse was in the left field corner and the Phillies clubhouse was down the right field line. I was standing leaning against the first base railing. I wanted to ask Phillies coach Dennis Menke, a former Jays coach, a question when the game was over.
The next half inning Phillies’ first base coach John Vukovich stopped by: “Bobby I keep talking to this Toronto first baseman. I ask him where he played last year and he keeps saying Washington.
“I’ve guessed Yakima, Bellingham, Bremerton, Everett, Spokane and even Walla Walla,” said Vukovich naming towns and cities in the state of Washington with minor-league teams. “He keeps saying Washington.”
I said, “Well he is not fibbing, he might be the most honest, straight forward person I have ever met. He did play at Washington last year ... as in Washington State University.”
“No way,” Vukovich said.
At the end of the inning I saw third base coach Larry Bowa and Vukovich talking in the dugout and surprisingly Bowa was getting excited, gesturing with his hands. Out came Vukovich, “Bobby lend me your Jays guide, Bo doesn’t believe me.”
I watched Bowa open the page to Olerud, shake his head and slam the guide into Vukovich’s stomach. Then Vukovich returned it to me.
Double to right on the chalk, double to left on the chalk. That is going line to line.
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Second: On June 7, 2006, the Minnesota Twins were in the midst of a free fall looking for the San Andres fault to fall into. After an 11-inning 10-9 loss in Seattle their record fell to 25-33, putting them 11 1/2 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers.
The next day Morneau came rolling in late with some friends from home before the 1:37 day game. Manager Ron Gardenhire was upset and called Morneau into his office for a heart-to-heart. Gardenhire didn’t think Morneau was using his talent to the fullest. That afternoon Morneau batted seventh against right-hander Joel Pinero and singled in a 7-3 win over Seattle in the final game of the West coast trip. The victory allowed the Twins to finish the trip 3-7.
The Twins went 71-33 after the Morneau-Gardenhire summit. Morneau hit .362 the rest of the way with 29 doubles, a triple, 23 homers and 92 RBIs. His OPS in the final 104 games was 1.023. All those numbers combined with his start added up to a .321 average, 37 doubles, 34 homers and a .934 OPS in 157 games.
He earned MVP honours with 15 first-place votes and 320 points to win the AL MVP race ahead of New York Yankees SS Derek Deter, who had 12 first-place votes and 306 points.
Morneau may have been on his way to another MVP -- batting .345 with 25 doubles, 18 homers, 56 RBIs and a 1.055 OPS in 81 games until a visit to Toronto Wednesday, July 7, 2010. After Morneau led off eighth a single against Scott Downs, Michael Cuddyer bounced to SS Alex Gonzalez, who threw to 2B John McDonald, who jumped in the air to try and complete the double play. It’s a play we’ve seen 10,000 times without injury.
Morneau slid in a routine manner to break up the double play, except MacDonald’s knee accidentally hit Morneau in the head giving him a concussion. The Jays scored a 6-5 win. Morneau never played again that season. Twins observers say that was his best ever year was at plate.
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Third: I’ll never forget the first time I saw Duane Ward. He had a high leg kick and a violent delivery.
The scout from an opposing team was leaning against the fence on a back field in West Palm Beach in 1986 observing and evaluating. I asked “who the heck is that?” The mitt popped louder than the others.
(Think I’d only asked that four times previously when I first saw Roger Clemens in Winter Haven, Jeff Fassero at West Palm Beach, Derrick May whacking away inside a batting cage in Mesa, Az. and one other.) Ward was coming off an 11-win season at double-A Greenville.
“That my friend is an injury waiting to happen,” said the scout, who moved on to another field.
On July 6, 1986, the Jays dealt RHP Doyle Alexander to the Atlanta for former first rounder Ward.
And thus was created the six inning game. If the Jays had the lead after six well it was pretty much warm up the bus. Ward would work the seventh and eighth, while Tom Hneke would finish up.
In the spring of 1989 the Jays had live hitting as they usually do before games begin. Teammate Bob Brenly lasted in the cage for one swing and walked out “I’ve been taking BP for four days and I get to see that -- not fair.”
Ward pitched 111 2/3 innings in 1988, then 114 2/3 the next season, next came 127 2/3 in 1990, then 107 1/3 in 1991 and in the Jays first World Series winning year he pitched 101 1/3 innings.
Yet Ward was more than Henke’s caddy. Besides averaging more than 112 innings per year, he averaged more than 15 saves a season. Sometimes Henke was injured, sometime he was overworked, sometimes if he got the tough outs in the eighth and the Jays scored, manager Cito Gaston would leave him out there.
When Jays won the 1993 World Series, he was the closer going 45-for-49 saving games. He struck out 679 in 666 2/3 innings. He did it all with the same violent delivery, until suffering biceps tendinitis in 1994 which cost him to miss the whole season. He pitched 2 2/3 innings for the 1995 Jays before retiring only to come back as one of the hardest working members of the Blue Jays Academy.
The only pitchers in major-league history to throw at least 100 innings in five consecutive seasons, while compiling at least 75 saves along the way:
Name Team From Thru Saves
Duane Ward, Blue Jays 1988-1992 76
Rollie Fingers, A’s/Padres 1974-1978 134
Rollie Fingers, A’s/Padres 1973-1977 119
Rollie Fingers, A’s 1972-1976 105
Mike Marshall, Expos/Dodgers 1972-1976 97
Mike Marshall, Expos/Dodgers 1971-1975 106
Rollie Fingers, A’s 1971-1975 102
Rollie Fingers, A’s 1970-1974 80
Not bad company for a guy with a violent delivery.
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Fourth: If any man belonged in St. Marys -- and the broadcasters’ wing in Cooperstown -- it is Jacques Doucet. He did Expos games for 33 years. When his Expos left for Washington D.C. he would drive to Quebec to work the independent Capitales games and now he is back doing major-league ball ... except it is the Jays on TVA from the studio in Montreal.
Canadian HOFers Dave Van Horne described Doucet as a “a consummate professional, always well prepared, who maintained good relations with the Expos executives, the manager and the coaching staff.
“He mastered the translation of the game from English to French and never lost the nuance of the established baseball language,” said Van Horne.
He’s a man with a strong newspaper background working for La Presse when the franchise was granted to Montreal in 1968. Part way through the Expos first season of the Expos in 1969, he was asked to replace Jean-Pierre Roy at the CKLM.
CKAC gained the rights holder in 1972 and Doucet was hired by Telemedia to work Expos games. In 1994, he became an employee of the Expos and he continued to describe the on-air parts of CKAC until the end of 2003.
Doucet painted pictures of more than 5,500 games, including perfect games by Dennis Martinez in 1991 against the Los Angeles Dodgers and by David Cone against the Expos in 1999.
Philadelphia Phillies scout Alex Agostino (St-Bruno, Que.) said Doucet brought baseball to generations of French Canadians across Canada in their language. “He developed the baseball vocabulary everyone could understand,” Agostino said. “He was the Vin Scully of french-language broadcasts.”
Now while Jacques Doucet owned the air waves, a man named Roger Doucet had a good set of pipes too. He sang the anthem at the Montreal Forum. If a sport fan -- excited to see some one they recognized -- got flustered and mixed up the first names and called Jacques, Roger he didn’t like it.
Jacques disliked to hear someone call him Roger and keep walking. That might be one reason why he didn’t mind the nickname Groucho.
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Fifth: I’ve never met Gil Kim. Either of them. One is the Blue Jays director of player development. The other is now on the Jays coaching staff.
Now, how a coach of a team that is on the road in -- say in Anaheim -- supposed to keep tabs on what is going on in class-A Lansing.
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Sixth: One man doing two jobs reminds me of the Jays in the early 1980s. Ken Carson (Barrie, Ont.) was the Jays capable trainer. The president Peter Bavasi decided one year Carson should be both be the trainer AND the travelling secretary.
Carson expected a raise.
He didn’t get one.
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Seventh: Years ago, we remember three or four Expos or three or four Jays making the tour through the hinterlands. One year we saw Andre Dawson, Floyd Youmans and Herm Winningham visit a town near Vankleek Hill, Ont. ... and then travelled 11 minutes north for another stop. They renamed the town after Dawson: Hawkesbury.
Needless to say going to Ottawa, Kitchener, or Winnipeg, Man. (-31 with the wind chill), we remember guys complaining about the weather in the spring) was not high on players off-season agendas.
That’s why the number of 80 current players and alumni the Jays had at this year’s Winterfest is a staggering total and a job well done.
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Eighth: Wish the best for New York Mets scout Claude Pelletier (St-Lazare, Que.). He spent Christmas in hospital and is not eligible for travel insurance in the US (I know that feeling) so won’t be scouting the Canadian Junior National Team on their trips to St. Petersburg and Palm Beach, Florida in March and April.
Pelletier signed Cy Young award winner Eric Gagne in 1995 working for the Dodgers. When his boss Eddie Bane asked “why should I get on a plane for Edmonton when the player pitched junior college in Oklahoma in the spring and no one drafted him?” Pelletier took a deep breath and said “because I said so.”
Teams learned to listen to Pelletier.
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Ninth : It is that time of the year for scout days: A chance for teenagers to impress evaluators … The FieldHouse Pirates lead off Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm ... The Ontario Terriers are next Feb. 16 at 9:30 AM ... The Ontario Blue Jays are having theirs the net day at 6:30.