Glew: 48 years ago, Jenkins threw the first shutout against the Blue Jays
Forty-eight years ago today, Boston Red Sox right-hander Fergie Jenkins (Chatham, Ont.) became the first to throw a shutout against the Toronto Blue Jays in a regular season game.
April 24, 2025
By Kevin Glew
Canadian Baseball Network
It seems fitting that the greatest Canadian pitcher in major league history was the first to toss a shutout against the Toronto Blue Jays in a regular season game.
On April 24, 1977, 48 years ago today, Fergie Jenkins, toeing the rubber for the Boston Red Sox, dominated the Blue Jays for nine innings in front of 29,303 fans at Exhibition Stadium. The Chatham, Ont., native limited the Blue Jays to three hits, while striking out six without walking a batter, in a 9-0 win.
“This is a super city and a good sports town and I always enjoy coming here,” the 34-year-old Jenkins told Toronto Star reporter Neil MacCarl after the game. “The fans know I’m Canadian and I had the feeling a lot of them were pulling for me.”
According to MacCarl’s game story, Jenkins needed just 101 pitches – 79 of them strikes – to dispose of the Blue Jays, who were in their first month of their first regular season.
The 6-foot-5 right-hander faced just 29 batters, with only one Jay (Alvis Woods) reaching second base.
“Fergie knows what he’s doing out there,” Blue Jays DH Ron Fairly, told The Boston Globe after going 0-for-3 off Jenkins in the contest. “He very seldom doesn’t have good stuff. You can get some good swings at him, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to hit anything.”
Blue Jays first baseman Doug Ault, who had one of his club’s three hits, offered a similar assessment.
“He just had super stuff,” Ault told The Boston Globe. “That was some of the best control I’ve ever seen on breaking balls. He put that slider right where he wanted it.”
Carlton Fisk, Jenkins’ catcher that day, enjoyed calling pitches for the Canadian baseball legend.
“It was fun catching him,” Fisk told The Boston Globe. “It’s nice knowing that no matter what you drop down, the pitch will be around the plate . . . He was able to put everything right where he wanted to.”
Sox manager Don Zimmer was also impressed by Jenkins.
“The surgeon simply carved ’em up,” Zimmer told the Toronto Star about Jenkins’ performance. “What more can you say about it?”
Well, Milt Dunnell, a revered Canadian columnist, had plenty to say about it.
“It’s quite in order to say that Fergie Jenkins made yellow-billed cuckoos out of our upstart Blue Jays,” Dunnell wrote in the following day’s paper. “The yellow-billed cuckoo has a reputation of shyness – of taking it on the lam into the most impenetrable thicket in order to escape human notice. The Blue Jays had no reason to preen in public after Jenkins fired a three-hitter at them yesterday.”
Blue Jays manager Roy Hartsfield shared a similar opinion, though in much plainer language.
“I don’t think Mr. Jenkins has lost anything,” Hartsfield told the Associated Press. “He didn’t win all those games by accident.”
Aside from Jenkins, three other future Cooperstowners – Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski and Fisk – made their Exhibition Stadium debuts that day. Fisk had two singles and two runs, while Yastrzemski added a single and an RBI.
Burly first baseman George Scott belted a two-run home run off Blue Jays starter Bill Singer in the seventh inning, while all-star right fielder Dwight Evans added a two-run shot off reliever Jerry Johnson in the eighth.
Jenkins told reporters after the game that he had last played in Toronto as a member of the International League’s triple-A Buffalo Bisons against the Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Stadium in 1962.
“It’s [Toronto] a super city, a great sports city and definitely deserves major league baseball,” Jenkins told the Associated Press.
For the record, Jenkins was not the only Canadian on the field that day. Vancouver native Dave McKay played third base for the Blue Jays and was 0-for-3 against Jenkins. Swift Current, Sask., native Reggie Cleveland was also on the Red Sox pitching staff.
An interesting note at the end of MacCarl’s article indicates that Red Sox backup catcher Bob Montgomery was presented with a copy of Louis Cauz’s book “Baseball’s Back in Town” – which is a history of baseball in Toronto – prior to the game. Montgomery had played for the Red Sox triple-A affiliate Toronto Maple Leafs in 1966 and 1967.
Dunnell also notes in his column that Blue Jays hitting coach Bobby Doerr planned to return to the club when the Blue Jays traveled to Kansas City on the following Friday. If Doerr had’ve been present at this game, there would have been five future National Baseball Hall of Famers with Red Sox links at the ballpark.