Following an unnecessary year-long wait, Cooperstown finally opened to door to Alomar.
It’s taken 12,327 days – since Bill Singer threw a strike past Ralph Garr to welcome Toronto into the Major Leagues of baseball – for a true blue Blue Jay to be finally invited into the hallowed Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
And, as a life-long fan of the game, it has been worth the wait.
The only question in the case of superbly gifted Roberto Alomar has been when, not if. Looking back at his career, intertwined on several levels with the franchise as it made the jump from chokers to champions, one can marvel at the high level at which Alomar performed. Just a cursory glance reveals a player that was a 12-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glove winner, a four-time Silver Slugger, the MVP of the 1992 ALCS and MVP of the 1998 All-Star game.
He finished his 17-year Major League career with a .300 batting average, 2,724 hits, 504 doubles, 80 triples, 210 home runs, 1,134 RBI and 474 stolen bases.
His arrival on the Toronto sports scene was at a crossroads in the history of the Blue Jays franchise. Having come up short in 1990, finishing second in the AL East by two games to the Boston Red Sox, general manager Pat Gillick engineered a two-for-two trade with the San Diego Padres.
In a stealth deal that was completed without any prior rumours leaking, Gillick sent Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff to San Diego in exchange for Joe Carter and Alomar. Fernandez, McGriff and Carter were all established players, but Alomar was still an unknown commodity. Just 22-years-old at the time of the deal, Robbie’s defensive credentials were well recognized, but the Padres, and especially manager Greg Riddoch, ran out of patience waiting for the young switch-hitter’s bat to catch up.
Over the next five seasons, Alomar’s vast skills were on display, and on most nights, before a full house at Rogers Centre.
Great thanks to the producer of the Jeff Blair Show on the Fan 590 in Toronto for coming out of a commercial break on Wednesday morning with Tom Cheek’s call of Alomar’s game-tying home run off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 1992 ALCS, bringing the Jays all the way back from a 6-1 deficit with just six outs to go.
For a lot of Jays fans, that hit is considered the most important home run in franchise history. Joe Carter’s walk-off shot a year later might be called the greatest home run ever—how could it not be, it won a World Series—but Alomar’s blast altered the course of the franchise forever. It wiped away all the years of missed opportunities, and the label of being chokers.
The Jays blew a 3-1 series lead over the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 ALCS. They lost the final seven games of the 1987 regular season, two in extra innings and the final three by a single run in Detroit, to blow a 3.5 game lead with a week to go.
They made it back to the playoffs in ’89 and ’91, but didn’t put up much of a fight against either the Oakland Athletics or the Minnesota Twins, respectively. Thanks to Alomar’s home run, as we all sat down to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday October 11, 1992, the ghosts of failures past were finally exorcized.
In my mind, Alomar was the most gifted everyday player in Blue Jays history. At the plate, he hit home runs from either side of the plate. On the bases, he routinely took the extra base and stole 206 while being caught just 46 times.
But it was in the field where he shone brightest.
Any ball hit to the right side of the infield had a chance to end up in his glove. His range went from the right field foul line to second base, despite playing half his games on the slick Rogers Centre artificial surface. And when turning a double play, his moves took on an artistic tone, rarely getting taken out by base runners bearing down on the bag. He was also the first player that I remember routinely throwing behind runners at third base after a player rounded the bag. Alomar was, arguably, one of the most cerebral players to ever play the game.
It’s a shame that the last half of his career took on a gypsy-like quality, playing for the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox and Arizaona Diamondbacks after leaving Toronto. He finally called it quits while at spring training with the Devil Rays in 2005 after injuries had diminished his skills.
It’s also a shame that his election into the Hall had to be delayed due to his spitting incident with umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument at Rogers Centre (while with the Orioles), something that the umpire had long since forgave him for, something some of the holier-than-thou voters have not.
Whether Alomar will be the one and only player to go in wearing a Blue Jays cap is up for debate.
As it stands, that would certainly appear to be the case. This July in Cooperstown will be quite a party for Canadian baseball fans with Alomar, Gillick and long-time Expos play-by-play man Dave Van Horne being inducted. I would suggest that many of you would put this event into your summer vacation plans. I’d join you if I could, but I’ll be with the Sportsnet crew and the Jays in Texas that weekend.
Having visited Cooperstown many years ago, a summer weekend in that sleepy New York State hamlet is something I’d endorse.
Make sure you pack a flag and your old school Jays paraphernalia.
