TORONTO – It’s a subject only tiptoed around the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse. For now. But despite Tuesday night’s 6-4 loss to the New York Yankees, it’s a subject that will need to be addressed at some point.
What, when and how do the Blue Jays celebrate whatever it is they end up winning in 2015? Is it a champagne shower for everybody if the organization clinches at least a wild-card spot, or a more reserved celebration with an eye toward the American League East title? I mean, not to anger the baseball gods or jinx anybody or anything but … well, we don’t do playoffs in this city. Like, for 22 years when it comes to baseball.
Come to think of it: does qualifying for the one game wild-card playoff really count as a post-season berth? Yeah, you’re right … no point in going there.
“Playoffs is playoffs,” David Price said Tuesday. “A lot of guys in here haven’t been to the playoffs before. So, you don’t wait.”
There are two ways to approach it, of course. When Josh Donaldson was with the 2012 Oakland Athletics, they tore it up when they clinched one of the two wild-card berths and then 48 hours later popped more champagne when they clinched the AL West. The Kansas City Royals went full Animal House mode on Sept. 26 last season when they clinched the organization’s first post-season berth in 29 years. Conversely, when the St. Louis Cardinals clinched at least a wild-card berth on Saturday they did so, pointedly, without bubbly.
Now, the post-season is nothing new for the Cardinals, who have made the playoffs in each of the past five seasons and won one of two World Series in that time. But how does that explain what the San Francisco Giants did last season? The Giants would go on to win their third World Series in six years and had several players who were there for all of them — yet they celebrated with champagne after clinching a wild-card berth even though they knew going into the game that they’d already clinched. Yankees people say the team keeps the champagne on ice if they are leading the division when they clinch a wild-card berth. But then, well, they’re the Yankees.
It’s understandable that all concerned would want to tread lightly in this matter. Manager John Gibbons has thought about it. General manager Alex Anthopoulos has kind of sort of maybe a little bit thought about it. Know this: the guys who will do the work preparing the clubhouse have done a lot of thinking about it.
Anthopoulos said the subject had been the matter of some, um, informal discussion in the Blue Jays office — baseball people are as superstitious as anybody else — but he said he would leave things up to his players.
“It’s their clubhouse,” Anthopoulos said. “I mean … I don’t know how we’d approach it. Clinching a wild-card berth … you still have something to play for.”
Then, he laughed.
“Knowing our guys, they’ll probably all jump on their scooters and go around the block, or something like that.”
Know what? I like what ESPN’s Aaron Boone said before Tuesday’s game.
“It should be organic; it should be how you feel about it,” said Boone, who was part of ESPN’s broadcast crew for the game. “It’s a euphoric feeling. When I was with the Yankees, my first time there in 2003, they’d been through all those championships and you’d kind of think it would be ho-hum. But (then-Yankees manager) Joe Torre was always about: ‘You enjoy these moments, whether it’s clinching the division or winning the next round.’ Joe never wanted us to feel we were above it.”
But …
“When you’re leading the division, it’s about winning that division,” Boone said. “It’s a different story coming from behind and trying to claim one of those wild-card places. When you’re in it for the division like the Jays are, I think the time to celebrate it is when you get that division.”
“Organic” would be a good way to describe this Blue Jays clubhouse, given the fact that two of its largest personalities — Price and Troy Tulowitzki — all joined near the trade deadline. So did Mark Lowe, who started the scooter craze with his dual two-wheel scooter. Price then went out and purchased electric scooters for his teammates, picking up the tab for the non-arbitration eligible players. Later, he purchased bathrobes for his teammates, complete with Blue Jays logo and authentic names and numbers on the back. It’s a group that has kind of just come together — no hashtag required.
Boone, of course, had a memorable 2003 playoffs, hitting a walk-off home run off knuckleballer Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of the seventh game of the AL Championship Series. It was Boone’s only trip to the post-season – ending when the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees.
Playoffs. They don’t always come around regularly. And Boone’s thoughts at this time are with some of the Blue Jays who have been around without experiencing them — like, for example, Bautista.
“Sometimes, I think we put a little too much into ‘Ooh, how will this guy handle the moment,’” Boone said. “What happens, I think, is that all the experiences a guy like Jose has gone through has prepared him for this kind of moment. He’s been the star player here and been in big moments. And to have the type of career he’s had, where he’s gone from being a guy nobody wanted to a late bloomer, to figuring it out and switching organizations and then finding himself as the guy? I would imagine he would handle it well.
“What I remember is what Joe Torre told us before the playoffs in 2003. He said: ‘Look, we’re going to mess some things up in the course of this game. We’re also going to do some things very well. But the next play is the important thing.’ He kept talking about turning the page and making the next play the most important. That series against Boston … I didn’t have a very good series at all. But like Joe said: I got that opportunity.”
Tuesday night’s loss notwithstanding, the Blue Jays are so close they can taste it. Figuring out the when and how of it all beats some of the other September talking points we’ve had, no?