TORONTO – Several of the 1992-1993 Toronto Blue Jays in town for this weekend’s statue unveiling gathered for dinner Friday night and at one point that evening Tom Henke and Duane Ward broke away from the group for a private chat. The two men were very different, both then and now, but forged a bond sharing the same pressures and stresses of locking down games, their dominance as a duo in late leverage etched into franchise lore.
They were to sit together on one of the trucks driving players onto the Rogers Centre field Saturday afternoon for the celebratory ceremony, but as the time to ride arrived, Ward was missing. “Nobody knew where he was at and there was a search going out. I said a few prayers,” said Henke, who ended up riding out alone.
Not long after, he and the rest of his former teammates, who had been immersed in the joy of seeing the Back-to-Back World Series Statue revealed and Joe Carter getting feted once more, learned the devastating news. Ward had died at 62, from natural causes, the Blue Jays said in announcement Sunday. The dinner Friday, the private conversation between Ward and Henke, turned out to be their final moments together.
“It really hasn't set it in yet,” Henke said over the phone as he drove through southern Ontario to visit friends on his way home. “I would have never guessed it. He looked a little tired, but that was it. It was a long trip for him (from his Las Vegas home to Toronto). He said he was kind of tired and was going to go to bed and get some rest for the next day. It was quite a shock.”
Ward’s big personality and gregarious nature made his sudden death more jarring, as his personality seemed as invincible as the pitcher he was on the mound. As Paul Beeston, the Blue Jays’ first ever employee who is now the club’s president emeritus, put it, “this wasn't supposed to happen to Wardo.”
“I’m shocked and really, really sad about it,” said Beeston, who credited Ward with helping the Blue Jays start up their cross-country camps for kids. “He came up here to celebrate and this was Wardo at his best, he’s got all his teammates around him and he’s celebrating and he passes. … He was with us and was with the guys that he went to battle with. With the guys he smiled with and had fun with. I don't know what to say. It's not supposed to happen at 62 years old.”
The native of Park View, N.M., leaves behind a significant legacy with the Blue Jays both on and off the field, which earned him a 2020 induction to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Acquired from the Atlanta Braves for Doyle Alexander on July 6, 1986, Ward came over to the Blue Jays as a hard-throwing, 22-year-old starter with erratic command, slowly learned to harness his overpowering stuff and by the 1988 season, began to emerge as a force in the bullpen.
Beginning that year, he put up five straight years of 100-plus innings while becoming the Blue Jays’ prime set-up man, often handling both the seventh and eighth innings before The Terminator, as Henke became known, came on the ninth. When Henke left as a free agent after the 1992 season, Ward took over as closer and led the American League with 45 saves while posting a 2.13 ERA in 71.2 innings while earning his only all-star nod.
Dan Plesac, who was the closer for the Milwaukee Brewers, then a division rival in the American League East, during that stretch, recalled how hitters often returned to the dugout muttering, “I don't know how guys hit him,” after facing Ward.
“Heavy, high 90s, power sinker. Dominant pitcher,” Plesac continued. “Tom Henke got a lot of the attention, deservedly so, but in the circles of baseball, everyone’s like, man, I don’t want to face Duane Ward. … He was a guy that when he would come in, as a pitcher, you would acknowledge like, this guy's nasty, know what I mean? A lot of times you’re in this world of like, ah, he’s got decent stuff and you always think you’re better. But when he came in the game, it was like, man, that guy has got special stuff.”
The numbers prove the point as from 1998-1993, he logged 634.1 innings over 434 games, collecting 121 saves while pitching to a 2.98 ERA and striking out 657 batters. And combined with Henke for five of those six years, the duo consistently shortened games for manager Cito Gaston and offered an early iteration of the type of bullpens clubs aim to build in baseball today.
“We had a heck of a duo going,” said Henke. “It changed the game a little bit as far as your starters didn't have to go eight, nine innings anymore. Wardo would go in and pitch the seventh, eighth and I’d finish the ninth, or he’d pitch the seventh and I’d pitch eight, nine. Hopefully it gave the team a good feeling. I know the opposition felt that way, that we’d better get Toronto before it got to the seventh inning because you’d have Ward-Henke coming in and 90 per cent of the time, it was lights out.”
The two also “kept each other on the edge,” said Henke, who in contrast to his nickname, was more of a fun prankster type to Ward’s seething wild man.
“We were probably polar opposites as far as our personalities,” said Henke. “I was really easygoing. That's what helped me in the pressure of the job that I did. And Duane was very intense, very hard working and I've never seen him ever not ready to go in and pitch. …
“We talked about it” during the dinner Friday, Henke continued. “We were in constant conversation in the bullpen. Wardo was a bit superstitious, and he had to have me play catch with him every day. So he would seek me out before batting practice to loosen up. We'd play catch together. It was something we had together for a long time on the field.”
That wasn’t the only superstition Ward had, although Henke pauses to consider which of the other ones were appropriate to share in polite company.
“He had to go to the bathroom at the same urinal at the same time during the game,” he finally replied. “And he used to have to be the first guy off the field during batting practice. He would wait by third base and watch the clock. Todd Stottlemyre and I tried to beat him in one time and I think he knocked us both over trying to get into the dugout before he did. That was the fun part of the game.”
Ward was an integral part of so much fun for the Blue Jays. And on a weekend meant to relive and celebrate and honour some of the finest moments he was such a big part of, his unexpected death was even harder to reconcile, including for the fellow reliever with whom he’ll be forever linked.
“It was really a special weekend. I really enjoyed it. That was just terrible, terrible news,” said Henke. “But Wardo was there. He was there with us. … It was a strange weekend but still very memorable. It's going to stick out for a very long time.”
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