How Jack Morris, Dave Winfield signings pushed Blue Jays over the top in 1992

After years of heartbreak and near post-season misses, the Toronto Blue Jays set out to shift their team culture ahead of the 1992 campaign.

And what better way to do so than by adding a pair of established, veteran free-agent stars?

“After ‘91, we had to make some changes,” longtime Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick said in Part 3 of the Sportsnet documentary, The Blue Jays Way, commemorating the franchise's 50th season.

“That’s when we went after the big boys,” former team president Paul Beeston added.

(The third part of The Blue Jays Way: October Birds will air on Sunday, July 26, following Toronto's game against the Boston Red Sox on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.)

Enter future Hall of Famers Jack Morris and Dave Winfield, who joined Toronto on a two-year, $10.85-million deal and a one-year, $2.3-million contract, respectively.

The then-36-year-old Morris and 40-year-old Winfield both joined the Blue Jays with decorated but slightly different resumes.

Morris was a two-time World Series champion and had just been named MVP of the 1991 Fall Classic after authoring an iconic playoff run for the Minnesota Twins. Winfield, meanwhile, was a 12-time all-star and a household name following years of dominance with the San Diego Padres and New York Yankees. He didn’t, however, have any playoff success to show for it.

Regardless of their differences in post-season experience, the additions of Morris and Winfield did exactly what Gillick and Beeston had hoped within Toronto’s clubhouse.

“Winfield walks in, and he didn’t have to say anything,” eventual World Series hero Ed Sprague said in the documentary. “He just commanded the room.”

“Jack was one of the guys who led the pitchers the right way, and, of course, Dave (led) the hitters in the right way,” manager Cito Gaston added. “So, I had a lot of help there with those two guys.”

On the field, both lived up to the hype as Morris led the American League with 21 wins — the first 20-win season in Blue Jays history — while posting a 4.04 ERA over 240.1 innings and finishing fifth in Cy Young voting. Winfield smacked 26 homers, collected 108 RBIs and finished the regular season with an .867 OPS while ending up fifth in MVP voting and winning the Silver Slugger at designated hitter.

But for as important as their regular-season contributions were to the AL East champion Blue Jays, Morris and Winfield were brought in to change the franchise’s fortunes in October.

While Morris may not have been at the peak of his powers in those 1992 playoffs, his presence still loomed large in the Blue Jays’ rotation each time he took the ball. On the offensive side, Winfield continued producing into the ALCS against the Oakland Athletics.

In Toronto’s six-game triumph over the A’s, the six-foot-six slugger slashed .250/.357/.542 with two homers and four walks as the Blue Jays punched their ticket to the World Series for the first time.

“Even though I was older than most players and I played longer than most people, I had the skills and the tools,” Winfield said in The Blue Jays Way. "My game was at a high. I didn’t feel that my skills had deteriorated. (I was) a guy that still had a lot left.”

Part of Winfield’s impact on the club in the playoffs that season was, of course, helping turn Toronto’s large hometown crowds into electric ones — something that gave the Blue Jays an extra jolt at the SkyDome in the World Series.

“There was an interview that I did, and I said, ‘What will make a difference in the playoffs, you make things happen with noise,’” Winfield recalled. “When we came to the ballpark, there were signs up: ‘Winfield Wants Noise,’ and the Blue Jays fans responded.

“I get chills thinking about it because they started making noise from beginning to end.”

With a chance to clinch the World Series title over the Braves at home in 1992, Toronto was in the enviable position of being able to hand the ball to Morris, who had clinched Minnesota’s title over Atlanta with a Game 7 masterpiece just one year prior.

But the stars didn’t quite align for Morris to emerge as the hero of a second consecutive Fall Classic.

Atlanta tagged the veteran right-hander for seven runs in 4.2 innings, punctuating what finished as a 7-2 Blue Jays defeat with a grand slam off the bat of Lonnie Smith in the fifth inning.

“I never meant to do that. I wanted to do the same thing I did in ‘91,” Morris said. “And maybe they knew enough about me. They had seen me enough. They knew my tendencies. It’s hard; you throw 250-plus innings during the year, grind it out in back-to-back post-seasons against the same team.

“I wish I could have done better.”

So, while the Blue Jays missed their chance to reach the top of the baseball world at home and lost with their ace on the mound for the second time in the series, they were still making the return trip to Atlanta confident in their ability to get the job done.

And after an 11-inning thriller at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, that’s exactly what they did. The Blue Jays claimed the first championship in franchise history with a 4-3 win that ended with the tying run on third.

Toronto took the lead in the top of the 11th on a two-run double down the left-field line that came from who else but Winfield.

“I think everybody expected something good to happen,” Morris said of Winfield’s decisive at-bat against Atlanta reliever Charlie Leibrandt.

“When he hit it down the line for the double, I was ecstatic for him because they always said, ‘He can’t hit in the World Series and playoffs,'” said Devon White, who scored from second on the play. “I was so happy for him.”

Protecting a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the 11th, Jimmy Key faced the first four Atlanta hitters before running out of gas with two outs and leadoff man Otis Nixon coming to the plate. Gaston then turned to right-hander Mike Timlin for the final out of the season.

History followed, as Nixon tried to lay a bunt down the first-base line, but didn’t get the ball past Timlin. The reliever calmly fielded his position and tossed to Joe Carter at first base to set off celebrations across Canada.

For as big as the moment was for the Blue Jays organization, there might not have been a more satisfied player in the locker room than Winfield, who had finally claimed the title that had eluded him for the first 18 seasons of his career.

“The oldest man in the room. The guy who took the longest to get a World Series championship,” Winfield said in a post-game interview. “But there’s not a person who’s happier than me.”

Although he didn’t return to Toronto in 1993, with the type of franchise-altering production he delivered both on and off the field, there might not be a player who has made a greater impact on the Blue Jays organization in a single season.

“I appreciated everything from when I signed with the team. The treatment from management, the fans, the players, it was incredible," Winfield said. "Because I didn’t experience that throughout my entire career. And when it was over, and I assess it, it was the most fulfilling year that I had playing baseball.”