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Photo reblogged from Go Jays Go
In the absence of any tell-tale surface glare, I’d vote for sticker over pin, of which I have a few.
My friend Blake has a Dave Stieb Golden Griddle poster. Pure class. Dave, in full Jays regalia, circa 1983, gettin’ down with a plate of pancakes.
I have a Stieb gym wristband (yeah, seriously) from about 1992, a Blue Jay-blue terrycloth band with a white vinyl patch showing a Stieb head shot. Pretty hardcore.
Sticker? Who knows. WANT!
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30 years ago tonight: Dave Stieb's first major league win →
I was at this game. That’s something I’ve always been really thankful for.
My dad had a pair of tickets along the first-base side, just inside the bag, something like 20 rows back. It was a beautiful midsummer’s night, and the ultra-competitive, hard-hitting Milwaukee Brewers were in town to administer a beat-down on the godawful third-year Toronto Blue Jays.
Those of you with a working knowledge of Blue Jays history don’t need much of an assist to stir your memories. The rest of you only need know that a few decades before Roy Halladay, there was a prodigy named Dave Stieb, who was so bloody talented that less than a year after converting from a hitter to a pitcher, he was performing effectively in the best baseball league in the world for its worst team, at the tender age of 21. And unlike so many other overnight success curiosities, this guy was good enough to stick around until he was 41 years old, establishing all the team’s franchise standards for pitching excellence and durability, making a then-league record seven all-star game appearances, winning The Sporting News’ Pitcher of the Year award in 1982, throwing the team’s only No-Hit ball game in 1990, and eventually earning a spot in Baseball Think Factory’s Hall of Merit, as one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game.
For you more dyed-in-the-wool types, a mouse-click on the baseball card above will bring you to the game boxscore, courtesy the magnificent Baseball-Reference website.
Stieb was making his third start, but this was his first in Toronto, following a lopsided loss in his debut, and a decent no-decision performance in his second. He’d gone 10-2 in the minors to this point in the season, and a rash of injuries and worse-than-usual performances had forced the team to call its blue-chip prospect up to The Show.
There are several curiosities contained within the boxscore. The Brewers’ lineup was dotted with future contributors of significance to Blue Jays lore: the leadoff hitter was Paul Molitor, and the bottom of the order was rounded out by Buck Martinez. Together they accounted for half of the Brewers’ measly four hits this night, as Stieb went the distance for the first complete game of his career. Not appearing in this game, but part of the Brewers roster, were Larry Hisle - the Blue Jays’ hitting coach in their World Series Championship winning years - and Charlie Moore, who was Toronto’s backup catcher in 1987.
Also high on the coolness scale: Stieb had no trademark Tom Selleck-like moustache at this point. Probably because Selleck didn’t have one then, either, and we all know these two were separated-at-birth twins. (Dave’s the shorter, tougher one.) The boxscore doesn’t include reports on Sir David’s hirsuteness - or lack thereof - but it’s got practically everything else. Take a gander, and raise a cold one (a Labatt Blue, of course) to the anniversary of a wonderful moment in Blue Jays history.
You’re still #1, Dave.
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Link: The good ship Cito Gaston springs a leak →
For those of us old enough to remember Cito Gaston’s first tenure as Toronto Blue Jays on-field manager, the current state of the team hearkens back to complaints that dogged him throughout the 1990s.
Gaston’s teams won a lot of ball games - four division titles and two championships in nine seasons - but critics’ knives were always out for the way he handled his pitching staff. The Blue Jays only lost one American League East title from 1989 to 1993, but perceived wisdom was that Gaston mismanaged the team out of the 1990 title, and out of the 1991 playoffs, through his misunderstanding of pitching management.
Gaston used starters Dave Stieb, Todd Stottlemyre and Jimmy Key as six-inning pitchers in 1990, ideally saving the seventh and eighth innings for set-up man Duane Ward, and the ninth for closer Tom Henke. The overused Ward frequently lost leads, forcing Gaston into a Plan B approach that kept Henke on the bench for days at a time, meaning when he finally got into games he was over-rested and tended to overthrow. By the time Gaston figured out how to manage a pitching staff in 1992-93, his starters were going deeper into games and his ace bullpen was used in a more traditional style, with greater returns.
Stieb and David Wells couldn’t stand Gaston. Wells famously blew up in a 1991 game when Gaston came out to remove him, tossing the ball into the outfield and stalking back to the dugout. Gaston got his revenge the next year, leaving Wells in the game long enough to endure the worst beating by a starter in team history.
Gaston is back to his old ways in 2009: overthinking the pitching and underthinking the hitting. Now that the hitters’ torrid start has cooled off, Gaston will have to manage more resourcefully to steer the Jays through choppy waters. A tough patch in the schedule has already handed the team a nine-game losing streak, and the negative press has begun to accumulate.
Toronto Star columnist Richard Griffin writes about Gaston’s managerial weak spot in this column, most damningly illustrated by Wednesday’s comically inept loss in Baltimore.
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Link: World Series championship Jays teams to host major-league reunion in August →
This seems interesting. I’m pretty sure we won’t have a pennant race to believe in come August, but this might bump up ticket sales for a weekend. A few dozen players from the back-to-back champion Jays teams are congregating in Toronto to celebrate the, uhh, 16th and 17th anniversaries of their successes. My itinerary includes determining whether Dave Stieb will call me “Lenny” again, and huntin’ down a Tiny Tom’s donut kiosk.
