The true measure of how bad things had gotten in Toronto the last couple of seasons can be found in the startling admission by Vernon Wells that the minor-leaguers riding the Syracuse-Toronto shuttle preferred to stay in Triple-A. "Guys that had been up and down hated it so much in the big-league clubhouse that they would rather go back to Syracuse," he told the Toronto Sun.
Now, I've been to Syracuse, and I certainly don't intend any offence to that upstanding burg, home of the Carrier Dome and, probably, other things. But I can think of about 50 places I'd rather spend a summer, including downtown Saskatoon and many parts of Kitchener/Waterloo. I'm sure it's a marvellous place to pass through and perhaps even to be from, but when you find yourself saying, "Ahh, finally I'm back in Syracuse," something ain't quite right. And that's not even counting the switch from Greyhound/Super Eight to chartered jet/Hilton Hotel.
Wells is equally straightforward about when the atmospheric change took place: "I think it started once Buck [Martinez] got fired," though he takes pains not to blame the manager for creating the problem. I like Buck too, but I think he absolutely ought to shoulder much of the responsibility for the team's comatose state on and off the field. I think it was Dan Szymborski who said, after the firing, that while Buck recognized that the ballclub's conduct and demeanour had to change, it never really seemed to sink in that he was the one in charge of changing them.
Regarding the state of the Jays' clubhouse, of course none of us can speak with authority, since we never stepped foot inside it. But regarding ballplayers' collective morale generally, more can be said. I wrote John Gizzi on this subject a little while back, so he's excused from having to read any further. Clubhouse chemistry, I wrote, is a widely misunderstood term. It's a naughty phrase for many committed sabrmaticians, but I think that's because there's a misconception that "good chemistry" means "everyone likes each other," which it isn't at all (the early '70s A's being the archetypal example).
I think chemistry simply means this particular combination of people performs well together -- and performs better with each other than they would in different combinations or in different contexts. We've all had good and bad workplaces, where the people with whom and for whom we work have either poisoned or redeemed the working conditions. It has to be the same for professional athletes, especially when teams spend only three hours a day between the lines with each other, and 10 to 12 hours together off it.
Anyway, I think what any workplace, including a clubhouse, most needs is a steadying hand, because there's going to be giddy eight-game winning streaks and there's going to be two-week stretches when the pitching just gets hammered, and over a long haul like that, you need an even keel. Tosca seems quite capable of providing that, and Wells (who seems to be shifting rapidly into another hated cliche, the Clubhouse Leader) and other young players sure like his approach. It might not necessarily add more wins to the record, but it's still all to the good.
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