The Blue Jays are now 16-10 in games for which I’m not writing the Game Report. My 0-3 record as post-game scribe might get me dropped from the rotation.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: don’t expect to sweep the league’s highest-scoring (and division-leading) club in their home park, and don’t expect to win consecutive 1-0 games there either. Keeping that in mind, the Jays have to be very happy with the results of this potentially brutal road trip (4-2) and with the last 9 games against divisional opponents overall (7-2). In case anyone’s forgotten: on May 4 last year, the Jays defeated the Royals 5-4 to "improve" their record to 9-18 on the season.
There was much second-guessing of John Gibbons after yesterday’s game. There are only two sure things in life for managers: being second-guessed and getting fired (firing, of course, constituting the ultimate second-guess). It’s funny, because Gibbons had an embarrassment of good options late in the game yesterday: Roy Halladay was throwing a shutout into the eighth inning, with a rested bullpen behind him and an off-day the next day. That it all unraveled is a testament to how quickly things can change in this game.
On the one hand, Halladay was not his dominating self from the Yankee game (though it’s unlikely we’ll see that HOF-quality version of Doc more than a few times this year), he was over 100 pitches, and the Oriole batters seemed to be catching up with him. On the other, this is your staff ace, and as a general rule, you allow your ace to finish what he starts: it’s good for him and it’s good for the team. Doc had been allowed to complete two other games this year, and it was reasonable to think he could do it again. And there were other reasons, too, beyond this one match.
Being slow to pull your starters benefits the staff in the long run: it gives the starters confidence that they can work out of jams and reduces the pressure on the relievers that they’ll have to warm up at the first sign of trouble. Jays fans remember all too well the Carlos Tosca regime, during which you came to think the manager was getting royalties from Apple Auto Glass for every pitching change he made. In fact, the last Blue Jays manager to give his starters the benefit of the doubt as consistently as Gibbons was Cito Gaston, whose pitchers loved and trusted him for it. Gaston did pretty well in the win column, too.
Baseball, says the cliché, is a game of inches, and the fact is, Sammy Sosa’s double was about six inches from being strike two foul. The margin of error at the major-league level is razor thin, and in a 1-0 ballgame, that margin can be subatomic. A couple of inches here, and extra pitch or two there, a decent throw to the cutoff man from left field – these are the factors that come into play in games like this. John Gibbons, like all managers, deserves room to maneuver within that margin of error.
The Orioles are now 4-2 against the Blue Jays early this season, including the ignominious sweep of the Jays during their Lost Homestand at Rogers Centre. These two surprising AL East leaders have also had a chance to size each other up, and each has doubtless been surprised and impressed with what the other brings to the table. Each club probably looked at the other on their schedule and thought, “Easy series – we can take 2 of 3.” What’s becoming clear is that neither team will be easy pickings this season. While neither of these clubs realistically figures to be in first or second place come September, they are serving notice that they’re the future of the division. I received some heat in these parts this past off-season for suggesting that the Blue Jays’ long-term interests would be better served by seeing Carlos Delgado in a Yankee uniform rather than an Orioles jersey for the next five years. Happily for Toronto fans, Delgado is wearing neither right now – but imagine, if you will, a Baltimore lineup that goes Roberts-Mora-Tejada-Delgado-Lopez-Matos, and maybe even Sosa. You wouldn’t see too many 1-0 wins against that squad.
In any event, the Jays and Orioles have surely come to the attention of the AL East’s longtime custodians, the Red Sox and Yankees. While neither team is going to be down for long, when they look at the Jays and O’s, they must know they’re seeing the future of the division. Should that come to pass, then the Jays might be looking first to Maryland, rather than to Massachusetts or New York, for their new rivals during the balance of this decade. And the topic of rivalries brings us to an interesting question: which teams have been the Jays’ most prominent, feared and hated rivals over the years?
Rivalries are harder to come by than you might think. The classic baseball rivalries – Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants, Cardinals-Cubs – have been fermenting for decades upon decades, and it’s their age, as much as anything else, that gives these relationships their unique zippity-zing. These rivalries have also benefited from other important factors, including proximity (both geographical and divisional), mutual trades of star players, and see-saw pennant results. (Somebody once opined, before Boston won the Series last year, that Red Sox-Yankees wasn’t a real rivalry at all, because to have a rivalry, one side had to actually win something once in a while).
Other franchises have seen shorter-term rivalries come and go. Cycle back to the mid-1980s and you find the Mets and Cardinals, who disliked each other pretty intensely; the Giants and Cards developed a nasty relationship later in the decade. The Mets and Braves had some serious nasty going on at the end of the ‘90s, while the Twins and White Sox have been at each other’s throats for a few years now. It’s not enough just to exchange beanballs, as the Devil Rays and BoSox have done lately: to have a rivalry, there has to be something important at stake – division titles, World Series appearances, etc. – and one team has to have really stuck it to the other on one or more occasions. Rivalries are about killer losses, lingering bitterness, remembered heartbreak and an abiding sense of lurking payback. You know you have a rivalry when your fans just loathe the other team.
Where do the Blue Jays fit in? Cooped up in Canada, they’ve had very few natural rivals in both geographic and divisional proximity (the NL Expos were never more than a curiosity, going back to the Pearson Cup days). Jays fans enjoy their team beating the Red Sox and Yanks, of course, but there has never been any question of a rivalry between Toronto and either of these clubs: the Yankees and BoSox have eyes only for each other, and every other team is just filling out the schedule till they can meet their enemy again. Moreover, the Blue Jays have had only one stretch of actual contention (granted, it was an illustrious 11-year stretch from 1983-1993), and at just 28 years old, they’re simply not old enough to have made many lasting grudges. The divisional realignment in 1994 didn’t help matters any.
Still, I think there are five teams that you can single out as having been true rivals for the Blue Jays at one time or another. Some fit only one criterion or two at a time, but all have had moments when they filled the Blue Jays’ viewscreen the way the Dodgers think only of the Giants. Here are my five nominees for Toronto Blue Jays rivalries.
5. Kansas City Royals
The Royals sneak in at Number 5 for one reason only: the 1985 American League Championship Series. If you were there for that seven-game classic, no further explanation will be needed. If you weren’t, then you might not appreciate how it was the first truly painful experience for Blue Jays fans, and how it set the stage for numerous playoff disappointments yet to come.
The Jays won 99 games in 1985 and finished two games ahead of the Yankees. Kansas City was pretty good too, winning 91 matches and finishing a single game ahead of the California Angels. They boasted the best player on the planet in George Brett, a chronically underrated superstar at second base in Frank White, a dazzling collection of powerful young arms in the rotation, and the preternaturally cool submariner Dan Quisenberry in the bullpen.
But the Jays were widely regarded as the favourites — they owned the latest iteration of the “best outfield in baseball” in George Bell, Lloyd Moseby and Jesse Barfield — and after taking a commanding 3-1 series lead (thanks to various clutch pinch-hits and amazing starting performances from Dave Stieb), Toronto seemed destined to follow its first ALCS appearance with its first World Series berth.
Then three things happened: young lefty Danny Jackson pitched the start of his life in Game 5, Brett ripped starter Doyle Alexander in Game 6, and Jim Sundberg hit an opposite-field wind-blown triple off Stieb in Game 7, and that was that. George Brett just kept hammering the ball all series, ending up with a .348/.500/.826 line that included 3 homers and 7 walks. KC went on to win the World Series that year, while the Blue Jays spent a long, cold winter making their soon-to-be-longstanding acquaintance with the label “chokers.” The stage seemed set for years of classic matchups between these two well-run, small-market organizations.
Alas, it never came to anything. The Royals have finished as high as second place only three times since, and have never posed a threat to contending Blue Jay teams. After Ewing Kauffman’s ownership, the Royals seemed to lose their organizational direction, and groundbreaking institutions like the Royals Academy fell by the wayside. A ballclub once known for its class and a city known for its baseball history became something of a running joke.
Today, most Jays fans probably think of the Royals as the team that George Bell lit up three times on Opening Day 1988, or perhaps as the club that squandered a six-run ninth-inning lead at Skydome in May 2003. They’re regarded as a sad-sack organization in many ways, which is a tremendous shame, considering the heights they once scaled. And really, neither organization has had much to brag about over the last decade. But 20 years ago, for one shining post-season moment, these two teams had it all going on.
Jays’ Nemesis: George Brett.
4. Chicago White Sox
This might seem like an odd choice at #4, because the White Sox have never really beaten the Jays at anything. They were the visitors in Toronto’s franchise opener in 1977, but the snow and Doug Ault’s performance dispatched them forthwith. They faced Toronto in the 1993 ALCS, but the Jays quickly disposed of them and made Cy Young winner Jack McDowell look like the lead vocalist for a crummy rock band. On the field, it’s not really been a rivalry at all.
No, the enmity between these two clubs is off the field, and it can be traced to a fellow named Mike Sirotka. In the unlikely event you don’t know the story, here it is: at the end of the 2000 season, David Wells was riding himself out of Toronto. An unwilling participant in the ill-fated Roger Clemens trade with the Yankees that also brought Homer Bush and Graeme Lloyd to Hogtown, 20-game winner Wells was publicly demanding a trade and was ripping the city and the club in order to get one.
Gord Ash — beleaguered Gord Ash, as he’s better known — had no leverage, because everyone knew Wells wanted out. Ash also knew Wells was yearning to return to Gotham, and would have welcomed a trade to the Mets. Possibly in order to stick it to Boomer, Ash dealt him instead to the White Sox for a couple of spare parts and Sirotka, who was coming off a breakout 15-win season. Actually, make that a breakdown season — he arrived in Toronto with a torn labrum in his pitching shoulder. He would never pitch for the Jays and has never returned to the major leagues since.
Ash tried to get the trade voided on damaged-goods grounds. The White Sox refused, arguing that the Jays should have run a physical on Sirotka before concluding the deal. And technically, they were correct — but their tone and behaviour seemed at the time classless and juvenile. Kenny Williams, then and (inexplicably) still the GM, was belligerent at best and crass at worst, jokingly referring to the fiasco as “Shouldergate” (and earning a blistering attack by Sirotka himself, who felt Williams was joking about his career-ending injury).
The Jays appealed to major-league baseball, but their appeal was turned down by Commissioner Bud Selig, and would it be unfair to note that Selig is a close buddy of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf? The Jays didn’t have much of a case, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow. In a Pyrrhic victory for the Jays, Boomer did go on to have one of his worst seasons for the ChiSox. (And in fairness, it’s not like the Mets’ reported best offer for Wells — pitchers Glendon Rusch and Grant Roberts — was a whole lot better.)
But the incident humiliated the Blue Jays and was one of the last nails in Ash’s coffin. Gord might not have been much of a GM, but it staggers the imagination that Williams — best known as a player for a classic blooper-reel rundown on an aborted steal attempt — still has his job, while Ash is now an assistant in Milwaukee. Probably the current Jays administration doesn’t even think of this incident whenever the Jays play the White Sox. But I do.
Jays’ Nemesis: Kenny Williams
3. Baltimore Orioles
It might seem a little strange now to think of the Orioles, who’ve been toiling in the vineyard for several years under Peter Angelos’s mismanagement, as a team that once challenged Toronto on the field and maintained a pretty steady rivalry. But the history between these two clubs doesn’t have to include the 1977 game Earl Weaver forfeited at Exhibition Stadium to protest the position of a bullpen tarpaulin, or the freakish 24-10 thrashing of the Orioles in June 1978, to make this list.
When the Jays finally emerged from their exhibition-team phase in 1982 — clambering out of the basement to finish in a 6th-place tie with Cleveland — the Milwaukee Brewers were AL East champions. But the Orioles had finished right behind them — Jim Palmer had been beaten soundly in a key match between the two teams on the season’s final weekend — and were one of the class of the American League.
In 1983, the O’s faced their first season without Weaver as manager in many years, but nonetheless they rode a solid pitching staff and two eventual Hall of Fame infielders (Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray) all the way to the World Series. But the Jays were finally beginning to gel, too — they started the season strong and eventually stunned the rest of baseball, actually sitting in first place with a 60-44 record on August 3. Then the pitching began to tire. Then the runs began drying up. And then came Baltimore’s poorly lit Memorial Stadium, the Field of Nightmares, on August 24, 1983.
The Jays had beaten the O’s the previous night 9-3 to move to 70-55, but on this night, they squandered a two-run lead in the ninth (two words for you: Dave Geisel) and had to go to extra innings. Cliff Johnson homered off Tim Stoddard to put the Jays ahead 4-3 in the top of the 10th, and Altobelli brought in lefty Tippy Martinez to keep the Jays close. The O’s, because of a series of desperate pinch-hitting maneuvers, found themselves stuck with light-hitting backup infielder Lenn Sakata behind the plate.
The next three Jays batters — Barry Bonnell, Dave Collins and Willie Upshaw — reached first base, and each couldn’t wait to run on Sakata. Tippy Martinez picked each of them off first base, one by one by one, ending the inning. Bobby Cox almost had an apoplectic fit arguing that Martinez was balking, but to no avail. In the bottom of the 10th, Baltimore tied the game off Joey McLaughlin, and then went on to win it on a three-run homer off Randy Moffitt by … yes, Lenn Sakata.
The next night, The Jays lost 2-1 in 10 innings. Dave Stieb threw nine shutout innings in a scoreless game, and Bonnell homered off Martinez in the top of the 10th to put the Jays ahead 1-0. But Roy Lee Jackson gave up three hits, two runs, the game and (for all intents and purposes) the season in the bottom of the inning. Those consecutive extra-inning defeats, which punctured Toronto’s playoff hopes, were the first real heartbreaks (with many more to come) for Jays fans.
But that wasn’t the end of the Jays-O’s rivalry: fast-forward to 1989. This time, it’s the Orioles who are stunning the baseball world. In a pitiful ’88 season that started with a record-breaking 21 consecutive losses, Baltimore had finished dead last at 54-107 and were the subject of numerous eulogies for a once-proud organization. But in ’89, the Orioles were, amazingly, leading the division well into August.
Led by the highly improbable likes of Randy Milligan, Craig Worthington and Joe Orsulak at bat (and Ripken, of course), and Bob Milacki, Jeff Ballard and Dave Johnson on the mound, the O’s shouldn’t have been anywhere near contention. But this team played sensational defence, and their no-name batters delivered numerous clutch game-winning hits for manager Frank Robinson. It’s fair to say that few Orioles teams were as beloved by their fans as the ragtag motley bunch of ‘89ers.
And the Blue Jays ruined it all. Riding the success of Cito Gaston, who had taken over for the fired Jimy Williams early in the year, the Jays slowly gained ground on Baltimore all season until splitting an August road series with the Orioles — from there, Baltimore kept losing ground and eventually finished second with an 87-75 record. Had Baltimore held on and taken the division, they’d probably still be talking about the Amazin’ O’s today. Instead, some Orioles fans of that era still hold a grudge against the Jays for spoiling a truly magical season in Baltimore.
Now Baltimore, thanks to big-name free-agent hitters and a rapidly developing young rotation, is showing signs of revival, right around the same time that Toronto is finding its feet and regaining its winning momentum as an organization. Are we watching the birth of Jays-Orioles III?
Jays’ Nemesis: Tippy Martinez
2. Oakland Athletics
Well before JP Ricciardi left the Coliseum for Skydome and before some people began calling Toronto “Oakland North,” these two organizations had a very nasty few years together.
It all started in 1989, when the Jays (as mentioned above) basically snuck into the playoffs with a late charge under then-interim manager Gaston. The ’89 Jays were quite possibly the least fearsome post-season version the team has ever fielded — only Fred McGriff hit more than 18 home runs and only Dave Stieb won more than 13 games. And they were up against a monster — the Bash-Brothers A’s who were in the midst of winning three straight AL pennants.
The Jays were undermanned, but they were also shown up. Rickey Henderson, who was in his prime as both a ballplayer and a pain in the ass, figured out pretty quickly that (a) he could run on Ernie Whitt all day and (b) the Jays were completely unnerved by his antics on the basepaths. Henderson ran wild, and made no secret of his belief that he could steal bases on a whim against Toronto. Whitt and Kelly Gruber went public with their complaints that The Rickey was “showing them up” and “hot-dogging” it. Whether Rickey was hot-dogging or not, the Jays did themselves no favours by whining about it in the press.
Henderson destroyed the Blue Jays single-handedly that series — he hit .400/.609/1.000, walked seven times, stole eight bases (without getting caught once) and scored eight runs in just five games. Toronto was demoralized and embarrassed, and the cocky A’s made no secret of their contempt for the vanquished.
Fast-forward to 1992. The Jays have captured their third division title in the last four years, and they’re facing the hated A’s again. But things were now different — the Jays had acquired HOF-quality hitters like Robbie Alomar and Dave Winfield, and had imported big-game pitchers in Jack Morris and David Cone. Oakland, meanwhile, was nearing the end of its run: its star players were aging or declining rapidly, and its 1990 Series sweep at the hands of Chris Sabo and the Reds still lingered over this club like a bad smell.
Holding a 2-1 series lead in Game 4, the Jays found themselves down 6-1 in the 8th inning. For a team synonymous with playoff collapses, it was looking like déjà vu all over again. But they scored three runs in the 8th inning to get within striking distance. You know what happened then: an immortal home run by Alomar off Dennis Eckersley, scoring two runs in the ninth to tie it. The eventual winning run in the 11th seemed inevitable, as did the eventual Game 6 thrashing of the A’s that sent Toronto to its first World Series ever. Oakland fans complained about Alomar raising his arms in triumph after clubbing the ball over the fence – just as Toronto fans had earlier complained about Eckersley’s fist-pumping and finger-pointing following a big strikeout. These teams were in each other’s faces long before anyone had begun to use “disrespect” as a verb.
The ’92 ALCS gave the Blue Jays double closure — erasing the memories of three previous post-season failures and slaying those Oakland demons so effectively that by the time Toronto returned to the World Series in 1993, they would sport two members of this vanquished club, Henderson and Dave Stewart, on their roster. Oakland’s renaissance under Billy Beane in the mid-to-late ‘90s coincided with Toronto’s days in the wilderness, so there has been no rivalry revival since then — but if the Jays keep improving, and if Beane can keep working his magic, it could be resuscitated.
Jays’ Nemesis: The Rickey
1. Detroit Tigers
You knew the road was leading to this destination. Unless you’re new to the Blue Jays — unless your impressions of the Tigers are the 119-loss team of 2003, the eleven consecutive losing seasons from 1994-2004, the succession of ex-big-league third baseman in the manager’s position (Buddy Bell, Larry Parrish and Phil Garner), and a decade in which the only pitcher to lead the team in ERA twice was Felipe Lira — then you know that the Tigers are the closest thing the Jays franchise has had to a natural bloodsport enemy.
Back in 1983, when the Jays were tangling with Baltimore, the dark horse coming up on the outside was Detroit. After Toronto dropped its consecutive extra-inning games in Baltimore, they went to Detroit and suffered another series of close losses punctuated by late home runs off the beleaguered bullpen; those losses officially finished off the Jays’ Cinderella ’83 run and sowed the seeds of future enmity.
But the Tigers were just as clearly a team on the rise: they eventually won 92 games that 1983 season and finished 2nd. But no one anticipated what would happen the following season. The Tigers won their first game of the year and kept winning…and winning… and winning. Of their first 40 games, Detroit won 35, the best start of any team in history. Jack Morris threw a no-hitter in the fourth game of the season, and the team took the momentum and mojo from that nationally televised game and kept on rolling. They were a juggernaut — but they hadn’t yet played the Blue Jays, who themselves began ’84 red-hot. Two unstoppable forces were on a collision course, and on June 4, the Tigers (38-11) hosted Toronto (34-16) in prime time — on something they used to call Monday Night Baseball.
It was going to be the game of the year: starters Dave Stieb and Juan Berenguer each yielded three runs through 7 innings. The Tigers then turned to eventual MVP Willie Hernandez, who pitched scoreless ball into the 10th; in the bottom of that inning, Detroit sent everyone home via a three-run homer by Dave Bergman off the much-maligned Roy Lee Jackson (although the loss went to a rookie left-handed reliever named Jimmy Key). The Jays actually won the next two games, but the titanic struggle on Monday night seemed to rob Toronto of a certain momentum. The Jays endured two five-game losing streaks in June, and finished the year 89-73; they posted a 55-57 record from that extra-inning loss onwards. The Tigers, of course, went on to demolish the Royals and Padres to win the World Series and earn a place in the record books.
The next year, it was Toronto’s turn, as the Jays captured their first AL East flag. The Tigers fell to third place in a typical post-championship malaise: their team OPS dropped 40 points and the bullpen, beyond the overused Hernandez, imploded. Detroit was reduced to vainly playing spoiler, going 6-7 versus the Jays, including being swept in Toronto as part of a late-season eight-game losing streak. But the Tigers threw a scare into the Jays, sweeping them in Detroit in the second-last series of the season while the Yankees closed the gap to second place; Toronto had to rebound by beating the Yanks face to face in the closing series at home. It was a harbinger.
The 1986 season was a washout for both clubs: the Tigers and Jays finished in a virtual tie for third behind the Red Sox and Yankees. But that was just the calm before the storm of ’87.
Toronto broke out of the gate strong that year – at the All-Star Break, they stood at 51-36, three games up on the 48-37 Tigers. Lloyd Moseby was having his career season with 26 homers and 39 steals, while Tony Fernandez was posting a .379 OBP with 32 steals of his own while on the way to winning his second of four consecutive Gold Gloves. George Bell was simply unconscious – he would eventually crack 47 homers and slug a stunning .605. On the mound, Jimmy Key was the staff ace (17-8, 2.76), while Tom Henke was saving 34 games while striking out 128 batters in 94 innings.
The Tigers weren’t slouches either, though: outfielder Pat Sheridan was the only starter without double digits in home runs, while Jack Morris and Frank Tanana were twin terrors in the rotation. The only other thing you need to know is that Doyle Alexander – the crusty veteran who had helped the Jays win their first division title in 1985 – had ridden himself out of town, David Wells-like, by slamming the city and its fans. Dealt to the Braves (for a minor-leaguer named Duane Ward) in 1986, he was acquired by the Tigers (for a minor-leaguer named John Smoltz) midway through 1987. Alexander went 9-0 down the stretch as the Tigers slowly pulled even in September.
On September 24th, the Tigers (92-59) opened a four-game set in Toronto (93-59); after intervening series against Baltimore and Milwaukee, respectively, they would close the season with three games in Motown. This, in point form, is what happened next:
· The Jays won the first three games in Toronto by one-run scores. In the third game, Juan Beniquez hit a bases-loaded walk-off triple. The Jays were 3 ½ games up with seven left to play.
· In the fourth game, Henke blew a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning on a home run by Kirk Gibson; the Jays lost in 12 innings.
· The Tigers dropped 2 of 3 to Baltimore. The Jays played three games against the Brewers and then three more in Detroit. Toronto lost. Toronto lost. Toronto lost. Toronto lost. Toronto lost. Toronto lost. The Tigers won the division by two games.
· During the Tigers series, Bill Madlock took out Tony Fernandez with a virtual roll block at second base, breaking up a double play. Fernandez landed awkwardly and his elbow struck a seam in the Exhibition Stadium turf, shattering the bone. Fernandez was out for the year and was never the same player again.
· During the Brewers series, the Jays suffered another loss, less well remembered but almost as crucial: Ernie Whitt broke his ribs trying (ironically) to break up a double play after colliding with (double ironically) future Jays World Series MVP Paul Molitor.
· In the final six games, aside from Moseby (who never stopped hitting until the last day), the Jays’ lineup collectively hit .150.
· Mike Flanagan pitched his heart out in the second-last game of the year, going 11 innings; Jeff Musselman and Mark Eichhorn lost it in the 12th.
· Frank Tanana threw a complete game six-hit shutout on the last day of the season. Garth Iorg, utterly overmatched, made the season’s final out.
Jays’ fans could only content themselves with the fact that the exhausted Tigers were quickly dispatched by the eventual World Series champion Twins in the ALCS.
There was one more contest between these two teams, and although the Jays won it, Tigers fans still hold a grudge about it. George Bell captured the AL’s MVP award — the first and only Blue Jay ever to win that trophy — with that 47-home run season that greatly impressed the voters. Finishing second was Detroit’s Alan Trammell, who had the season of his life: .343/.402/.551 with 28 homers, 21 steals and fabulous defence. Trammell, in retrospect, deserved the award; but we Jays fans at the time took our victories where we could get them.
Thus ended the five years of the fiercest rivalry in Blue Jays’ history. This iteration of the Jays never recovered from that failed stretch drive, and the eventual 1992 championship team was almost completely overhauled from the ’87 Blow Jays. The Tigers, too, seemed spent by their pennant drive: within two years, they had lost 103 games in a season, and although they bounced back to be fringe contenders in the following years, their long franchise drought soon set in and they’ve never finished as high as second place since 1991.
It seems odd to consider that this rivalry, which carries such strong emotions and memories for fans of both franchises, has been pretty much dormant since that final overcast October Sunday in 1987. The Tigers never posed a serious threat to the Jays in their four division titles between 1989-1993, and both organizations bottomed out in the latter part of the 1990s and well into the 2000s. More damagingly, realignment moved the Tigers into the Central Division in the mid-‘90s, and the AL East has never really been the same without the Tabbies.
Even if Detroit somehow completes a resurrection under now-manager Alan Trammell, the passage of time and the divisional divide between these two clubs might make the challenge of a renewed rivalry impossible to achieve. But whichever team locks horns with the next contending Blue Jays squad, it will have to go a long way to rival or even exceed the drama and passion of the Showdowns in Motown.
Jays’ Nemesis: All of ‘em. But always and especially, Bill Madlock.
Roundup:
1. The Jays are one streaky outfit (SF)
2. V-Dub's slow start is a mental thing (SF)
3. Warm up the Thipgpen, because Guillermo Quiroz is out again (MR)
4. July 19, 1995, was the last time the Yankees were 6 games under .500 (ESPN)
5. Why are Latin players getting disproportionately suspended under the steroid policy? (ESPN)
6. Roger Clemens, Boston Red Sox? Probably not, but youneverknow (JS)
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050504231157738