With a victory in Game 6 in Toronto on Friday night, the Blue Jays can wrap up a third World Series title. The first two were back-to-back wins in 1992 and 1993, and neither would have happened without an injection of St. Paul DNA.
North St. Paul’s Louie Varland is a key part of this year’s Jays bullpen, but those first Toronto winners featured Hall of Famers Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor and Jack Morris, all of whom grew up within a few miles of one another west of downtown.
Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Jack Morris pitches against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of the World Series, Oct. 17, 1992 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Swart)
All of them played for the home town Twins, as well, but only Morris won a World Series with Minnesota. Winfield and Molitor each reached another Series — with the Yankees and Brewers, respectively — but their championship rings are from Toronto.
Winfield hit .280 with 62 extra-base hits — 26 of them home runs and, perhaps most impressive, three triples at age 40. He drove in 108 runs for a Blue Jays team that won 96 regular-season games and beat Atlanta, 4-2 in the 1992 World Series.
“That was my favorite year,” he said.
For Winfield, 74, it remains the high point of a remarkable athletic career that started at Central High School, included standout baseball and basketball careers at the University of Minnesota and ended with 3,110 major league hits, 465 of them home runs.
“I had a lot of hits, played for a lot of teams — a lot of things like that,” Winfield said from his home in Southern California last week. “But to win as a team, that’s what baseball is all about. That goes down in history.”
Morris, the ride-or-die right-hander from Highland Park, won a league-high 21 games and became the Blue Jays’ first 20-game winner in 1992 — no mean feat, he added, considering some of the pitchers Toronto had put on the mound: Dave Steib, Mike Flannagan and Jim Clancy among them.
Morris, 70, pitched for World Series winners in Detroit (1984), Minnesota (1991) and Toronto (1992). Asked if he were rooting for the Blue Jays this week, he said, “Oh, you bet I am.”
“Each was a unique joy for me,” he said. “Detroit because it was the first, and because of all the guys who had worked together to get to that point. Coming home was, I think, the dream of every young kid. And then the two teams I played for in Toronto were the most talented teams. I mean, they were all-star teams.”
Morris pitched a team-high 240⅔ innings for that 1992 team that also included star position players Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter and John Olerud — with Winfield as the designated hitter.
“It was a fun time and a fun team, everybody got along,” Winfield said. “We drew over 4 million fans, something the Dodgers did this year; we did it 30-plus years ago. It’s really something to win for an entire country that had never won before. That makes a permanent imprint.”
Morris suffered an elbow injury late in 1993 and couldn’t pitch in the postseason, but an influx of all-star talent the previous winter had already made that team the most talented he ever played on. That included Molitor, former Cy Young winner Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson, still baseball’s greatest leadoff hitter.
“That team was even better, and it was hard for me because I couldn’t play,” Morris said. “But I really did appreciate what those guys did, and I had the best seat in the house, got to hear all the conversations after guys got off the mound and or out of the batter’s box.”
No addition was bigger than Molitor, who replaced Winfield as DH and hit .332 with a .402 on-base percentage, league-high 211 hits and 121 runs scored. He also hit 22 home runs, the first and last time he hit the 20 mark.
But in the playoffs, he was just scary. In 12 postseason games against the White Sox and Phillies, Molitor hit a remarkable .447 with four doubles, three triples, three home runs and 12 RBIs. In his 15th major league season, he made a conscious decision to take it in and appreciate the moment.
Mostly, though, he said the timing was right for him.
“People always say things like, ‘Oh, they had a really poor October,’ or, “they had a really good October.’ Some of that is just the nature of the game,” Molitor said Thursday. “You can say Reggie (Jackson) was clutch in the postseason, or (Derek) Jeter, but mostly it’s about being hot. My game was in a good place in ’93.”
Like Morris, Molitor is rooting for Toronto, and both players were traveling to Toronto to be at Rogers Centre for Game 6. Earlier this month, he threw out the first pitch during one of the Brewers’ Division Series games at Wrigley Field.
“I spent 15 years in Milwaukee, and they haven’t been to the Series since ’82; and for Toronto, the last time was ’93. So, the attachment to those clubs is a little stronger, maybe, because they haven’t had that experience recently,” Molitor said. “You don’t hear Dodgers fans talk about that ’65 team, because they have had all those other experiences.
“It’s great to see these clubs winning and the fans getting to experience it. They deserve that, and it’s nice for them to have a new team to latch onto.”
While Morris and Molitor will be in Toronto, Winfield will continue watching from So Cal, where he has a rooting interest in each team. But he only played for one and looks back fondly on his one year in Toronto, where he remains a beloved figure.
He gets back to Canada once or twice a year, he said, “And they always recognize me and are very generous, happy to meet me. It’s always a pleasure.”
Morris doesn’t expect he’ll be recognized as much on Friday.
“If they have brown or black hair, they won’t see me,” he said. “You have to be at least 60 now to recognize me.”
Toronto Blue Jays third base coach Nick Leyva, left, puts his arm around Paul Molitor after Molitor was advanced to third in the seventh inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Oct. 19, 1993 in Philadelphia. Molitor scored in the seventh as the Blue Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 10-3 to take a 2-1 lead. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy)