48 Years Ago Today
How do you know you are old? You remember things that happened 48 years ago. Insert swear words here. I’ll admit that most of my memories are of the snow around the park and how cold the players looked.
The Blue Jays played their first game on April 7, 1977, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. If you are old enough to remember Exhibition Stadium, you’ll remember it was a terrible place to watch a baseball game. The Argonauts played their Canadian Football League games there, so the seats faced the 55-yard line, not the diamond. You had to turn your head to watch the play. As time passed, they made some improvements there, but Skydome was a much better place to watch or play a baseball game.
It was a historic moment. The official game temperature was 0 C, but there was wind and snow. So it would have seemed colder sitting in those stands. Despite the harsh conditions, the Jays emerged victorious, winning 9-5 against the White Sox. It was a game of resilience and determination. The Jays’ starting pitcher, Bill Signer, didn’t have a good start, 4.1 innings, 10 hits, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, but surprisingly, he only allowed 4 runs, 3 earned. He was at the end of a 14-year career. He won 20 games for the Dodgers in 1969 but would finish with a 6.79 ERA in 1977, his last season. Jerry Johnson pitched 2.2 in relief and got the win. Pete Vuckovich pitched the final two innings for the save. He allowed one hit and one walk, with three strikeouts. Vuckovich would win the Cy Young Award in 1982 as a Brewer. He wasn’t a great choice; he wasn’t one of the ten best pitchers that year, but he had 18 wins with a 3.34 ERA. In 223.2 innings, he had 102 walks and 105 strikeouts. He had a 2.8 bWAR. Dave Stieb had the best bWAR (for pitchers) 7.6. Vuckovich wasn’t even in the top 10 for pitcher’s bWAR.
On offense, Doug Ault was the game star, hitting two home runs and driving in four. It was a surprising performance for a guy with only 17 career homers in 256 major league games. Al Woods also made a significant contribution with a pinch-hit, 2-run homer. Woods played seven years with the Jays, and while he had a good season in 1980, hitting .300/.364/.480 with 15 home runs, he wasn’t a great player.
The Jays had 16 hits, 3 for Ault and second baseman Pedro Garcia and 2 for Dave McKay (the lone Canadian in the lineup), Otto Velez, and Rick Cerone. Velez and Cerone were the two best players in the lineup. Cerone played for 18 years and made it to the World Series with the Yankees in 1981. Velez played 11 seasons, mostly at DH, and hit 20 home runs for the Jays in 1980.
The Jays would only win 53 more games that year. However, they did have some other decent players: Ron Fairly led the team with 19 home runs and tied for the lead in RBI with Ault with 64. Alan Ashby caught 124 games. Roy Howell was a rookie and played 96 games, mostly at 3B. But, for the most part, we had many players that the other teams didn’t want.
Dave Lemanczyk led the staff with 13 wins (throwing 252 innings). Jerry Garvin, who would become a reliable lefty reliever, won 10 games (losing 18) with a 4.19 ERA. Vuckovich led the team with 8 saves.
We’d finish last in the AL East for the first five years of our existence. Then, it would take until our 7th season to have our first winning season.
I wish I had some more pictures of the game. The White Sox uniforms were pretty different: black short sleeves, a white long-sleeve shirt underneath, and high white socks.