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 former Cy Young winner Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson, still baseball’s best leadoff hitter.
But 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.
“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.”
Morris will have good seats for Game 6 on Friday, as well. He was getting ready to travel to Toronto to be at the Rogers Centre — known as SkyDome during those first World Series runs — to watch the game in person.
Winfield will continue watching from So Cal, where he has a rooting interest in each team. But he only played for one and looked back fondly on his one year in Toronto, where he remains a beloved figure.
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)
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.”
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