There is a certain irony to a Canadian-based baseball franchise showing its American counterparts how to build a competitive Major League Baseball franchise from scratch, but that is exactly what the Blue Jays did from the moment Toronto was awarded a team for the 1977 season.
The Blue Jays debuted in frigid Exhibition Stadium on April 7, 1977, where between the snow flakes, they defeated the Chicago White Sox 9-5. Having stocked their Major and Minor League rosters with prospects rather than veterans, the Jays lost one-hundred seven and one-hundred two games in their first two American League East campaigns, but after that, their improvement was steady and noticeable.
With the dawning of the 1980's, pitching prospects such as Dave Stieb and Jim Clancy blossomed into top-flight starters, Damaso Garcia and Alfredo Griffin became a dynamic double play combination and Lloyd Moseby, Willie Upshaw and Jesse Barfield brought some punch to the lineup. The steady improvement led to the Blue Jays enjoying their first winning season in 1983.
In 1984, they managed to finish second under manager Bobby Cox while debuting a fleet footed shortstop named Tony Fernandez and adding a big bat to the lineup in the person of George Bell.
These additions made the Jays American League East Champions in 1985 with ninety-nine wins. Their climb to the top had been done mostly with home grown prospects and a few well-timed trades. One of those trades was for veteran Doyle Alexander who contributed seventeen wins while Stieb and Jimmy Key won fourteen each and the pitching staff led the league with a 3.29 ERA. The offense was comfortably balanced; while no one drove in one-hundred runs, no one had less than fifty-one. In their first post-season appearance, the Jays went up three games to one against the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series, but could not close the deal, losing three in a row.
Rather than building on their success, the Jays went into upheavals the next year, with Cox leaving and Jimy Williams becoming manager. Injuries and trades decimated the pitching staff and the Jays finished fourth, although Barfield whacked forty home runs.
Toronto continued to be heard from in the ensuing years with Bell winning the 1987 Most Valuable Player Award (forty-seven home runs, one-hundred thirty-four runs batted in, .308) and Stieb going 16-8 in 1988, a season in which he lost two no-hitters with two outs in the ninth inning.
Toronto Blue Jays History
