One more afternoon | Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb, Part 4 | Dorktown

for longer than a decade the stories of dave steve and the toronto blue jays had been humming the same tune in 1977 the blue jays were founded in 1978 steve decided he would start learning how to pitch both rocketed to baseball's top echelon far sooner than anyone could have expected catching everyone in america on their heels those in canada just shrugged and said where you been in 1991 the jays were nine years into what would ultimately become a streak of 11 consecutive winning seasons here's every team in the world series era that's strung together at least 10. there's always been at least one active streak in any given year and in nearly every year multiple teams have had one going the 70s for example had several with the red sox orioles dodgers and reds consistently remaining a threat year in and year out on only two occasions was there just a single team to bridge the gap in 1915 when the giants era of dominance was interrupted by a single losing season and in the years of 1989 and 1990 between the streaks of the tigers and braves the blue jays a team that had only existed for a decade and change had somehow become baseball's model franchise and as soon as it became apparent that the blue jays were becoming a good baseball team they struck terror into the hearts of some american sports writers who were worried canada is too cold in the fall for world series baseball now that the jays have gone and built themselves a climate-controlled spaceship they can't even complain about that in 91 the table is all set for dave steve thanks in large part to manager ceto gaston he's done it again after completely turning things around in 89 and barely missing the playoffs in 1990 he and the blue jays cruised the ale's title in 91 it's a mix of old and new in toronto as they still have the likes of kelly gruber jimmy key and legendary glasses guys tom hankey and grant's mulinix but they're also seeing the emergence of homegrown talent john ulerud who will eventually become the american league's best hitter for a time they've also acquired former foe joe carter as well as roberto alomar who not only plays in the sky dome but lives inside of it like some kind of habitrail often going days and days without ever stepping outside because he's decided that building a life of his own is just too much trouble those gusts of wind that blew through exhibition stadium like the one that ended steve's season in the 85 alcs would now be neutralized by that dome thanks to oakland pitching falling apart this season they won't be haunted by ricky henderson waiting for the jays in the american league championship series are the minnesota twins and in game one the twins will trot out their newest star acquisition dave steve versus jack morris it's too perfect the stage is perfectly set for these two titans nearing the ends of their careers to settle the score for good [Music] but again it's too perfect [Music] steve was pitching really well this season until may 22nd in oakland a freak play unfolded in the first inning with steve rushing over to cover first base the base runner inadvertently ran right into him and bowled him over steve remained in the game for a few more innings but something was not right that something was a herniated disc in his back that bone spur as painful as it was was something he could pitch through by a force of will with a back injury like this it's completely impossible all the lessons he's learned about what he can and can't control all the times he's barreled himself into limits he couldn't knock down might make this a little easier to accept but only a little it eventually becomes clear he will not be able to pitch again in 91 on the plane back to his family in california the pain is so debilitating that he can't even sit upright in his seat they squeeze him under the movie screen where he lays down the entire flight as the season progresses it becomes clear that this team is set up for a world series run steve admits that after more than a decade of falling short it would kill him not to take the mound once they finally got there but hell if he won't at least be there for it toward the end of the season he rejoins the team from the bench determined to wear the uniform that has defined him or perhaps more accurately the uniform he has defined he's still in so much pain that someone has to help him put it on [Music] steep stand-in in game one is mid-season acquisition tom candiotti he's a fine pitcher but he isn't dave steve who can do nothing but watch from the dugout and imagine how thoroughly he could dominate jack morris if only his body would let him morris does steve a sort of backwards accidental favor and spares him the bittersweet feeling of spectating his own team in the world series morris wins both his starts in games one and four and the twins wrap it up in five games he goes on to be named world series mvp and picks up his second championship ring [Music] although a few of these guys were either before or after their primes the 1992 blue jays boasted one of the most accomplished starting pitching staffs ever seen beyond steve who'd recovered from back surgery in the off season they still had the similarly underappreciated jimmy key reigning all-star want guzman a future scion candidate and david wells who would eventually complete a perfect game future site young award winner pat henkin and just for good measure future cy young winner david cohn at this point it surprised nobody that the jays made it right back to the playoffs in 92. with the pitching staff this loaded the only question for toronto was who they were gonna start in game one well life's funny [Music] not only did the jays acquire steve's arch rival they made him the highest paid player in the history of the franchise and they awarded him the number one slot in the rotation that pretty much had always belonged to steed everyone involved knew exactly what they were doing too in fact just a year prior leading up to the 91 season they initially pursued morris before backing off because they were afraid of offending steed maybe now given his recent injury offending steve is something they feel like they can afford to do you'd be forgiven for wondering whether the universe having finally given up that no-hitter to dave steve was simply looking for a whole new way to piss him off surely this would expose steve's supposed transformation as a facade everyone has their limits right this is when he shuts out the media this is when he demands a trade like he did those other times but then something even more unexpected happens steve does pick up the phone he does talk to the media and pretty clearly without having spoken to morris beforehand he extends an olive branch to someone who's given him plenty of reason not to he puts that old quitter comment in the past saying that he doubts morris really thinks he's a quitter and even if he does that's fine how steve was really feeling about all this who knows maybe he knew he had no cards left to play and raising hell wouldn't do any good or maybe as a matter of principle raising hell was just something he was never gonna do maybe he had no interest in stooping to that level again morris remarkably responds in kind although he can't get through it without making a very weird tangent and trashing some other guy who has absolutely nothing to do with any of this on his way out neither as it turns out is truly the team's ace in 1992 that honor goes to juan guzman who threatens to push his era below 2 for much of the season before ultimately settling at an excellent 2.64 despite very obviously being one of the top pitchers in the american league he receives exactly zero cy young votes welcome to toronto meanwhile morris has a decent year steve has an awful one entering his start on june 7th in baltimore his era is hovering a little bit over four he's run into some trouble in the fifth facing cal ripken with two men on and two out steeb takes the early advantage bringing the count to one ball and two strikes his fourth pitch does exactly what he wants it to heading inside early but then turning heel curving dramatically back toward the plate and into the strike zone ripken doesn't swing just as steve thought he wouldn't [Music] pitches like these masterpieces steve used to throw without thinking twice about are to be treasured now they're acts of sorcery that the human body is absolutely not designed to perform when it does over a long enough period of time physical consequences arise and tendinitis is the one steve is dealing with in 92. he'll later explain that after a certain number of pitches the pain from simply flicking his wrist becomes incapacitating whether it's this ailment or any one of a thousand others whether it happens at age 35 40 or even 45 it happens the work that defines you that you have engineered your entire life around will be taken away from you it's every athlete's cross to bear steve begins to walk off the mound after what everyone appears to believe is an inning ending strike three played umpire ted henry calls ball two steebs stops plants his feet in the infield grass and stares [Music] he wrote his autobiography seven years prior it's safe to say he wrote it far too soon but he did see the end with perfect clarity from miles and miles off he saw it late one night in 1985 sitting alone with his milk and cookies after his family had gone to bed he was only 27 or 28 a young man with the worries of a man much older when this ends he resolves it will be loud this was not a passing observation his dread of retirement is all over this book on page 61 on page 18 when he frames retirement as just one of his two deaths and feels empty even thinking about it on page 71 when he describes in anguish the injury he'll one day later have that robs him of all of this he's haunted it's something he can't imagine [Music] dave steve loses it he verbally unloads on the umpire when the orioles use that blown call to light him up for four runs he is pissed after the game ran into a nearby security guard he is pissed in the weeks that follow he is ashamed of himself it was just the old dave steed coming out one last time and it was in his words the straw that broke the camel's back his era this season balloons to nearly six sido gaston relocates him to the bullpen an assignment he angrily protested just a few years prior but now reluctantly accepts his tendonitis intensifies and in august he's shut down for the rest of the year ending the worst season of his career and for the second year running steve does nothing but sit in the dugout and watch as his blue jays roll into the postseason again the role of elder statesman is an increasingly odd one for steve usually leadership would be expected of someone with his tenure but he doesn't believe a starting pitcher who often operates in solitude and only pitches every five games can be that kind of person and of course steve isn't pitching at all in the first place he's just kind of there when the jays win the al east and punch their ticket to the playoffs on october 3rd and the celebration gets going in the clubhouse steve quietly steps out a little bit early his inability to contribute to this team is hurt and he probably simply feels that this victory isn't his to celebrate instead he goes upstairs to the sweet level of the skydome to reminisce with pat gillick the architect of this team i think most of us would in most circumstances rather party with anybody but the suits but gillick's the only one who's been here as long as steve has the only other one who's experienced the toronto blue jays transformation from hopeless cast off expansion franchise to upstart to annual powerhouse along the way butting heads with each other many times over and criticizing each other in the papers and after all of it they're still here these two are more responsible for the success than anyone else although steve was only one player playing a sport in which a single player's influence on team outcomes is considerably limited it was through all the times he anchored the rotation every pitch that made his arm feel like it was about to fall off his shoulder that he brought legitimacy to this franchise legitimacy brought fans fans brought money money allowed them to prevent their developed stars from being poached by american teams and attract new stars from across the border some of steve's teammates downstairs might not realize how much of this he built and how much they have to thank him for when steve goes back down to the clubhouse he finds that a few teammates primarily 23 year old rookie derrick bell have completely trashed his locker in retaliation for leaving the party all of steve's things are soaking wet they poured beer all over it they'd used his locker as a garbage can even members of the press many of whom still resented steve from the early years are appalled that his own teammates would do something like that it might not have been so bad had they not ruined all the pictures he kept of his kids for as much as he dreaded the end he probably didn't imagine it would be quite this lonely [Music] some americans really didn't like the idea of a canadian team winning a world series but we also claimed basketball which was invented by canadian and we claim american football which grew alongside canadian football and borrowed some fundamental concepts from it we also stole the stanley cup nearly 30 years ago and have never given it back so this is only fair after parading through the streets the blue jays cruised back into the sky dome well most of them interestingly derek bell left his team and skipped the parade but for the rest of them a capacity crowd of fans was waiting on this day 44 people mostly blue jays players take the mic and address the crowd left to right you see how long their speeches are up to down you see how long of an ovation they receive or in the case of the politicians who speak who you see in red the booze all three of them are food throughout because canadians are ahead of us in the game and understood a long time ago that politicians should be booed all of the time none of them get it worse than ontario premier bob ray who is ferociously booed throughout his entire speech he's really trying to all right the crowd like an assistant principal at an assembly that is a wrap for you buddy get out of here of course they love dave winfield the heart and soul of this team who delivered the series winning double and since he's the one to announce the dropping of the championship banner he gets the longest ovation cedaw gaston unsurprisingly gets a ton of love as do carter guzman ulroot and borders one of the forgotten highlights comes courtesy of mike mcsudan a guy who only made three played appearances for the blue jays in his entire life and never got a single hit we won the american league i told him i was gonna get a tattoo on my butt i got it but did get a tattoo on his ass for the world series aside from winfield who was the keynote speaker the player who takes up the most time at the podium by a wide margin is jack morris the undisputed king of putting on a hat being out there a very long time and not doing very much worth remembering he caps off his speech by promising to recite a very special poem he wrote for his teammates i i quoted a little poem for them in spring training now just look at juan guzman in this moment he's like oh no oh no he's gonna do the poem oh no please don't do the poem for the love of god come on juan you're being a little dramatic right it can't be that bad let's give him a shot the poem goes like this roses are red violets are blue the twins were champs in 91 and the jays are champs in 92. holy and then of course we have our hero despite having a bad season and not appearing in the world series at all right-hander [Music] dave steve got one of the most enthusiastic ovations that day from blue jays fans who were well aware of all he'd done and all he did what a day where this organization was a day for canada and to be here two years that this team came into existence and to have done all that i had done with the help of many many teammates over the years and to see this organization strive for this day from day one since i've been here and if it were not for all these tremendous athletes on this stage right now i might have never been a part of this i wish my family could be here right now to share this with me steve talks about something none of the other 43 speakers do he talks about growth and this organization has grown i think we have as players have grown and you as fans have grown for him that's been the story and it's just so much growth and it's so tremendous a day right now to experience this to ride in that car to see these people on the streets the support is tremendous he suffered some of the worst luck ever seen and endured excruciating physical pain criminal under appreciation and total disrespect and i thank each and every one of you for the support you've given me over the last couple years when i've been down and out and it's just been a great experience to see this kind of baseball the last two weeks the one and only constant has been his endless quest to better himself however he knew how his progress like the progress of his beloved team was jagged and imperfect but steadily upward he made it and so did they i couldn't be happier for everybody here it's just been a great day and i thank you all a few minutes after this ceremony ends the fans clear out everyone goes home and the toronto blue jays buy out dave steve and terminate the rest of his contract during that victory celebration several blue jays stated confidently that they would come back and win the world series the next year too incredibly despite dramatically overhauling their roster they do they have new heroes now jack morris is now joined by more of steve's former rivals dave stewart paul molitor even ricky henderson and dave steve has to watch him win this world series from an even further distance than he did the last one in the summer of 1993 kevin boland travels to buffalo to visit his old friend and co-author the chicago white sox took a chance on steeb earlier this season but after steed got torched in all four of his appearances they quickly ended the experiment he's now trying to catch on with kansas city pitching for the minor league omaha royals but his numbers are awful here as well [Music] having steamrolled through the minor leagues back in 1979 the soon to be 36 year old is now finally paying the dues almost every other player has to pay he doesn't need the money this has always been true of steve and it's true now he must play every last card exhaust every last possibility test every single limit so many times the world has told him no and he's kept pushing until he gets his way or something breaks this time's no different he's even rediscovered that chip on a shoulder he used to have thanks to a couple of cheap shots he took on the way out in signing jack morris the year prior the jays had asked a whole lot of steve but he let his wall down and welcomed his old rival with open arms well this is what he ultimately gets for his trouble morris referring to steeb as a quote disruptive influence the blue jays were better off without he was living in the house steve had spent a decade building and kicking up his feet as though steve had never been there say this about morris he never pretended to be anything he wasn't more surprising is the completely needless shot from his old gm pat gillick the two had always had a love-hate relationship but gillick's attitude toward him of late had been profoundly odd this comeback attempt of steve's is a completely reasonable one a guy who is still of playing age and who was an all-star just three years prior is simply giving it another shot and seeing what's left in the tank but gillick in front of the whole baseball world calls it sad he says it's hopeless that steve is spent seemingly without provocation he's taken the best player in the history of his franchise and thrown him in the trash there's no use trying to make sense of it steve is trying to kindle this to channel it into his craft and use it as fuel he has dreams they're not especially realistic and he knows that but they seem to keep him going in one of them he breaks into the bigs by september joins up with his old friend and foe george brett he makes one last ride into the postseason and pitches in a royals blue jays playoff series once the stage of some of his greatest heroics so many of his dreams no matter how outrageous have come to be this one does not doesn't even come close in august of 1993 dave steve retires and now we wait [Music] in his book steve expressed that his first wish would simply be to play forever but entering the baseball hall of fame would be the next best thing he watches the induction ceremony on tv every year even at this young age he can smell it none of his miracles have surprised him before and neither would this one we've spent quite a while reflecting on the tyranny of unfair rules ignorant people and good old-fashioned bad luck all of that is nothing compared to what is ahead you remember those 28 riders whose bewildering voting patterns caused endless frustration well imagine if there were 500 of them here i think is the best introduction to the baseball hall of fame in 1936 the institution held its first ever election meant to induct players who retired before 1900. after the baseball world held its breath in anticipation officials announced that they had elected nobody yep it's that kind of party this happens even now there have been a couple years recently in which they shuffled out there and said sorry everybody we're not electing anyone all of the baseball players are bad so here's how it works in dave steve's time if a player has been retired for five full years and that person is thought to be a possible hall of fame candidate his name is placed on a ballot and sent to 500 or so members of the baseball writers association of america or bbwa hey i have a question how do you pronounce it do you say it like boi something i've always wondered anyway steve naturally will be a name significant enough to appear on the ballot in 1999 if he receives at least 75 of the votes he enters the hall of fame [Music] the good news is that he doesn't have to make it there on the first try he'll be eligible to appear on the annual ballot as many as 15 times as long as he fulfills one important condition he must never receive less than five percent of the vote if he ever falls below this threshold he's off the ballot for good [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're going to keep dancing with the one that brought us and stick with wins above replacement as the barometer here steve retired in 1993 with a career war of 56.4 quite a few voters do look closely at war especially in 2022 but a lot of them only really care about the handful of more basic stats that are fed into the war machine different people have different ideas of what makes a hall of fame ball player and that's fine to an extent anyway we're about to show you the voting results of every player to appear on the ballot in the 21st century and in so doing we think it'll become very clear how much of a sandwich this can really be sometimes it's cacophony if they played music it would be the worst music you have ever heard first let's visit all the players in the 21st century who the bbw bbwaa voted in on the first ballot number one with a bullet needs no further introduction the slam dunk of all slam dunks the guy who everyone knows is one of the best baseball players of all time even here though quite a few voters invented a way to drop the ball you can see that quite a few players received 98 99 even 100 of the vote ricky henderson received only 94.8 percent meaning that somewhere around 25 voters didn't vote for him why well some have completely fabricated complications for themselves out of thin air they think that no player should be voted in unanimously or that no players should be inducted on the first ballot never mind that this camp of weirdos is far too small to actually prevent that given the simple task of voting in the hall of famer who you already know should be in the hall of fame to the hall of fame they find a way to fill it up now we move from the most fortunate to the least remember you only remain eligible if you can break the five percent barrier on your first ballot and the overwhelming majority of players do not a good number of these players were universally understood to have no chance and were really just put there on the ballot as a token of appreciation but tragically there have been quite a few who at least deserved further consideration and did not get it we don't want to fall too far into the trap of allowing dots on a war chart to tell the whole story but it is nonetheless pretty interesting that quite a few of the one and dones have numbers that rival or even beat a handful of first ballot hall of famers but for any number of reasons some good and some not they just never got out of dry dock and were stricken from the ballot for good steve doesn't really appear to belong to either of these cans does he he registers better than nearly every one and done player but not as high as most of the first ballot hall of famers his best bet it seems is to make a voyage [Applause] this is the small percentage of souls who've been left with no choice but to weather the open sea they survived the 5 threshold and their cases were often sea worthy enough to stay out here for 10 or 15 years a few sailed to cooperstown many did not again war only tells part of the story for some of these guys and there's no starker demonstration of this than the shared fate of barry bonds far and away the best hitter of the last 50 years and roger clemens far and away the best pitcher of the last 50 years their performances on the ballot resemble smoke stacks here but you can read them as hourglasses when clements first appeared on the ballot his showing was a shade under 40 he actually took a bit of a backslide in his second ballot but then he regrouped and made steady gains unfortunately for him as his hourglass began to run out so did his momentum clemens landed on the ballot many years after steve did and by this time the number of eligible years was reduced from 15 to 10. on his 10th and final ballot he finished just 10 percentage points short this is one of the only times the voters have behaved consistently the results of very bonds are virtually identical to those of clemens and that's because the cases against both were basically the same not only were they alleged users of performance enhancing drugs some voters were troubled by serious personal character issues steve doesn't have numbers like these guys because nobody does but he also isn't troubled by either of those concerns in any way in fact he's firmly in the territory of the majority who have explored the open sea no two of their vessels are alike larry walker arguably the greatest canadian-born hitter ever was egregiously undervalued when he first hit the ballot barely surviving with a ten percent mark he languished in this territory for years and then with his time quickly running out his supporters built him in nimitz-class aircraft carrier in his final year of eligibility he just barely won the hall of fame plaque he deserved that's one hell of a beautiful ship some are a lot less beautiful curt schilling's boat looks like the car designed by homer simpson it's all out of order the various foul wins that plagued his candidacy blew him all up and down the sea in his second to last year the shore was in sight and that's when schilling who was also waging an endless crusade against the media asked the writers to leave them off the ballot entirely they didn't but they did bump him down quite a few notches kurt your boat looks like mark maguire and sami soso once knighted as the saviors of major league baseball saw the steroids issue actually push their candidacies backwards almost off the map entirely lee smith drifted all over the place as voters deliberated on what in the world to do with the relief pitcher but by the time fellow reliever trevor hoffman came around voters had answered that question and they voted him in on the third try the supporters of steve's old friend fred mcgriff suddenly showed up for him at the very end but it wasn't even close to enough oral herscheiser a superstar in a huge la market and a model citizen with grand baseball accomplishments barely made it out here at all i mean look at this mess it's almost as though we're looking not at the ocean's surface but the ocean floor what is any of this supposed to tell us about where on this little blue line steve is going to find himself well there are three important names to consider here first the plight of lou whitaker long time detroit teammates alan trammell and lou whitaker one of the great dynamic duos of modern times though trammell didn't make it to shore he put up a valiant 15-year effort whitaker didn't even get that chance no matter what happens to steve here it won't be this unfortunate look at all those guys out there who accomplished about as much as whitaker did statistically and immediately got voted in look at the ocean full of guys who made it in because they got the chance he did not why didn't he make it out of dry dock maybe because he had a lot of great seasons but few absolutely dominant ones steve has several of those but whitaker teaches us that there's a lot more to this than more steve pitched his final full season at age 32. what would his career war have been like had he been physically able to pitch until age 40 as many others have who knows enter kirby puckett an outstanding hitter whose career ended prematurely after his age 35 season when glaucoma suddenly impaired his eyesight it was an outcome that obviously he could do absolutely nothing about the writers recognized this knew he was on track to finish with hall of fame numbers and got him in on the first ballot now we view vision loss a lot differently than we do a herniated disc and chronic tendinitis for good reason the former is truly tragic the latter just means you can't really play baseball anymore but within the confines of this particular discussion they're effectively the same steve contracted tendinitis simply as a consequence of doing his job it's not reasonable to assume he could have avoided it and the fact that it shut down a guy who was no stranger to pitching through intense pain having done so for years should assure us that although he tried his best he could not have possibly pitched through it maybe in steve the voters will see another player whose full potential was limited for reasons entirely beyond his control and finally let's take a look at jack morris [Music] who was able to cruise for quite a while on his wins and reputation as a playoff ace he built a battleship but couldn't quite get the whole way there still even with a war far south of steeps he was able to remain in the conversation for all 15 years of his eligibility riders spent a decade and a half arguing and complaining and calling each other names over this dude that degree of sunlight doesn't do a case like morris has a whole lot of favors but it does seem like it would do wonders for a guy like steve if any body of work begs for further study it's his they don't even need to drop him out all that far if the riders can just push his case into the water in the first place it'll be as seaworthy as anybody's give him a few years let him all look over his dominant winds and all the gems he could have won if he had just a little bit more luck let him pull the tape and watch replays of that curveball that completely fell off the table and the slider that on its own should be playing on eternal loop in some wing of the hall of fame somewhere let him build a little something of course there is no telling the waters are rough out there so rough that you might wonder whether this entire process is worth investing any hope or emotions into in the first place in fact the results have sometimes been so aggravating that this attitude has come to vote lots of people myself included at times have just thrown up their hands and declared the entire institution illegitimate how can they expect us to care when the hall of fame voters can't even clearly define what it is what it's for or who it wants i get it i really do i'm coming back around to care for one reason these players care these guys who spent years and years giving us things to cheer and yell and argue about whose journeys and stories left us awestruck who perform feats so astounding that sometimes you just want to sit and marvel at the fact that you belong to a species that is capable of that these are people who in their own brief and limited way add just a little bit more vibrance to our world and that building on that distant shore means everything to them i think we can spare them just a little bit of optimism [Music] this is ultimately on a much larger scale the problem dave steve has always had the ball is now out of his hands god only knows what kind of bad hops may be out there waiting for him but there's nothing he can do about any of them [Music] [Applause] the way to 1999 begins steve enjoys life in nevada with his family up in toronto following their second world series win the jays backslide as teams always do people come and go until almost everyone steve ever played with is gone in 96 the walls between steve and his old team begin to come down with steve showing up for some club events and the blue jays making his name the very first on the skydome's level of excellence in 1978 the minor league dunedin florida blue jays had a 20 year old pitcher named dave steve [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a few years into retirement there was a lingering itch of competition that steve developed a greater and greater desire to scratch sure he enjoyed family time and playing his guitar but there was just nothing else he could do to replicate that thrill of pitching despite the late start the mound had still been his sanctuary for half his life so in spring 98 steve decided to spend some time around the game helping out his beloved blue jays as a guest coach messed around a bit in batting practice and discovered both his body and his stuff had held up well the jays also liking what they saw embraced the idea of a potential comeback and that was all steve needed after a single a stint in dunedin steeb earned himself a triple a promotion and pitched well there too well enough to attract the interest of the texas rangers in june which compelled another promotion from toronto to the major league club dave steve was officially back after an astonishingly brief stint in the minors 19 years earlier before getting called up to the bigs yet another rapid ascent to the top after little to no pitching in his recent past stunned steed [Applause] what he just pulled off has essentially never before been seen best we can tell there have only been four other instances of a pitcher being anywhere near his fifth decade of life and reaching the biggs after at least four full seasons away from the game and none of them were nearly as significant there satchel paige who less than 10 months before blowing out 60 candles emerged from his antique bullpen rocking chair stipulated by his contract due to being on the back nine of life to pitch three strong innings in 1965. chief bender was coaching the white sox in 1925 when he hopped on the mound for an inning there's jim bouten one of the greatest pitchers in the entire history of the seattle pilots who came back to spark fan interest and pitched 29 innings for the braves in 1978 at age 39 and if we really expand our scope down to age 37 ex-pitcher turned broadcaster dizzy dean put his money where his mouth was after calling out brown's pitchers all year to cap their 1947 season with four shutout inies honorable mention to jose rijo who a few months after turning 36 in 2001 returned to the reds following five elbow operations and six years out of the bigs in a moment so joyous it could only be rivaled by death to come full circle the debut of steve's age 40 renaissance would come in baltimore just like his initial age 21 debut hours after being activated who's this dave steve closed out a 13-6 win with a scoreless ninth since he's been gone the american league decided to play games against the national league and his second outing back came in atlanta where with a breaking ball that still gets guys fishing he treated nl fans to his stuff for the first ever time his six-year skydome hiatus came to an end four days later and all he did was pitch three perfect innings including fanning ray ordonias with a slider whose bite had gone absolutely nowhere to earn a standing ovation from the doting crowd dave steve a standing ovation in a nine-nothing game steve went on to pitch over 50 innings in 98 meaning his comeback was far more meaningful and extensive than the others that was because he actually proved he belonged he didn't fare so hot in the three games he started but in his 16 relief appearances appearances he used to openly chafe at he flourished granted his sample of just under 35 innings out of the pen wasn't huge but his era was 3.63 over a full run better than the average ale pitcher that season and while the average al hitter had an ops of 771 against reliever steve they mustered a mark of just 59 19th best among the league's 77 pitchers to toss at least 30 relief innings this was definitely not some farcical publicity stunt after five years out of the game and in his 40s dave steve not only clearly belonged in the big leagues but he was a well above average relief pitcher steve's emergence at age 40 is such a startling reflection of his first emergence at age 20. both were completely accidental that college home run champ in 1978 was simply trying to help out his team which had a depleted pitching staff and just needed warm bodies on the mound to make it through a double header he'd never pitched before and was just trying to throw enough strikes near the plate to avoid embarrassing himself and yet somehow with no experience and virtually no instruction his mechanics were perfect that was when he and a toronto blue jay scout who just happened to be in the stands in carbondale illinois that same day discovered he'd been born to pitch all along 20 years later steve's ability to pitch is as settled of a matter as it could possibly be this is a 40 year old about 5 years removed from a protracted comeback attempt that turned over every last rock and ultimately served to reveal in no uncertain terms how completely spent his arm was he'd only shown up in spring training to chuck a few batting practice meatballs just so some rookies could say they'd batted against the once great dave steve once again out of nowhere his arm came alive in the grand scheme the dave steve of 1998 was simply a fairly effective pitcher who contributed 50 innings to a team that missed the playoffs but he secured a number of personal victories in doing this of course there's the one athletes always talk about the one about going out on your own terms this is of special importance to a guy like steve who spent his entire career demanding full control of his destiny and rarely getting it whether it was poor run support unfair labor conditions ignored requests to be traded perfectly assembled houses of cards that held together until augusta wind blew him over at the very end or his body refusing to continue he was confronted with his ultimate powerlessness at every turn now the decision is really truly his he's healthy his arm's in good shape the jays have enough confidence in him to invite him back to spring training in 1999 which would be his age 42 season he declines the offer and retires because and only because that is what he wants to do that anguish he imagined as a younger man not there at the same time he's able to acknowledge his limits and live happily within them a decade ago he was agonized by multiple demotions to the bullpen here it's the role that's best for him he knows it just pulling on his uniform every day is a gift he's not taken for granted anymore he's savoring it all because he knows how soon it'll end although he'd always loved baseball and lived for baseball it wasn't always so clear whether he actually enjoyed baseball he wrote in his book that he didn't want success on the mound he needed it and those do not sound like the words of a man who's having a very good time now at the very end he finally is steve's final tour with toronto has also allowed him to make amends with the franchise he helped to build he'd previously been unceremoniously sent off with a couple of injury-aborted seasons a locker trash by his teammates and a couple of needless pot shots on the way out the door there's just no way it could end like that not for the player more responsible for their ascent than anybody not for the guy who in terms of wins above replacement is to this day the greatest toronto blue jay of all time it's not even close not all franchises have a single player who stands above everybody else who put on their uniform but the blue jays do steve is their all-time leader not only in the category of wins above replacement where he towers over everyone here but in innings pitched strikeouts and tied with jimmy key era among starting pitchers no current blue jay is anywhere close to any of those team records no young blue jays fan has ever seen anything like him in burying the hatchet the jays genuinely got to celebrate number 37 who help make them who they are [Music] all of these things represent enormous growth and maturity but to repeat myself maturity isn't the only thing that matters this comeback which at first seemed delusional to some until it suddenly very much was not was one final act of belligerence from steve only this time he didn't direct it toward an error-prone teammate the bosses the media or himself the fates had beaten him all up and down the american league for ages this minor miracle this defiance of those fates who declared his career dead was one last finger to all of them on his way out the door and finally this return to baseball earned him perhaps the most poetic final moment a ball player has ever had everyone remembers the final games of guys like derek jeter and ted williams but this one was so subtle that i'd imagine very few in attendance that day even noticed we hope you can appreciate the magnificence of this roy halliday loses a no-hitter with one out to go ensuring that the man who catches this fateful baseball the man who has suffered this outcome himself three times remains the only toronto blue jay ever to complete a no-hitter it's just about impossible to fully nail down the odds of this but once again i think we owe it to him to do our best huh four conditions need to be met right first steve has to make the near miraculous comeback after an approximate five-year layoff to even put himself in that bullpen in the first place and not a cup of coffee either he has to stay there for the rest of the season until the very end there's such little precedent for this that i'm not even gonna try to calculate the odds so let's just stick a question mark there we're off to a great start next halliday has to have a no-hitter broken up after eight and two-thirds innings outside of this one between 1988 and 2021 there have been 27 such games across a total of about 155 000 games putting the odds at one in 5757 next we need to get this ball over the fence and left field sure it's conceivable that a ground rule double could get it to steve as well but since he's standing right up next to the fence i don't see that happening so we need a homer to dead left excluding this at-bat of bobby higginson's 1 335 career hits six were home runs straight to left field putting the odds of that at one in 222 multiply these two factors and you have one in close to 1.3 million but we still have a lot of work to do it has to fit through this window let's say about a two foot wide window in order for steve to be able to turn around and catch the ball off the carum without even taking a step i've measured that wall and dead left at 142 feet long which would make the odds of this one in 71 and that that puts the combined odds at one in about 90 million multiplied by whatever the hell the value is here this was the likelihood of us seeing this poetry in the final seconds of dave steve's career it feels like he received one final goodbye from an old friend whoever or whatever that friend was in nature for all the significance of his comeback it did produce another effect for steve it completely reset the clock on his hall of fame candidacy the rules state that players must be inactive from the majors for five full seasons before they're eligible to appear on the ballot had he stayed on track for his first ballot appearance in 1999 the memories of his heroics would have been a little more fresh now with his name hitting the ballot for the first time in 2004 they've fallen much further out of view after his small contributions in 1998 are added steve's career wins above replacement a metric that in 2004 the vast majority of voters do not know or care about has increased by 0.1 with 506 total ballots that year 380 votes are required to secure the 75 necessary for induction into the hull this blue bar represents steve's career war of 56.5 and we know it'll be awfully tough to land that high in the first year of eligibility although who knows even there it'd seem like he'd have a puncher's chance for instance dennis suckersley whose time in the big spanned roughly the same period also ending in 1998 had a relatively comparable career to steve the former with more longevity and a greater war the latter with a greater peak and a better era with both hitting the ballot for the first time in 2004 eckersley received a thumbs up from over 83 percent of the voters comfortably clearing the threshold of 75 percent on his very first chance and another three of these guys with a career war lower than steebs the aforementioned kirby puckett along with mariano rivera and david ortiz also got their ticket punched to cooperstown on their initial opportunity rivera in fact was voted in on each and every one of the 425 ballots cast in 2019 becoming the first player to ever be unanimously selected so we're dealing with a universe in which he pulled that off on the back of a sub steep career war of 56.3 and whittaker whose career war was over a full third higher than rivera's got fewer than 3 percent of the votes it doesn't get much more arbitrary than that and it all seems pretty flawed so there'd be no shame in falling short of the magic 380 number when the majority of voters felt the literal eponym of the cy young award was not a hall of famer his first time on the ballot [Music] steve could fall anywhere along this plane but as long as he just gets the 26 votes that constitute five percent of the 506 ballots he'll live to fight another day our man who arguably should have won psy's award for three or four straight years in the early to mid 80s if not for receiving from voters all the respect of a substitute teacher on the last day of school now receives from the same 506 writers who gave eckersley 421 votes [Music] seven votes [Music] [Music] that it has been decided is what all of this is worth seven votes seven votes out of 506. 499 people decided that his odyssey was not even worth a second look and all 499 of those people were handed a ballot it's not just that he didn't make it to five percent he didn't even really get close those seven votes represent one point four percent that's a wrap dave steve will never appear on a bbw aaa ballot ever again what did it mean probably a whole lot of things lending credence to the idea that playing in canada damages your candidacy is the showing of long-time teammate jimmy key who also had a terrific career and ended up in the same weed steve did but we've gotta imagine that the delay he caused with his comeback was a major factor more recently retired players were hitting the ballot for the first time and soaking up the attention a lot of voters have internalized the idea that it's somehow distasteful to vote for more than x number of players on any given ballot if he'd stayed retired after 93 and landed on the ballot in 99 i'm sure he wouldn't have hit 75 on the first try but i'm also fairly confident that he could have at least put his ship out to sea with a showing of better than 5 if he had just managed to get that far then maybe over the course of many years he could have attracted enough sentiment to eventually tow him to port they just didn't give him the time of day if i'm reading the language right he could have remained eligible if his comeback had fizzled out in the minor leagues like it absolutely was supposed to but as he always has throughout his entire baseball life he defied every last expectation that was placed upon him and ignored what he was quote unquote supposed to be able to do i believe that success strangely is what cost him but do you remember what he said in his book all the way back when when he talked about the hall of fame he imagined that any hall of famer would if it came down to it give up their plaque if it meant just one more afternoon at the yard years and years prior buried in page 18 of a book everyone had long since forgotten about he called a shot this is in effect exactly what he did this dave steve the steve of 1998 held no illusions of winning a cy young award or even pitching for long enough to bat his career numbers he'd already won a ring in 92 and he surely didn't have any expectations of pitching in a world series with a blue jays team that was coming off four consecutive losing seasons he had no more whales to catch it wasn't about that anymore it was about the pure delight of being on the mound and making a baseball do impossible things the delight that in his younger years he'd often forgotten to experience maybe the privilege of staying out there just a little bit longer was worth giving up his shot at the hall of fame but doesn't mean he didn't want it in 2017 the sporting news catches up with him and finds him doing the same thing alex and i are doing staring at baseballreference.com and trying to piece together how the hell it happened steve wasn't asking for a lot he really wasn't in fact he doesn't even consider himself worthy of the hall of fame but it sure would have been nice to stay on the ballot to send his name and his story across the block just a couple more times it hurts it really genuinely hurts alex and i fully agree with stevier receiving just seven votes of recognition out of more than 500 is an insult and he deserved far better however when he says he's not a deserving hall of famer on that point we do not agree [Music] all hope is not lost this story is not over yet not even now in the year 2022 there is still one avenue through which dave steve could become a baseball hall of famer introducing the era committee [Music] formerly known as the veterans committee the era committee is basically a vehicle that attempts to write the past wrongs made by the bbwaa as to players who have burned through their eligibility there as of 2016 it works like so prospective hall of famers who have been passed over for induction by the bbwaa are assigned to one of four eras depending on whether their greatest contributions to baseball came before 1950 known as the early baseball era in the 50s or 60s which is the golden days era between 1970 and 1987 the modern baseball era or since 1988 the today's game era each era comes with a ballot featuring 10 candidates that are voted on by a committee of 16 members comprised of hall of famers team execs and media members like the bbwaa election one needs to get voted in on 75 percent of the ballots to earn induction steve falls within the modern baseball era whose committee meets twice every five years to consider players for the hull the 10 names on the ballot are selected by the historical overview committee a subset of the bbwaa so not exactly an independent process here and it shows the first time the modern era committee gathered to vote was for the class of 2018 and steve didn't even make the ballot jack morris did though and somehow he even got more than the 12 votes necessary to reach cooperstown when steve's next chance to get inducted by the modern era committee rolled around two years later same story once again he couldn't even crack the ballot after getting just 1.4 percent of the vote his first last and only time on the original bbwaa ballot now he can't even get listed on the ones that are supposed to correct that mistake it's hard to tell what exactly the holdup has been here but hey humans do make mistakes and correcting mistakes is this committee's specialty no better time to do so than 2023 because as we're about to see this ballot is absolutely where dave steve belongs [Music] here are the first 17 pure pitchers inducted into the hall of fame in the 21st century plotted by their career era and war now here is dave steve who's pretty perfectly ensconced alongside the others you almost couldn't be more optimally positioned to fit right in he is the son of the hall of fame solar system about which all the planets are streamed as for his peak he had a four year run from 1982 to 85 with a complete stranglehold on his league's pitching he was at or near the top of the league's leaderboard each year in both innings pitched and era and whereas during his time a metric like wins above replacement wasn't available which hurt his cause in cy young voting that can now be rectified when it comes to hall of fame voting there is simply no excuse to not account for something like that anymore and this is what it looks like when we do you could probably count on one hand the number of pitchers in history who separated themselves from the rest of their league to this degree over a four-year span even beyond the remarkable peak steve had five other good to great seasons including four other all-star selections furthering the longevity element to his hall of fame case in which he also excels in fact zooming out to look at the entire decade of the 80s he pitched way more innings than anyone but jack morris and whereas morris's production was in the general range of average steeb had an era that was better than 41 of the decade's other 46 pitchers who tossed at least 1500 innings let's then bring in our trusty war where he was able to construct a skyscraper amid what for everyone else are by comparison a bunch of bungalows and gas stations the runner up here is hall of famer bert blylevin whose 1980s war steve surpassed by a full ten so not only was he clearly and unequivocally the pitcher of the 80s but no one else in modern times dominated any decade relative to the field like dave steve dominated the 1980s most decades have the war of mlb's top two within a pretty tight range of each other not the 80s though where steve was in a class of his own of course during his playing days the key factor contributing to his constantly drawing the short straw was the media's irrational obsession with individual wins we gotta be better than that now and besides even there he did still have a winning record across his first four seasons when the jays overall were the very worst team in mlb but what steve's sparkling wins above replacement did do was directly translate to his team you know winning he was the best player for a team that then turned it around to have mlb's very best record over the ensuing 10 years to close out his first tenure with the club the man most responsible by far for engineering that stunning reversal of fortune that culminated with the 1992 world series title was dave steve that is a hall of famer i don't know what else you would call a player who made a footprint like this but we're still not done let's return once again to our beloved dead horse we have to revisit these cy young award results steve won none of them we've already argued that he should have won at least three now it's true that multiple cy youngs do not make you a hall of fame lock steve's old rival brett saberhagen won two and despite career numbers that were pretty similar to steve's he was disrespected as badly as steve was in hall of fame voting never even making it to a second ballot but still an acai young award can give you a hell of a lot of ballast when your candidacy is out to sea three could keep you steady for years ensuring you're on the ballot and being talked about while your case is being assembled and it's important to understand how horrendous steve's luck really was and not getting any of those three our case is leaning real heavy on war i understand that's probably annoying to a few of you and i'm sorry about that but just in case you're still a little skeptical and on the fence about war let me present you two pieces of evidence the first one is more coincidence than anything but it's fun steve finished his blue jay's career which began in 1979 and ended in 1998 with 56.9 wins above replacement implying that he was responsible for 56 entire wins more than they would have otherwise had you want to guess how many games the jays finished above 500 in this spin 56 on the dot the second piece of evidence is a lot more substantial we've taken every american league cy young award winner in history and plotted them by how high they ranked league-wide in war those are in red you can see that ever since the mid-90s the leader in war is almost always also the cy young award winner and if not usually at least top three or four that's because voters started relying upon more useful stats including eventually war itself now here's some evidence that war is really onto something in the 1960s and 70s the voters have never heard of war because it does not exist they're flying blind on this chart and yet for the most part they agree with war you can say the same of the voters of the late 80s and that is what makes this so strange this window between 1979 and 1984 they regressed their understanding of what the cy young award was and who it belonged to grew muddier not clearer they collectively lost all sense giving it to arguably the 13th best pitcher in the league then later the 27th best then the 19th best these last years the ones in which cy young voters wandered the streets and handed the award to random passersby coincide just about perfectly with the career peak of dave steve seen here in blue he led the league in war three straight years he finished in the top three five straight years if he had done this at any other point in history he would have won twice maybe three times he gets pretty funny for him later too in 1989 he ranks 22nd in war it looks as though the voters say nope sorry dave we're looking for number one material so the next year steve does all he can to get to the top finishing a very impressive third and then the voters say oh you you know what dave sorry uh we actually want the 22nd best after all how on earth do you explain these voting patterns what was going on within the media class in the 1980s i guess we'll never know you know alex put it perfectly earlier dave steve was so outstanding and in such a class of his own that he's never once had to rely on good luck he can even make his way around consistent bad luck that's how brightly he shines all he ever needed was to not be routinely saddled with the very worst luck in the universe and yet that's the luck he got that is why he's outside of the hall of fame looking in and that's why this is not a charity case it's a correction of the record an acknowledgment that he deserves to have a plaque in that building and he always did although steve's story is incredible we understand that simply authoring an incredible story is not enough to get you in the hall of fame but i'd argue that the story of baseball cannot be fully told without him and if you're this consequential to the game's history they gotta hang up a plaque for you this for instance is why someone like kurt flood should absolutely be in there steve's contributions were very different in nature but unmistakable the blue jays back to back world series titles represented an enormous sea change a hundred years from now if caracas wins the world series or munich wins the super bowl or shanghai wins the nba finals it won't be because of the blue jays but we will look back on these titles as the first steps they established that baseball no longer belonged just to americans it belonged to everyone they were two of the most historically significant world series wins ever would they have won him without dave steed well of course he didn't even play in either of them and they needed to spend big and free agency to put themselves over the top but if it weren't for that first step that excruciating seven game loss in the 1985 alcs that likely wouldn't have even happened in the first place were not for seed this proof of concept wouldn't have been fully established but that series completely changed everyone's expectations of this franchise they weren't just some international concessions some seller dweller for the purpose of building interest in canada selling a few tickets when the big name american stars came to town they were here to show up and beat everybody and they did it twice in a row only the yankees have done that since this is a team sport the contributions of tony fernandez jimmy key barfield mosby clancy bell mcgriff wit and hanky were crucial but steed's heroics tower above everyone else's he more than anyone stoked the flames and established that they had something here that this was a team worth investing in and breaking the bank for if he'd never arrived in toronto this might well have ended up just another baseball team and you know what putting steve in the hall of fame would make for one hell of a tribute to all the canadian baseball fans whose patience and unconditional support made this possible the best thing major league baseball could do is put a team back in montreal but maybe the next best thing would be to honor the player who has accomplished more in a canadian uniform by a large margin than any other baseball player in history i mean listen did you know that canadians buy milk in bags they take a bag of milk and bring it home and then they have to cut it open with a pair of scissors and put it in like some other container please help these people [Music] unlike virtually any other pitcher you can name dave steve did not grow up aspiring to pitch he never wanted to be the next sandy koufax of steve carlton he never wanted to be the next anybody he followed nobody's blueprint he drew his own there was no more appropriate place he could have landed than toronto's brand new baseball franchise it had no legacy no former grades he would be compared to only a blank slate it was up to him and his teammates to write this team's story and they did so brilliantly maybe in the end none of this moves the needle at all maybe the modern baseball committee remains unconvinced maybe none of this ever makes it to their desk in the first place all steve ends up with is a documentary made by a couple of dorks but it cannot go unsaid dave steve is one of one there was no one else like him between the injuries that derailed his career in the early 90s and his unprecedented comeback in the late 90s by the time dave steve's first year of hall of fame eligibility rolled around in 2004 it had been close to 15 years since he was in peak form surely that comeback restarting the clock played a significant role in what can only be interpreted as a complete lack of respect by the bbwaa with memories of the dominance of the best pitcher of his era being lost to the sands of time that he was victimized by his own success with his comeback bid shockingly reaching the big league summit is a cruel fate but it did grease the skids for the surreal sequence of events that mark the final moments of his career sitting in the bullpen while roy halliday was won out from joining him in the blue jay no hitter club a club in which he'd been the sole member for eight years after becoming king of the 26 out heartbreak steve overcame incalculably long odds and bending fate to almost magnetically draw to himself the 26 out home run ball that ensured he'd remain the sole member then too eleven years later by the end of 2009 halliday had spent 15 remarkable years in the blue jays organization even winning an 03 the a.l cy young award that steve had always coveted but he still had never gotten over the no hitter hump then the next year in 2010 halliday did indeed throw not one but two of them one of which was a perfect game and the other of which was just the second to ever occur in the postseason [Applause] however in another twist of fate that was his first season in philadelphia after the jayce traded their ace as he approached the final season of his contract thanks to both halliday's own unique and incredibly unlikely experience of 26 out pain and waiting until his first year out of toronto to throw his no-hitters dave steve remained as of 2022 the only blue jay to ever pitch a no-hitter for halliday those no-nos were crowning achievements of a career that landed him in the hall of fame after his first time on the ballot that honor was of course the polar opposite of steve's loan experience on the bbwaa ballot which was delayed to his detriment by his unretirement but as for his 1998 return to baseball a return that enabled his last week in the big leagues to overlap with halliday's first week in the big leagues and which forever links the two together given how subsequent events unfolded no one at the time could have realized just how poetic that intersection would really be now at last we'll put down the calculator and simply delight in what we've seen the two greatest toronto blue jays of all time one beating back impossible odds to pass the torch on to the next the second finally achieving so many of those conquests the first could only dream of before ultimately giving way to the rookie steve was originally penciled in to make the star for the blue jays on this sunday the final game of the season and of his career that's a basic idea a human idea of a beautiful ending but the universe is the true artist among us id knew how this needed to end remember that higginson a feared power hitter was a pinch-hitter on this day sending him out there wasn't a no doubt decision some managers would have done so as a point of pride determined to avoid seeing their team get no hit others would look around see all the fans cheering on this kid an inch away from history and on the last game of a losing season roll the dice with the hitter that god and allowing whatever happens to happen detroit's manager larry parish makes the call that ruins this no-hitter and sends that ball straight into steve's hands you want to guess which hitter lit up steve more than any other hitter in baseball with an obscene ops north of 1400 across about 40 encounters this is one of those things that nobody noticed the universe just seems to do for its own amusement steeb says it was around the fifth inning of holiday's start that he began to wonder about a no-hitter he thought back to all of his the one that was and all the others that could have been i wonder whether the rules allow for a player to make a mount visit from the bullpen you know take the whole long walk out from the outfield i don't think the questions ever come up this may have been the one and only time it might have been warranted with the rookie one out away from a no-hitter and the world's foremost no-hitter expert just standing around out there it's fun to wonder what steve would have told him he might have suggested starting off higginson by throwing out of the zone pitch around him a little walk him and battle the next guy if you have to steve spent years and years ferociously pushing forward and attacking the plate and it was only when he walked the red-hot alex cole on four pitches when he learned patience when he learned how to let go just a little bit that he solved the riddle but the riddle is never the same for any two people throwing us out of the zone is of course exactly what halliday did and the fates almost seemed to delight in shutting him down with an opposite field home run off the bat of a man who never hit opposite field home runs halliday would finish this conquest one day but he was only on the first few steps of his own adventure we found so much magic in the story of dave steve but it's always the magician who's least impressed he took this ball one of the most poetry infused balls ever hit and unceremoniously dumped it in a bag with all the others they tossed to kids in the crowd at the end of a game right now maybe it's sitting in someone's attic somewhere in ontario buried in a box with all the other little miracles we seem to love to forget but he didn't need it anymore it was just another baseball [Music] bye [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Secret Base

Views: 483,046

Keywords: dave stieb, mlb, Toronto Blue Jays, baseball, home run, dorktown, no-hitter, Jon Bois, baseball hall of fame, stieb hall of fame, modern era, hall of fame voting, BBWAA, Jack Morris, Dave Stieb unretirement, 1998 mlb, best mlb pitchers, blue jays highlights, mlb highlights, Roy Halladay, Bobby Higginson, baseball statistics, funny baseball videos, stieb no-hitter, mariano rivera, Barry Bonds, 1992 World Series, wins above replacement, stieb injuries, Clemens, cooperstown

Id: xv7ZgQjMn_c

Length: 75min 25sec (4525 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 12 2022