Swinging at Snowballs

By Tom Callahan

A baseball season with the potential of a Canadian sunset

Fair territory in baseball, as defined by the foul lines, extends in theory to infinity, but whoever thought it reached Saskatoon? For half a season, Montreal and Toronto have been leading half the divisions in the major leagues, and now a Canadian World Series is more than just a chilling thought. It's a possibility, God save the Queen.

At last week's All-Star game, the northern influence was evident from the first sentimental bars of O Canada. The National League lineup was top-heavy with the bright particular talents of the Montreal Expos: the admirable catcher Gary Carter, the ageless hitter Al Oliver, the young speedster Tim Raines, and the man a New York Times poll has found to be the most respected player in the game today, Centerfielder Andre Dawson. Since Willie Mays left, baseball has had a soft spot for centerfielders with all-round gifts. Dawson won the Gold Glove at his position the past three years. While he has never quite led the league in hitting or home runs or runs batted in, almost everyone thinks he should.

On the American League side, right-handed Pitcher Dave Stieb was the only All-Star from the Toronto Blue Jays, but he started the game and won it. Back when Toronto was a last-place team, just last year as a matter of fact, Stieb was good enough to pitch five shutouts and win 17 games. Now his record is 10-7 with an earned run average of 2.54, but it is misleading to consider him the Blue Jays' only star. Jim Clancy and Luis Leal have been formidable pitchers, and the able hitters include First Baseman Willie Upshaw, Outfielder Lloyd Moseby and Cliff Johnson, the old designated hitter, whose varied sojourns included a memorable pause with the New York Yankees.

In a clubhouse scuffle, Johnson wrecked Reliever Goose Gossage for 13 weeks in 1979. Mindful that the Yankees represent their primary opposition (along with the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers), the Blue Jays have loaded up with embarrassing symbols. Toronto is defraying Pitcher Doyle Alexander's guaranteed Yankee contract ($400,000 this year, $500,000 next year, $850,000 the year after that) by just $22,500 in the delicious hope that releasing Alexander will turn out to be a more expensive mistake for New York than signing him.

The Blue Jays are bubbling, but the Expos, division champs in 1981 and on the verge of a pennant for years, are less taken with the standings. "We haven't sparkled," says Oliver, the defending batting champion. "We've been lucky that the rest of the division [Philadelphia, St. Louis, et al.) has been pretty lousy too." Emotionally, neither team reflects its customers. As Stieb says, "Montreal has a lot of French Canadians, hot-blooded and spirited types. Toronto fans are English Americans, a bit more staid." However, he has noticed increased fan enthusiasm in Toronto since the team began winning and started selling beer.

Canada's baseball heritage is deeper than 15 years of the Expos and seven seasons of the Blue Jays. Before Brooklyn or Los Angeles ever knew of Walter Alston, he managed the Dodgers Triple A team in Montreal, and Jackie Robinson played there in 1946. "Those were happy summers," says Al Campanis, the Montreal shortstop then, the Dodger general manager now. Before Cincinnati or Detroit ever heard of Sparky Anderson, he managed in Toronto. When Toronto grew past the point of accepting the minor leagues of anything, baseball left town for nine years. It returned to a faint but polite recognition.

"The people who come to the games in Toronto are reserved to the point of courteousness," says Peter Bavasi, operator of the expansion franchise for the first five years. Gary Carter says the Expos fans "have more loyalty to a great display of baseball skill than to the home team alone. When the other side makes a good play they don't sit on their hands like a lot of American fans." Often they clap their hands to the tune of The Happy Wanderer. "When you're on a roll and going good," says Steve Rogers, Montreal's best pitcher, "it's nothing to have them give you six standing ovations in a single game." Rogers can think of a few negatives in Canada: high taxes, inflated costs, language barriers. "But overall it's like a little touch of Europe," he says. "I love it."

Of course, ice hockey is the sport that moves Canadians. Tim Raines considers the past triumphs of the Montreal Canadiens a burden. Possibly the Blue Jays have found the past failures of the Toronto Maple Leafs a blessing. "I think Canadians understand baseball a lot better than Americans understand hockey," says Bob Bourne, an expert witness. Before ever playing left wing for the New York Islanders, Bourne was a minor league infielder in the Houston Astros' system. (The Astros outfielder Terry Puhl and the Chicago Cubs pitcher Ferguson Jenkins are the most eminent of the few Canadian-born major leaguers.) "I learned to play baseball on the farm, against the wall at the back of the barn," says Bourne, who comes from the sweet-sounding town of Netherhill. "It can be a simple or a complicated game, eh?" Yes, whichever you want it to be. "Well, I think most Canadians want it to be simple. Cheer the good plays, boo the bad. Worry about who wins later."

The worrying and the pennant races have begun. Since the Stanley Cup is locked on Long Island, a World Series in Canada would be a bracing kind of justice, although, as Carter says, "You might have to swing at snowballs."

--By Tom Callahan. Reported by Lee Griggs/Chicago

With reporting by Lee Griggs This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.