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Fun playoff facts as baseball hits the championship series

Now that we're down to the final four in major league baseball here are a few interesting items. Blue Jays announcer and former manager Buck Martinez started his career as a catcher with Kansas City in 1969.

Now that we're down to the final four in major league baseball  here are a few interesting items.

Blue Jays announcer and former manager Buck Martinez started his career as a catcher with Kansas City in 1969.  He was also the Jays back-up catcher in 1985 when the Jays lost to Kansas City in the American League Championship series

  • Blue Jays announcer Pat Tabler, also played for the Royals during his career.  He was also on Toronto’s 1992 World Series team. -Sportsnet analyst Greg Zaun also played for the Royals as well as the Blue Jays in his career.  He was a catcher.
  • Blue Jays back-up outfielder and pinch-run specialist Dalton Pompey was on the Canadian team which played here In the World Junior baseball Championship in 2010.    Cubs outfielder Jorge Soler was on the Cuba team that summer
  • Blue Jays second baseman Ryan Goins, Royals second-baseman Ben Zobrist, Mets outfielder Curtis Granderson  and first baseman Lucas Duda all played at one time in the Northwoods League.
  • Of course the Jays last World Series win was 1993 against Philadelphia, and they also won in 1992 against the Atlanta braves
  • The Royals lost last year’s World Series to San Francisco; they last won the World Series in 1985
  • The Mets last world series win was 1986 over the Boston Red Sox.  Their first championship came in 1969 over Baltimore. Their last World Series appearance was 2000, losing to the Yankees
  • The Cubs last World Series win was 1908 over the Detroit Tigers.  Their top pitcher that year was hall-of-famer Mordecai (Three-Finger) Brown.  This is why he had that nickname   “Mordecai's most familiar nickname was Three Finger, although he actually had four and a half fingers on his pitching hand. Because of childhood curiosity, Mordecai lost most of his right index finger in a piece of farming equipment. Not long after, he fell while chasing a rabbit and broke his other fingers. The result was a bent middle finger, a paralyzed little finger, and a stump where the index finger used to be.”
  • The Cubs last World Series appearance was 1945 (victory season after the end of Second World War) losing to Detroit.   NOTE: even though the World was at war and many players served in the Armed Forces, major league baseball continued playing between 1939-1945
  • The most famous big leaguer out of Thunder Bay was a Fort William-born outfielder by the name of Jeff Heath, he played between 1936-1949 mostly with Cleveland and the Boston Braves.  But,  because he was injured, he never played in the 1948 world series for the Braves against Cleveland.    When I spoke with Hall of Famer Bob Feller in Cooperstown several years ago on my old CKPR Sportsline program, he told me ‘’Heath was a fine defensive outfielder, and good contact hitter.’’




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