The Ben Mulroney Show - A Canadian murder mystery and the man charged with keeping the Blue Jays healthy

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

GUEST: Craig Baird/Canadian History Exh Guest: Dr. Jason Smith, the Blue Jays’ official Orthopedic Surgeon If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The whole way. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty. It's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control,

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This is the Ben Mulroney show, and it's the Ben Mulrudey show, whether you listen to it as a radio show or a podcast or on a streaming app, whether you find us on social media or, as we're very excited about on YouTube. You can find the Ben Mulroney show. We've got a channel there with tons of content. Please go there, like and subscribe, help us grow that channel. so that we can throw even more content at you and you can enjoy it to your heart's content at your leisure and at your pleasure. All right, time now to put on our thinking caps because the professor is here. Please welcome to the show, our good friend Craig Baird from Canadian History X.

Craig, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks for having me. Well, I think it's fortuitous that we're talking about this first subject today as Donald Trump was pushing and hoping that he would get the Nobel Peace Prize. That did not come to pass this year. But if his peace plan in the Middle East holds, I have to believe he'll be a lock for next year, whether people want to vote for him or not.

It's pretty undeniable. But we're casting our regard back to 1957 when a Canadian won the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, and that Canadian was Lester B. Pearson, who would go on to become a prime minister from 1963 to 1968. But he earned that Nobel Peace Prize because of resolving the Suez crisis. So that crisis began in 1956 when Egypt had nationalized a Suez Canal. And that led France, Britain, and Israel to kind of launch not an attack,

but kind of an aggressive stance towards Egypt. And a lot of people were very worried because Britain and France had started to bomb the Suez Canal. And they were worried that this was going to escalate into nuclear war because Egypt was also getting weapons from the Soviet Union. And nobody really knew how to resolve. this, but it was Prime Minister Louis Saint Laurent and Lester B. Pearson, who was our Minister of External Affairs at the time and very well-versed in diplomacy, who ended up creating a peacekeeping force, and that force went in, and within two days, a ceasefire was called, and it was kind of the start of the UN peacekeepers. And for that, on November 14, 1957, Lester B. Pearson was able to

be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The selection committee actually said that he had essentially saved the world because there was a worry of nuclear war happening because we were in the 1950s, the Cold War was very, not quite hot, but getting that for sure. And it was a very big honor for Lester B. Pearson and very much helped him eventually become prime minister. But it also did something else because back then, Lester B. Pearson had actually thought that Canadians could serve as the in-between force, but Egypt rejected this because we had the Union Jack on our red ensign flag at the time. So that was on our uniform. forms. So they felt like we weren't really impartial. And that actually led Lester B. Pearson to

really push to have Canada to have its own flag, which eventually happened in 1965. Oh, that's really, really interesting. I didn't know that that was part of the genesis of the Maple Leaf. And look, I think the Lester B. Pearson's award and the reason for it is a point of pride for all Canadians. The one thing that sticks in my craw, though, Craig, is when certain people weaponize the blue helmets as if that is the one and only thing that Canada's military should be known for. I believe that that happens at the expense of the blood-stained history that we have, dying for freedom on beaches across Europe and indeed in places around the world.

Absolutely. Peacekeepers is a great legacy of Canada, something that we have created that really helped the world. But like you said, we have served in all the major wars. Tens of thousands Canadians have given their lives overseas. And definitely they should be remembered as well. All right, let's move on to this week's episode of Canadian History X. Tell me about, tell us, tell the listening public,

because so many of them are going to be learning this for the first time about the disappearance of Ambrose Small. Ambrose Small was a businessman in Toronto. He had actually owned about 37 theaters around Canada. So he was pretty well off. And on December 1st, 1919, he sold his theater holdings at a profit of $1.7 million, which would be about $28 million today. And then the next morning, he deposited the money in his bank account.

And then later that day, he met with his lawyer at his office at the Grand Opera House in Toronto. And after the lawyer left at 5.30 p.m. Ambrose pretty much just disappeared. No trace of him was ever found in his office, home, the home of his mistress, or the surrounding area. He took none of the money he deposited, and packed no suitcases, and never used any checks. And so a variety of theories were put forward, including that he was killed by his wife because he had a bunch of affairs, that a business associate killed him because he was not really a great guy. He cheated people on deals on a regular basis or that his secretary, John Doughty, killed him because he just simply hated his boss. But regardless, nobody was ever found. There's no evidence for whatever happened to him.

There were all these theories. There were people who popped up in the United States saying that they were him. Eventually, though, he was declared dead in 1923, and the case remains unsolved to this day. We'd have no idea what happened to this person after his lawyer left that office. All right. We're going to solve this right here, you and me. Let's put our heads together. Why did he sell his holdings?

He had 37 theaters across Canada. He sold it all, cashed out? He did, yeah. And the general consensus is he was seeing that film was starting to take over. So he was leaving that he was trying to get out. Before film took over, he started to lose money with his live theater. Okay, so he gets himself the equivalent of 28 million today and deposits it in the bank. Mm-hmm.

And nobody came for that money. Nobody tried to take that money until I have to assume after he was declared dead. I assume his wife was able to get her portion of the estate. Yeah, so the money would have gone to her. The only person who tried to get anything was John Dowdy, who was his secretary, he stole $100,000 in victory bonds and then fled Toronto. He was eventually arrested and put into jail. And the police did investigate him for the possible murder of his boss.

But all charges with that were dropped and he was just charged with the theft of the victory bonds. All right. Let's listen to a clip of this week's episode of Canadian History X, the disappearance of Ambrose Small. Ambrose packed no suitcases and didn't withdraw any more money from the bank or pay by check for any expenses. Police found no evidence of him in any of the usual places, and even his mistress, Clara Smith, knew nothing about where he had gone. Eventually, Teresa admitted that her husband was missing. She offered a reward of $50,000 for any information relating to his whereabouts.

And as soon as she did, sightings poured in from Canada, the United States, even Mexico, and all of them were false leads. But the story was becoming a media storm. him. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was in New York City, he was asked to help in the case, but he politely declined. But the question of what happened to the millionaire continued to be a subject of fascination for years. Whereas Ambrose became a social phenomenon, a kind of parlor game, and it attracted its share of

fraudsters and crackpot theories. People said they heard Ambrose had gone into hiding after cheating the wrong person out of money, others claimed he had amnesia and he was wanting, wandering around North America. The most common theory was that Ambrose had been murdered and his body was dumped in Lake Ontario and armchair detectives often blamed his wife. All right, yeah, you and I were going to solve this. We got about a minute and a half left. Let's solve this case, my friend.

What do you think happen? Well, I think that it's quite possible that his wife had him killed because, again, he cheated on her on a regular basis. He actually had a room off of his office. There was a secret room where he would meet with chorus girls and things like that. So the general consensus is that she might have done that. She didn't actually report him missing for two weeks. But again, that was because he would often just disappear for weeks of the time with whatever woman he was with.

Right. But he would always show back up. So she would have had to play the game and just let it go for a week or so that people would. So she could argue, well, he would always disappear because he was. always with these women, and so, but he always come home. So that makes sense. And of course, the $50,000 reward, that was just, that was a distraction. Look, man, she did it. She's guilty, guilty. I think you might be right. She definitely, a lot of people feel that she might have had John Doughty actually commit the murder. She paid him and then paid off a lot of people. I knew it. I was

going to say that. They were in cahoots, my friend. They were in cahoots. And neither one could have done it entirely on their own, but together combined, they took down Ambrose Small, and I guarantee you, I guarantee you, my friend, that later on, long after John Doherty was let go by the cops, she funneled him some money to say thank you for the hit. All right, look, I think we've done justice for Ambrose Small. Thank you very much, my friend. People can listen to Canadian History X on all podcast platforms and on the Chorus Radio Network. Thank you very much, my friend. Thanks for having it. All right. Up next.

what we can learn from the Blue Jays official orthopedic surgeon. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty, it's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control, and not talk about how it's affecting you. But the truth is, you're allowed to feel overwhelmed.

You're allowed to say, I'm not okay right now. And trust me, I have been there. Whether it's the state of the world, stress at home, or just feeling like you've got to have it all together and have all the answers. You don't have to hold it in. BetterHelp is here to help with the world's largest network of licensed therapists. They've already supported over 5 million people.

You can connect with a therapist online from wherever you are. No wait list, no office visits. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch any time. It's time to put your mental health on the agenda. Talk it out with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Mulruni today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash Mulruni. This podcast is brought you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.

With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallarta or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra market. Workups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Tees and Cs apply. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And yes, the Toronto Blue Jays are in a hole down 02 as they go into game three tonight in Seattle. And it's an uphill climb, but I'm I'm bullish, man. I'm bullish. And we could have for you today sports analyst to talk about the game or we could do the Ben Mulroney show thing and talk to you

about the Jay's from a completely different angle. Very pleased to have with us, the Blue Jays official orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Jason Smith. Dr. Welcome to the show and thank you very much. Thank you for your service. You're welcome, Ben. Great to be on the show and great to talk to you here today. Okay, so you have been the Jays doctor for 18 years. That's a long time. Talk to me about that first day. How'd you even get involved with a baseball team? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I was doing one of those high-powered fellowships down in the U.S. You know, I was working with the godfather of baseball, James Andrews.

He's the guy that popularized that Tommy John surgery that all the baseball players get. And I was down in Alabama working with him. And, you know, he was working with the Toronto Blue Jays. Alan Gross gave him a call one day and said, you know, we got this injured player. You know, we need your help. And by the way, you know, we've lost one of our doctors. and, you know, we're going to need some help up here. And Dr. Andrews was like, we got a Canadian down here.

He can fix that Tommy John. He's a great guy. And, you know, the rest is kind of history. Came here, sort of working at the Scarborough Health Network and have been with the B.Js now for 18 years and here at the Scarble Health Network for 20. So, doctor, when you say you're with them, are you at every game? Yeah. So there's a team of us that cover them.

There's a few other orthopedic surgeons that work with them. And, you know, 81 home games. You can't cover them all. So, you know, we do about a third each. You know, there was a year there, though, that I think it did 68 games one year. And it just destroys your life. You can't practice surgery and have a life at that point. So we divide it up, but we're down to the games.

We're down to the locker room. You know, we're seeing these guys every day. We're sitting behind the scenes for playoffs. We're traveling with the team. You know, we're integrated. We're behind the scenes. Hopefully you never see us, but we're there every day. A lot of us are, I'm transfixed by the transformation from Skydome to Roger Center.

And what they've done in making that a baseball-specific stadium is nothing short of masterful. I mean, it's just beautiful. And one of the biggest changes I have to think, and I'll get your take on this, is the turf on the field. If we go back to when the Jay's last won the World Series, I mean, they were playing on cold, hard astroturf. And today, what are they playing on today? Yeah, it's a sport surface. It's actually made up of little tiny rubber pieces.

So there's like some movement to it. You know, the technology in that has come a long way. But you also talk about, you know, how good the old Skydome looks now. You know, and Rogers and Marchapiro and the whole crew when they came in, you know, they invested in the turf. They invested in everything. But, man, you should see the facilities we have underneath. You know, our whole high performance department.

They took us from, you know, the dark ages to the cutting edge of sports medicine. They redid our entire facility in Dunedin. We have the best rehab facility in the league. And our facilities underneath the stadium, the stuff that you don't see from the baseball simulators to the training facilities, like it's the Taj Mahal of Elite Sports. medicine and so that stuff is paying off this is this is you're seeing the result of all of this hard work and this this state of the art facility well so so what does that mean then if you've got better rehab facilities if you've got better training facilities if the turf itself is better for

the hips and joints and then feet and uh of of the players excuse me does that mean that that blue jays players get injured less frequently now does it mean that the injuries that they sustain are less severe. That's the goal of it all, right? And, you know, to one, try to prevent injuries. And then two, if you get injured, how quickly can you get them back? And that's a whole sport science of it all. Like we have trainers, ATs, Cairo, sport scientists, like the dietitians, everything, everything is cutting edge. And, you know, it's asset management. It's, if you get injured, you look at the amount that you're paying these guys per day. You're losing a lot of money every single day. So, you know, the focus on getting these guys back as soon as they can. And, you know,

the Holy Grail is not getting them injured. So this is, there's a ton of focus on that. And it is paying off. You know, when I started 18 years ago, what we had to work with versus what we're able to do with these guys and how quickly we're able to get them back. It's, it's amazing what we do. Now, what is the most common injury that you have to treat? So there's kind of two sides of it, There's the position players, kind of like any other athlete. You see, you know, these hamstring tears. You see, you know, knee injuries and that. But what's really unique in baseball that you don't really see in any other sport, you know,

is the slow breakdown of the elbow and slow breakdown of the shoulder. Specifically in the elbow, it's that Tommy John ligament. You hear about these pitchers, you know, going for the Tommy John. And that's really unique to pitchers. Yeah. Now, unlike other injuries, like often it's just, you know, one, you know, you move the wrong way, you hurt yourself and it's one and done. But with the shoulder and the elbow and pitchers,

it's a slow breakdown. These guys are slowly wearing out, you know, 162 games schedule year after year. So a big part of what we're doing is we're kind of just watching these guys break down and then helping make the decisions when we need to intervene from a surgical perspective.

How's Boba Chet doing? Can't ask that specifically, but man, that guy is a grinder. So if anybody's going to get it back, going to be him. Well, that, that leads right into my, I knew you were going to say that. I knew you say you wouldn't be able to tell you. So how does it work?

If you are the Blue Jays doctor, you're not necessarily the doctor for the, the player themselves. How does a doctor-client, doctor-patient confidentiality work? Yeah, so that's a really good question. So we are, you know, they're their doctor. We do work for the Toronto Blue Jays, but, you know, we're their primary doctor. Now, in this world of modern, you know, professional sports, you know, everybody's got an agent. Everybody's got their team around them. So it's never just one person making the decision.

You know, we help these guys out every step of the way. We get their MRIs. We give our opinion. But then we also help facilitate, you know, you want to talk to this guy in Dallas. You want to talk to this guy in California. You know, let's get everybody on the same page. Let's get all the resources we can. And then we help them navigate through this very.

difficult um sports medicine surgical world and you know then we help them with you know safe return to sport but then there's return to sport but then there's safe return to sport you going back and you you you're blowing your whatever out the first day back isn't good for anybody so there's a lot of data and a lot of science that goes into these decisions every day have you ever had to help um a player get over the yips absolutely you know like especially returning from injury, you know, just for, you know, for a Blue Jay or for any athlete, once you've been injured, you know, the, the mental side of getting back, the mental side of return to sport, like we have a psychologist, a psychiatrist, like we have mental sports medicine as a big

part of our team. And it's valuable for, you know, the non-blue jays. You can't underestimate that kind of fear factor in what the brain does in terms of getting back. The only person I was, I never wanted to see get over the yips was Chuck Knoblock. I've, I've, I wanted, I, when it happened to him, I'm like, good, man, you deserve it. Keep it, keep it coming. Okay, so, so, so tell me, Doctor, as, as we are, as, as the entire country is gearing up to watch this Pivotal Game 3, what is generally speaking, the health of our team? The health of our team is good, you know, with the sports science and everything that we've had, you know, we've had, I think, a very successful year from that standpoint. point but you know these guys are war out right like this is game what 169 you know for them

but every team's war out right every guy is and but the resilience of this team their ability to play through stuff like like I've been with the team for 18 years you know and I was a big part of that run in 1516 and this group is special like this group overcomes like give this give this team an obstacle they want the obstacle. So, like, they're down two games to nothing. Like, this team, like, relishes in that position. So, you know, it's like them all year. I've seen guys grind back from some crazy injuries this year. I've seen guys return to games. I'm like, I can't believe you're staying in the game. These guys are tough. These guys are resilient. And, you know, and a little bit of

a plug, too, for, you know, the Scrabble Health Network. I think there's a lot of similarities here where I'm working, you know, in a very underfunded area. And you see, you know, the young athlete that's a single mom and doesn't have the resources that Toronto Blue Jays have. And you see that out here. You see that for these guys. You see that grind. You see that grit.

And I see a ton of similarities to my patients in Scarborough to this Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. It's grit. It's grind. Dr. Jason Smith, the Blue Jays official orthopedic surgeon. Thank you so much for joining us. What a great chat. So really happy to have talked to you, sir. All the best.

And let's close out this season the way our fans want and the way this team deserves. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Great talk to you. Go, Jays. Let's go. the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain, and revenue to invest in roads,

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