Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Stieb Belongs In Cooperstown: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1725

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

In this 1725th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Stephen Brunt and Blake Bell and Len Lumbers from Today in Dave Stieb History about why Dave Stieb belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, the Waterfront BIA, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

One ball, one strike to Brown. The pitch a swing and a fly ball right field. Junior Felix is there. He's done it. He's done it. Dave Steve has his no hitter. Dave Steve has his no hitter, finally. He has done it here in Cleveland. He is being mobbed by his teammates. Dave Steve has pitched the first no-hitter in Blue Jays history. Welcome to episode 1725 of Toronto Mic'd, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA.

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RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Ienies, sponsored by Fusion Corp Construction Management Inc. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, joining me to make the case for Dave Steebe being in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, it's Stephen Brunt, Blake Bell, and Len Lumbers. Welcome gentlemen. Oh, not all at once. Please, please, please. Let's start with Stephen Brunt. Stephen. Hey, Mike. How are you? Greetings from Newfoundland.

I was going to say, where do we find you today? You live the life, eh Stephen? You're in Newfoundland. How long are you going to be there before you got to return to the hammer? Middle of September, I think. I've been here since the 29th of May so it's all good. Well it's all good and it's good that you're here with us today I really appreciate you and you know I think you're you belong on the Mount Rushmore of Canadian sports journalists. Well thank you Mike I appreciate that it's a better be there'd be more than four for Noggins up there though. Well to be determined which four but but, uh,

you're one of them for sure. But I want to introduce two other people, uh, not making his Toronto Mike debut because I did get him on the mic when I recorded at Christie pits before a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game, or maybe it was during the game, but I want to welcome back to the program, Blake Bell. Welcome back Blake. Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate you having us Bell. Welcome back, Blake.

Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate you having us here. Stephen, a pleasure. Your legendary status is a well-affirmed in our area too. Okay. A lot of praise for Stephen Brunt. That's why he's here. It was worth the, the connect here. I have an exciting announcement, Stephen and Blake, you might find this interesting too. So just before we say hello to a guy who that can't be a real name. Imagine talking about baseball and having the name Lumbers, right? That's amazing.

Okay. But Tyler Campbell, the VP of sales assured me on the most recent FOTM cast that he said, basically the third next first timer to be on Toronto Miked is going to be the 1000th unique guest in Toronto Miked history. So this is episode 1725 but you Len Lumbers are the 1000th unique human being to guest on Toronto Miked. That's fantastic. Thank you. It just happened to roll the dice rolled that way but welcome Tell us a little bit about what you and Blake Bell are up to on the Dave Steve

today Account, it's a just thank you for it's a pleasure to be here in the I don't know August confines of the Toronto Mike studio basement Yeah, yeah What are we doing? What this is you you know what it's the culmination of about forty six years of fascination with this particular character uh... but we've been fits and starts we've actually done some of the legwork for this over the years uh... he was a journalism student

uh... in the early nineties and uh... john lot uh... of the early nineties and uh... john lot uh... of the national uh... post uh... was my chair and uh... from there one of my classmates was actually jack boland whose uncle is kevin boland he of several J's biographies so at that point as soon as i realized that we gravitated towards jack and we would talk after class because this was the fall of ninety two and there was an awful lot of chatter about where the J's were headed and so he had all the inside guff and because I was taking a

journalism program at the time I sort of fell under the idea of maybe going and spending time at the Metro Reference Library instead of the pool hall and and and starting to put together sort of like almost a diary of Dave Steves games which is a weird time to do it because this is when his career is falling apart right and as you often do with best friends, you tell your best friends what you're doing. And I said, guess what I'm doing? I'm spending all my time at the reference library, going through old newspapers and microfiche. You want to come? And before he knew it, we were putting together a log. And this is like 1992, three. So we've been doing all of this

on and off for a long time. There were other steps along the way and Blake can talk to the next one. Yeah, let's hear from Blake. Yeah, I think we took it to the next level when Steve took it to the next level when he came back in 1998. We, I'd been doing website design at that point. So hey, let's take all the information that we had and do up a Dave Steve website. And ironically we said, why don't we try to get press passes for AAA ballparks when Steve was coming back to pitch in April of 98 in an exhibition game.

Remember when they used to do in-season exhibition games against AAA clubs? So we applied, we got it, and then all of a sudden we're sitting there at various AAA ballparks, Rochester interviewing Joe Altabelli, the 1983 Baltimore World Series champion. We're sitting there in Buffalo and it wasn't a Blue Jays affiliate with Rosie DeMano and the assorted gang just doing it, doing it like we're. I think it was Ed Gonser who was an AP stringer. Yep. Absolutely. So we're sitting there doing it. We're reporting on Steve's comeback up until he joins the majors. So,

you know, he got wind of that, of course. And that started a bit of an association. I'm the majors. So, you know, he got wind of that, of course, and that started a bit of an association. I'm sure Stephen could relate, you know, you're rarely friends with Dave Steve, but you can call it an associate from a distance at a bit, and that continued onwards until 2022 when the John Boyce documentary came up, the Captain Ahab, and that's really what kicked us off in March of 2022 to say, let's do what we've always thought about doing. Let's do it today in Dave Stebe history Twitter account and just pull off everything that

we have, get to newspapers.com, et cetera, and make a thing of it. Now I happen to know when it comes to social media, Stephen Brunch is a bit of a lurker. Okay. He'll never admit to being there, but I have a feeling he keeps his eye on things. Have you ever seen this Dave Stebe Today account? Oh, well, I checked it out because I knew what we were doing today. So absolutely. Okay.

What did you think? Thank you. I'm saying that ahead of time. Yeah. What do you think first? Well, it's fun. It's a, you know, it's, it's by definition kind of obsessive, but I loved it. And yeah, look, I look for a bunch of reasons.

Steve is a subject of fascination for me too. And because I was around during the first, the first incarnation and Deb done some stuff, tried to do some stuff with him over the years. And you know, he made, he's one of the greatest ballplayers I've ever seen in the flesh. So yeah, and he is, look, he's a bit, he is a mystery that it refuses to be, you know, he may, he's one of the greatest ballplayers I've ever seen in the flesh. So yeah. And he is, look, he's a bit, he is a mystery that it refuses to be, you know, uh, unraveled, uh, solved, right?

He doesn't, he, you know, he's always resisted that I think that's part of the, that's part of the allure of it. Well, we're going to get into it. Uh, the purpose, I suppose of this episode of Toronto Mike is to make the case for why Dave Steebe belongs in Cooperstown, right? Yeah, that was our, one of our, the mandates of doing the Twitter account was we realized

that, you know, the eras committee, I mean, although that changed from, you know, the veterans committee was, Hey, he's not getting enough exposure around this. He's not getting the Tim Reigns of it all. And we thought, okay, let's okay let's see if we can push that more into the spotlight and get people to reconsider what was you know in the 1980s a case of well he didn't have enough wins or enough hardware therefore he's out on one ballot. No there's

more underlying numbers there's more interest there to that and we wanted to help push that. Okay I'm excited to be here to do this. I'm a big Dave Steib fan. I'm glad that Stephen Brunch is with us. Stephen, can we start with, you mentioned, you know, your history, you touched upon your history of Dave Steib. As you might know, I co-produced, I produced, and I co-hosted a podcast with Mark Hebscher for five years called Hebsi on Sports. And I received dozens and dozens of stories from Mark Hebscher

about how difficult it was to cover Dave Stebe. Mark had a very bad experience covering Dave Stebe, but what was your experience covering Dave Stebe? Well, you know, the first part of it was when I moved over to sports writing, so from when I was at the Globe and Mail, so I was doing others in news and so really kind of in the So I was doing others in news and so really kind of in the, I guess around 1985, I started doing some sports, some sports stuff for the globe or during that pennant race in 85 and the playoffs in 85

and continued on and became the columnist, later, much later on. But so I ran into Steve, yeah. And actually my first experience going into a baseball clubhouse too, which was interesting. into Steve, yeah, and actually my first experience going into a baseball clubhouse too, which was interesting. But yeah, he was, yeah, the reputation was correct, right?

He would be win or lose, whatever the outcome. He, you know, he just, he'd stand around a little bit, and again, there were a lot of, a lot more reporters in those days than there are now, and fewer TV guys, but a lot more newspaper guys. And you would stand around his locker after his start and after the game and wait for him to kind of dine and turn around to speak to you, which often would take a while.

So it wasn't the most dignified thing in the world in my career, because waiting for half naked people to turn around and speak to you. And we were on deadline too, of course, right? So you needed to hear from the great man. And yeah, the kind of, how do I describe it? He kind of talked through us, I would say. Like there wasn't, even for the guys who were the real,

the hardcore beat guys, and I was not one of those in that, that point for sure, but the guys who were there every day and you know, were there every day of spring training you guys, he knew by name. Um, yeah, there was no kind of a bottomy, you know, none of that it was, uh, to the point. And he was generally pissed off about something.

And, um, yeah, he seemed to derive no real pleasure from a great game. Um, and obviously, you know, you know, if things went, you know, that like all the stories about him turning around and looking at guys committing errors behind him, giving them the dust there, like that's true. He did do that. And, uh, yeah, he was, he was wired differently. Now, you know, ballplayers, you know, among sports writers, ballplayers always had the reputation of being the most difficult athletes to deal with.

They were, and that wasn't a fun clubhouse, even though that was a great team. Like I always thought there was one of the things I learned about sports early on was that you could be a great team. And we kind of, we assume all this stuff about the kind of the atmosphere in the clubhouse and how everybody's a great guy.

And they're like, just like now with the, and I don't know what the clubhouse is like now, but everybody assumes everybody loves everybody, right? And it's gotta be the greatest place in the world. And you know, that 85 team even like there were a lot of jerks on that team and they didn't all like each other. And, uh, and, and he was kind of, you know, there are guys who were kind of the lead dogs in terms of setting the atmosphere in the tone in the clubhouse and he would have been one of them.

And it was, yeah, they used to call the, a lot of those guys would refer to, uh, sports reporters as blue flies, you know, kind of circling in on the, on the, on the shit and, uh, here come the blue flies. And he was, yeah, he was a lead, lead dog with that kind of stuff. Did you find when he made his comeback and we're going to really get into it in a moment here, but when he made his comeback, did you find it was a kinder, gentler Dave Steve? Yeah.

Yeah. But it was kind of sad, right? Because he kind of needed us in a way that he clearly didn't think he needed us back then. And, you know, he wanted kind of people to write a story. He really wanted, you know, and. He really wanted to come back. He really wanted to play. He was really driven.

But yeah, again, think of any other aspect of your life that somebody treats you like crap for years and years and years, and then out of self-interest, it would appear decides they need to be your buddy. It doesn't feel entirely sincere at the time. Yeah, and I would say one, just to tie off our Twitter account here,

our goal is to be warts and all. It's not to be sycophantic, it's not just to talk about Steve, it's to dive into what made him what he was. So, Steven, when you and I first met in 2022, and I asked you that question, was the reputation earned? The look on your face was like, yeah. And you have others like people like Mike Wilner,

who by that sort of the second part of his career in 1988 and onwards, he had sort of smoothed out the edges a bit, but yeah, we're not here to, you know, wash over some of those dirtier areas of his career, not at all. Well, let me ask the obvious, which is, should a player's surly personality keep them out of Cooperstown?

Like, should that, I mean, I'm wondering how much of a factor is this behavior, this attitude? How much of a factor was it in the fact that Dave Steeb wasn't close to being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? I think it's a little bit a case of the tail wagging the dog because we were just talking about this as we often do. But you know I think his case would have been easier if maybe some of the things that were denied him at a time when presumably he was good enough to be worthy of these particular accolades had actually happened to him. So if he had a Cy Young Award, and the one that's always cited as being the most likely

award that was his that was taken away, it's Bill James who said it was one of the greatest travesties of the entire sort of of baseball writers association of america uh... mandate was the nineteen eighty two sign award and so whether that was a case of them not being ready to give the word out to somebody had a poor win-loss record or whether there's also an element of them just not being a very popular guy if you have that award that would be a bit of a hook and it's the sort of thing that he just doesn't have in his resume only also played in canada yeah you know what I could ask Stephen about that too but yeah there's um and we're going to cite

several sort of thought leaders uh while we're talking to you here and their names basically Bill James who is to many the father of the sort of sabermetrician um analytics aspect of things. His heir apparent Tom Tom Tango, which I think is a nom de plume. I think he's actually somebody from with a different name from, from Canada, but he basically has taken up the mantle because James is sort of a, you know, quasi retired mode now.

And it's such a shame because his website's gone dormant and it was just as wonderful thing. Just a, a whole, just a procession of really deep interesting thoughts. Tango is a little more analytical. There was a little bit of romance with regard to Bill James. They're both important guys. Joe Poznanski is someone else who will cite and Poznanski is sort of, he's a lead writer now I think in terms of being like an historian. He has a substack which is a

great read and he's about to get back into a thing about Steve actually. I'm just waiting to see the conclusion of it. Poznanski wrote a book on Buck O'Neill he did another one on the 75 Cincinnati Reds he's got a book called the Baseball 100 in which he details with these really wonderful sort of personable essays the top 100 baseball players in history. Jay Jaffe is another name that we'll cite and he's kind of the gatekeeper for all things Cooperstown right now he's used a system which basically pivots on war and your career war versus your peak war.

And then he just finds a way to sort of get the numbers out there. And all of these people have basically said that what he's missing in terms of a hook is just not having that award. And so the whole, and this is the conversation we'll have a little bit later on, but the whole thing is without that hook,

we need to start from the ground up to try to build some kind of case and to just engage people or to invigorate that conversation. But Steven, Steven, you know, you, I'd be more, I'd be very interested to hear what you said. We've got an audio clip here that maybe Mike, you can tee up the one from January 2020 where Steven, you and Jeff Blair are talking about some of the challenges he faces. And part of it was around writers. Mike, do you want to?

Okay, let's hear that. One of the things that has happened that I think is really intriguing is the impact that analytics have had on the Hall of Fame process. I guarantee you, if Dave Steeb is on this ballot, or coming up at this time, Dave Steeb gets in. He sails.

Well, at least he gets. Because his numbers are. Yeah, at least he gets a fair shake, let's put it that way, rather than guys looking at pitchers wins, for instance. Right, but if you look at his underlying numbers, he is, first of all, he's without question the best pitcher. I think the best pitcher this organization has had with all due respect to royalty. Yeah, Roger Clemens was pretty good those two years, but yes, you're right.

And yeah, there's an example of a guy who, if he was on the ballot now or coming up now, would be really well treated. It's really well treated by him. Ed Herring Because when he came up, there was still the residual stuff about pitching wins, right? It was still about 20-win seasons and 300-win careers, you know? And, yeah, and maybe the factor that you alluded to at the beginning of this, you know, he was not a very popular guy with writers, with, he was a hard guy to deal with. But then, you know, Eddie Murray, Eddie Murray was crusty with people and Eddie Murray sailed

in the hall. He did. No, granted, his, I mean... Pretty hard to deny him. Pretty hard to deny his numbers. But Steve was a guy who, yeah, did not work to curry favor with anybody. And, you know, I can say that having gone back and done the piece with him later and seen him and he's kind of at peace with himself now he's a much nicer guy but he was not a nice guy at all and

but if you get if you look at his underlying numbers he's right there with anybody in that decade totally so Stephen your perspective on how much that that the attitude that an athlete gives off to those who have the vote impacts somebody's chances to get into such thing like the Hall of Fame? Well, you know, I don't know, I think I'm on the record about how I feel about Hall of Fame voting because I gave up my ballot a long time ago. Because I thought it was, you know, and that was more over the steroid era and kind of sports writers standing in judgment about whether people used or didn't in a sport that was where everybody was complicit, including the sports writers.

But that whole, yeah, the popularity contest aspect of it. And it got, my buddy Blair there, he's talked about Gary Carter and how he felt about Gary Carter. And I think he, I believe he didn't vote for Carter the first time Carter was on the ballot because he didn't like Gary Carter. Blair was with Cover the Expos forever. So that kind of stuff does factor in. There's no, there's no, it's a, you know, it is a popularity contest in part among sports writers and it depends on what generation of sports writers we're talking about. And you know, again, that's

the other part of that discussion is bang on, which is the, you know, if he was there now, you know, not in front of the veterans committee, but in front of writers and that writer group has changed and evolved over the years. And obviously they're more literate in advanced stats than the old guys were. But, you know, it's funny, you mentioned 82, I'm deep in a, I'm working with the Jays right now, kind of on a project where we're going to be doing, kind of working through the 50 seasons. They're coming up on their 50th season next year

and kind of a historical project. And I was deep in the, in 1982 season this week. And anybody who doesn't understand what, you know, kind of wonders about what we're talking about, go take a look at Dave Steeve's 1982 season. Look at the line and also look at the Cy Young Award voting in 82, which you guys alluded to. So Pete Vukovich, former Blue J, won the Cy Young Award in 1982 because he won one more game that Dave Steve did. He won 18 and 6 in Milwaukee.

But look at the numbers. Dave Steve's numbers in 1982 were insane. Complete Games is a weird one because guys did complete games in those days. They used relievers differently than they do now, but he had 19 complete games that year. But if you want to kind of catch all stat, he was war, he was wins above replacement. He had 7.6 war that year.

And Vukovic had a 2.8 war. And Vukovic barely had more strikeouts than He had 7.6 war that year, you know, and Vukovic had two at a 2.8 war. Like it's just, and it's barely had more strikeouts than he had walks. Like it was just unbelievable. It's just a, it's a crazy, you know, it's deep finished fourth in Cy Young award voting. So, you know, Dan Quisenbury is in there as a reliever. So it's a bit of an apples and oranges thing, but yeah, he finished fourth. He got five first place votes. That's it. While winning the sporting news,

AL pitcher of the year. So how those writers decided he was good enough to win the whole thing. And yet another body of writers that had a lot of crossover, I presume placed him fourth was really interesting. Yeah, it's, but it's a, you know, it is a reflection of the time. And you know, when I was on with McCowan and back, you know,

I just to get into arguments with him of trying to explain why pitchers wins weren't, you know, a valid way of measuring a pitcher's performance. But so there were a lot of guys like him, you know, in that in that voting pool back in the day. And yeah, and there were probably a few guys who Dave Steve had told to, you know, F off after a game or something and they decided, hey, I'm, you know, he's not getting my vote. Hey, maybe we take a quick step back just because I don't know how many of your viewers here, Mike, or listeners know what made Dave Steebe so compelling. And then, you know, when you, you break that out, then we can talk about the

numbers and why is the hall of famer here? Can we pull it? No, let's please, because when I was growing up, uh, it was kind of a, like a fable almost that, Oh, you know, Dave Steeb was drafted as an outfield or a center field or what do you, whatever he was in the outfield and then it was converted to a picture and then very quickly became one hell of a picture where we just heard about his 1982 season.

So who wants to lead us off just discussing this, uh, wild history of Dave Steeb. Well, you know what I'm going to step in cause I, I, I probably the only guy here who talked to Bobby Maddock and Alamakia, both of them are long gone, who are the two guys who scouted on that day. Yeah. Talk to us. Yeah.

So he was, he was, they were, they were scouting a game at Southern Illinois. He was, Steve was playing for Southern Illinois university and was playing center field and they were there to see him and some other guys. And, um, they, so they, they, they watched them, they, you know, they watched him play and they saw him take a couple of at bats and you know, both of those guys independently, you know, came to the conclusion that Steve wasn't going to ever hit the major leagues.

But, you know, he was a decent outfielder, you know, good athlete. Um, and then in the sixth inning of that game, after some of the other scouts in the stands had left, Steve was called in to pitch and they really didn't, hadn't thought about him as a pitcher in any way. And he didn't really have any much of a track record as a pitcher, but they both saw him that day and saw him pitch. And, you know, like that's one of the great eureka moments in

Toronto Blue Jays history, right? These, and they were two, like Madduck and Lamacca were, you know, kind of the kind of characters you'd imagine, like Dollar Sign on the Muscle, old school scouts. And Lamocke told me, I remember he said he went up to Steve after the game to have a talk with him. And Steve was absolutely convinced that he was going to be an all-American center fielder and that he would play center field in the big leagues, et cetera, et cetera. And Lamocke is, again, Al kind of spun his own myths a bit, so he may have enhanced this a bit. But he did say, et cetera, et cetera. And Lamarck is, and again, Al kind of spun his own myths a bit. So he may have enhanced this a bit, but he did say, he said, well, I said, what I said to him, you know, if that doesn't work out, you know, just, you

know, on the off chance that we draft you and, um, you get to the, into pro ball and that you're the, it doesn't work out for you as a hitter, would you consider, would you consider pitching? And Steve said, well, yeah, I guess, but I'm going to make it as a, I'm going to make it as a position player. I'm going to make it as a center fielder. So yeah, that's how, you know, they, so they drafted a guy who really, you know, was a college outfielder and a college outfielder who is, and he did play a

little bit of outfield in the low minors for the Jays before he realized, cause Steve had to realize it himself, before he realized that going up a level and, you know, against even guys in the low minors, he couldn't, he couldn't hit at that level and he conceded that maybe he had a better chance of succeeding as a pitcher. So yeah, that's the, that's the myth.

Well, what makes the part of the myth so fascinating is you're talking about May of 1978 now when that happened and he is pitching in the major leagues at the end of June of the myth so fascinating is you're talking about May of 1978 now when that happened. And he is pitching in the major leagues at the end of June of the next year. So he had the right to think that I had visions of being a major league outfielder because that year he's an All-American at SIU. He's hitting 394. He set the SIU home run record.

And so this is happening in May when he's just starting the pitch of 78, the Blue Jays drafted him in June of 78. And then yeah, he goes to Alaska, he's still Shohei Ohtani-ing it, he's hitting, he's pitching, and then they bring him to Dunedin in what, the early August, late July. And yeah, he's doing both. He's playing alongside Jesse Barfield. They're in center field.

So it wasn't really until they threw him over to Winterball in 78 that he was like, okay, I'm done with this. I'm going to be a pitcher because I'm hitting a buck 92 in a ball. So to go from May of 78 to all of a sudden pitching against the Baltimore Orioles in June of seven 79 is insane. I can't think of a comparable. Like I don't, that's incredible.

Like that's such untamed raw talent. Now he didn't have to, the one thing is he didn't have to push his way through a whole lot of other guys in the Jays organization in the late seventies, right? Like there wasn't, there wasn't, there wasn't a ton of talent in the organization at that early stage, but yeah, still he, he, he was there incredibly quickly and he succeeded incredibly quickly. There's also no AA team at that point too. So once they're ready to bring him up in 79,

he makes the jump from single A all the way to triple because being as it's just a third year team, they don't yet have much of an infrastructure in the minors. So basically that double, single A is just for the young players that they've signed and drafted. And then it's the guys who are either good enough to hold a job in the major league level or maybe not quite good enough, they're down in triple. So there's this gap and he was able to make that leap. And I mean, every time they give him a new thing to do, he was fantastic. By the way, I should say we've managed to find some of the metrics from his fielding in 78 and we get the impression that he was just running around and jumping and trying

to get everything. I mean, like his range factor in terms of the number of put outs he's making and all that. So I can just imagine you want to talk about his competitive nature, I think, at a high school level. It seems like when he's out there as a single A center fielder that he's just driven. And I think there's three of the four of us here at least. I know that the 85 Jays, Mike, were your team. That's still my team. Right? But a drive of 85. But at least some of we were born in 70 and Stephen I think you were born ahead of us So we all knew right what early Blue Jays baseball and that's 79 team was like one of the worst teams ever So to have like we knew that this was the first true superstar coming along right and that's part of the sort of the Shakespearean drama of Dave Steve and the the ups and downs of his career is like

We between him and Alfredo Griffin and God bless Alfredo right but we saw something that we hadn't seen before in Toronto and it was the first true glimmer of hope and that's what also I think cottoned us on to this fascinating individual. Would you agree Stephen Brunt that Dave Steve the first true superstar in Toronto Blue Jays history? Well yeah in the real sense yeah like there, you know, who were big in Toronto, um, in those, in those, uh, expansion years, you know, who were stars kind of within the context of an expansion team, you know, the auto Velez's and the Rico Cardis and, uh, you know, some of those guys and,

you know, Jim Clancy was a very good pitcher, um, and you know, who kind of plateaued at a certain point, but you know, looked like he might have been a guy. And Alfredo Griffin was rookie of the year, co-rookie of the year. But in terms of the difference between the guys who they accumulated as an expansion team,

who were by definition were disposable, versus the guys who were gonna come into the organization and be there for a long time. Versus the guys who were going to come into the organization and be there for a long time Yeah, Steve, you know, you know You had the Mosby Bell barfield outfield that came together But Steve kind of yeah, he's the guy home, you know, absolutely 100% homegrown To go eight and eight in that in the short time He had from from end of June onwards on that terrible 50 some odd win

team was sort of the first indication that from a talent perspective, he was something unique. Well, let me bring in somebody who caught Dave Stebe back then, but first let's shout out Alfredo Griffin, lest we forget he was on deck when Joe touches them all. Okay, so Alfredo Griffin on deck when Joe touches them all. But here's Buck Martinez. Understandably, a chance to talk to Dave Steve.

Dave Steve going to join us in the booth. I want to hear about some old, I wanted slider he said fastball and see how each of you retells that story. We never had those discussions. I tell you what what he was the Best pitcher I've had a chance to catch that's for sure. Oh, you caught some good ones in Kansas City and Milwaukee Steve Busby Dennis Leonard Paul Spudorf Mike Caldwell, Ernie Sorenson Dave Steve was the best slider you ever saw Best slider a lot of people

lighter you ever saw? Best lighter a lot of people ever saw. He was such a great athlete you know people forget he was an athlete signed as an outfielder and he was a guy that could run. I remember early on he did a lot of pinch running. He was just an athlete he loved to go shag fly balls in the outfield. He had a great feel for pitching. Now you can never have enough bucks. So here's a part two. He ever thought this day would come? I don't believe so. He seems a little bit kinder and gentler now as a 40 year old.

And he probably was when you caught him. Well, he was very intense and he was so much better than the rest of the team around him He couldn't understand how everybody else couldn't play up to his level. But boy was he dominant I would have loved to have seen Steve play for the great teams of the Blue Jays With the great defense behind him and the good offensive teams 92 93 And he pitched for those teams in his prime no telling what he would have done He's got a little different pitch for the Red Sox.

92 93. And he pitched for those teams in his prime. No telling what he would have done. Ray Ardonia is the batter. Two down and nobody on here in the Met seven. Steve got a long time to warm up tonight the night. It comes in just started in. You can see the breaking ball still has a lot of bite to it.

That's a little different pitch for him now. It's more of a curve ball, but he still throws that patented Dave Steve slider. Slider. You can see the difference in it. Marco Dordogna's knees. How about that? UJ's on the wrong end of the big score, 9 to nothing. But Dave Steve gives him something to cheer about here tonight. That's about a 37 second long three pitch strikeout Ray Dornier has from July 298 the homecoming to the Sky Dome and it's one of my favorite moments. Well listeners of this program know I'm a sucker for the old calls like I was going to fade that down and I'm like no I'm finishing it so yeah hoping you'd give some context to what were you guys at that

game? You know if I had to list my five favorite games and I did see a lot of Steve's games that would be there just because it was the culmination of everything. It was ridiculous. He'd been on the road on the 18th and the 28th of June so he'd had the comeback in Baltimore with Jim Palmer on color and then he'd had a game where he pitched long relief I think in support of Chris Carpenter in Atlanta and got to actually bat against Tom Glavin but they weren't using him much yet so this is the second of July his family was back in town apparently it's the Canada Day weekend and all that and then he gets in this blowout game it gets to

come in and pitch three innings and yes it's nine up and it's nine down and in a lot of cases it wasn't even close even better in that picture just before they throw that strike in the seventh inning there They hone in on the sign that we put up over the left field So so you two have a sign at that game that gets quite a visit TSN, I guess covering that game That's amazing Dan and buck Yeah This right over his head and they pull away to his face and then they throw the,

we're literally behind home plate at that point because we abandoned my then wife to run around to the other side of the field. I mean, you guys have your bonafides. Stephen Brunt, we know he's got his bonafides, okay, but I want to make sure people realize that you, Blake Bell, and you, Len Lumbers, like, you're the real deal.

You didn't just start up some Twitter account for, you know, for fun. This, you guys were there. It's July 9, 1979, and Dad takes me down to a game and he says, blah, blah, blah. I'm not catching everything because I'm a kid. We're headed down to the Princess Gates. And all I remember is he says something that sounds to my ears like Dave Steve or Steve Garvey or something is pitching tonight. So I said, Garvey? No, no, Dave Steve. I think he's getting the name wrong, but I still got the program. And yeah, I saw his first Toronto start and I mean, the star was born. My hero at the time was Doug Ault, who by 79 was in AAA and he'd get back up for a cup of coffee in 80, but he was essentially

done. And so I needed somebody. And that was the only game I saw in 79. I saw a handful in 77 and eight, but I think like with a lot of fans and the media as well, I should mention this by the way, because we just posted this a few days ago, but he makes his second start on July 4th in Detroit and the day before Alison Gordon and Toronto Star had published a story about how now they're in the third year of existence and there's this sort of oneness that's settled over the team, over the players, over the management, even with the media.

And so it's a fascinating little story, just an insight into the crummy team that he's joining now because just I think in that third year, everyone's been found out, even the players that got off to decent starts, they've been compromised now because I think the rest of the league has figured them out and they're not a good team. It's going to be a third consecutive year of losing over 100 ball games and here comes this guy with this extraordinary competitive zeal who doesn't know anything about pitching. I mean he's still learning as he goes. He got called up on the 23rd of June and there's a quote in the paper, the Syracuse paper, where he's saying, I just learned four starts ago how to throw a slider.

That's incredible. Stephen, Brian, we just heard the words competitive zeal. And we did touch on earlier, we touched on a lot of it. We touched on some of the, you know, surly side of Dave. Steve, he never seemed satisfied. He'd have a great start and never seemed happy with it. But can you speak to his kind of competitive streak? It's Zeal.

Yeah, like he seemed to be a highly competitive pitcher. Oh yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Yeah, tomorrow I'll be perfect, right? I was thinking that's the Kevin, the title of the book, the Kevin Boland book. That's, yeah, forever unsatisfied, you know? Like, but no, it's yeah, forever unsatisfied, you know? Like that, like, but no, as driven,

as competitively driven as any ball player, baseball player I've ever encountered, period. Steven, I don't think anyone's ever unpacked that as to why, what was the genesis of that? Was it just a younger brother to his, you know, supposedly better, you know, one year older brother? Did we ever find out what really drove that competitiveness in him? You know, that's a really good question. I don't know, and I, you know, old, one year older brother. Did we ever find out what really drove that competitiveness in him?

You know, that's a really good question. I don't know. And I don't think so. And I think I asked him about that. We did at sports net, we did one of our J's, those documentaries, we, we did one about the no hitter, you know, about Steve and the, and finally getting the no hitter.

And, um, we went out, it's such a funny story. Cause yes, please. Yeah. If you don't mind going over this again, so I'll just set up what we know from it, from a public perspective, which is that September 2nd is coming around. It's another one of those round numbers, like a year that ends in the 10 or a 15 or a 20 or whatever. So it's time for somebody to be dispatched out to try to talk to Dave, Steve,

just to sort of like a, how are you doing? You know, let's, let's have a catch up right now. And it turns into this crazy little goose chase, just trying to get the guy to talk. Well, we, I don't know if that's, yeah. It w so we, yeah, we flew. So Dave lives, lived in that. I think he still lives in Reno and as does his, his agent was a guy named Bob Lamont, who, um, one of the really first big, big time agents in pro sports.

He also, he represented a lot of NFL players. He represented Pat Hankin. Um, but, and kind of a, you know, more than just an agent for Steve, like a very much kind of a advisor, father figure, kind of, kind of guy for Dave. Agreed. And, um, and we were on the road, I was with a

crew and we were shooting something else in California and, um, but we were also working on this doc about, about the no hitter and about Steve and, um, and in constant contact with Bob Lamont and Bob, the message that came back from Bob every time was he won't do it. You know, he's not going to do this interview. He will not talk to you.

And you, and he, so we said, okay, we're going to fly, we're going to fly to Reno. We're going to talk to Bob Lamont and we've got to interview. So it was going to be like the, you know, one of those magazine profiles where you never get the subject, you're right around him and we were going to interview everybody else. But we, you know, Steve was going to be the hole in the middle and that would be the great mystery. So we flew to Reno and drove up to Bob Lamont's house and walked in the front door and Steve was sitting there waiting for us. Yeah, and we had no idea he'd be there.

Had you also reached out to Pat Hentgen just to sort of try to find some way of getting him to talk? Because Pat of course always has had Dave's ear. Yeah, I think we probably, that's probably, you know, Pat's also a great person, right? Pat's a lovely guy. So I'm sure we probably did reach out. I think we put out feelers in every way we could, like through the team, obviously. And, and, but Lamont was the one guy and, um,

cause he and Steve had maintained the relationship. I think they had business ventures together. And at that point, by the way, Steve was still getting paid that deferred money, right? Cause he had one of those contracts that paid him like a Bobby Bonilla contract that paid him forever. Um, and, uh, yeah, so he was,, yeah, there he was. And I sat down and we, you know, one-on-one interview with him. And I asked him, you know, I kind of tried to unpick the mystery as much

as I could and kind of what drove him. And, but yeah, it was not, no, it was not like a therapist session. He did not tell me, you know, about, about the big brother or the, you know, what, or the guy who picked on him as a kid or something. I don't know that he fully, at least in a way that he would explain it, that he fully understood it. And I asked him, do you remember being such a jerk? Because I said, I was one of those guys standing there and you were awful.

And he always came back to, well, I just wanted to win so badly and if, you know, if things didn't go right, I was so frustrated and all I cared about was, you know, the kind of being perfect, right? Like he wanted, there was no, absolutely no wiggle room for him in terms of, you know, assessing his own performance and assessing the team performance. Um, like it was great hearing bucks say that, you know, what, what it must've been like for him to play pitch for a team of guys who weren't very good.

And I, you know, that's probably part of it, right? I, he probably did feel that way. And I'd love to get into that a little more, Stephen, from your perspective, the notion of a, the mentality a pitcher has to have, right? Roy Halliday would always cite that book of, you know, the ABCs of pitching. And as soon as I throw a pitch, it's just, it's gone.

I forget about it and I'm onto the next pitch. Whereas there's Steve again, this Shakespearean drama tragedy of his career. He's the, he's a hitter. He is responsible for when he goes up to the plate or catch the ball now immediately he's thrown into being a pitcher where he's relying on everybody else. And he's doing it.

A SoCal kid in Toronto in 1979 on a terrible team with a bunch of people just playing out the mess, the pitcher mentality, right? He really lacked that, didn't he? At the time. And it obviously, I think it had all these ripple effects that you're talking about. Would you, would you agree with that? Yeah. Although I guess I would see similarities.

Like there were guys like Roy, you know, is an entry because like Roy was a guy that terrified his own teammates before he played, right? They wouldn't look him in the eye because, you know, he walked around with this kind of crazy, intense, you know, for a couple of days between starts, you know, or it was a couple of days leading up to a start. Like you wouldn't want to talk to him, you know? Roger Clemens was like that.

You know, I remember I once made the mistake of trying going up to Roger Clemens when he was at the Red Sox still and asking him if he would speak to me. I didn't realize it was one of the days when Roger, you know, you don't talk to Roger because there was kind of a protocol about, you know, as he was kind of working himself up to a start, he would get into kind of a crazy space. And, you know, some of these guys are, you know, are not like that at all. And, you know, maybe some of the more contemporary guys are less like that, I guess.

But, um, so he wasn't alone in that, in that kind of, kind of incredible intensity. But yeah, you're right about the ability to just, you know, you see it with relievers, especially. I see what Jeff Hoffman this year, you know, with the Jays, like, you know, give up a home run, as you did a lot in the, what, the month of year, you know, with the Jays, but you know, give up a home run. Um, as you did a lot in the, what, the month of May, when you had that rough month and it was like, it never happened. Right. Cause you've, you've, you've got to be like that. It's a short term memory. Yeah. But Steve, you know, in, in, no, in, in game, although, you know, I can't say that I ever saw his performance fall apart after a bad play behind

him. I don't, I can't, I don't remember that ever happening. There's one that always comes to mind and I don't think it's on tape but it's it sort of forever earned. Peter Gammons is a Hall of Fame writer and he was largely wrote for the Boston Globe and if as you can imagine doing the seasons as we do this day in history just means that we're sort of doing this long trawl through every season he played and he gets to the Point late in the 84 season where he's got a 31 point lead with probably two starts left for the eera title He goes into Fenway

he's already sort of taken on a little bit of gas because I think he went through a period there in August when they were Blowing saves for him and suddenly he does this string of complete games but he gets to this game on about the 25th of September in Fenway and They hit six straight singles off him and a couple of them string of complete games but he gets to this game on about the 25th of September in Fenway and they hit six straight singles off him and a couple of them, I can remember if it was Milsen writing this, but anyway we've published the piece before, but with Gammon's and everybody else watching, Steve thinks that Tony Fernandez has booted a couple of the balls and it might have been Alan Ryan in the Star who said that all six of these

singles, not one of them left the infield I mean it's all just leaders and six hoppers and things like that but they're all finding places sending guys deep or whatever anyway the runs come across it see he isn't giving up eight runs in that game and the era just goes skyrocketing and now he's gone from being 31 points up on Mike Bautiker to being something like about 10 points behind he's still got a start to go coincidentally, but, um, he calls the scorers office in Fenway and the scorer says, I'm not changing this.

No, these are, these are earned runs. I'm sorry. And apparently again, just one of those things to read in the paper. And this is Gammon's who still is holding a grudge against him a half dozen years later. Um, that Cox is Bobby Cox is sort of like restraining Steve. He wants to throw the ball under the stands as he's taking him out of the game.

But this is the kind of thing. So I think there were times when you'd see him come a little bit unglued, whether it actually ended up leading to an actual blowing game is hard to know. But there were times when I think it was getting the better of them. Those demons, you know, they were, they were real. Well Len, you said the M word, uh, Milsun, uh, Steven Brunch, is it fair to say that there's nobody who has covered more Blue Jays games in the history of this franchise than Larry Milsun?

Yeah, it's, it's probably true, you know? Um, cause yeah, like I see, is he still, like I, I even, you know, long past his days at the Globe, he was covering games. So he's still covering games. It may well still be there. So yeah, I think backgrounders or something like that. He's doing something. And he's also at many a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game.

I see him at Christie Pitts all the time. He's a big Christie Pitts guy. Yeah. So, you know, you're probably, I was trying to go back through my memory bank, but there was anybody, you know, Neil McCarll was around for a long time, there were some guys who were around, but no, I think Larry's outlasted. He kind of links the, you know kind of links the past to the present. A hundred percent. So he did visit, he's visited a couple of times, but he visited in April,

2023. And here's a clip of what we talked about then. Dave Steeb, I get, so I do host a sports podcast and we record every Friday morning. It's me and Mark Hebbser, it's called Hebbsy on Sports. And so I love talking about these 80s Jays, right? Because it's like those were my teams. That 85 team was my ride or die team. I loved it. Listened to every game, watched when I could. But was Dave Steve as difficult to deal with, you as a member of the press, as legend has

it? Yeah, sometimes he was. But the thing is, you could wait him out. And especially if an afternoon game, you could wait him out and especially if an afternoon game You could wait him out because we had the time, you know because of deadlines at night. It's a little harder But I will say that he always gave some of the best stuff because he always gave pretty honest answers Which is great for ever, you know Yeah, and he would say things like yeah,, we asked him about the home run ball and he

gave up saying, he said, yeah, he said I threw a slider to make him look bad. So I wanted to make a slider. I want to throw even a better one. And of course it flattened out and it's like a bad fastball, right? My guy hits it out. No, he would give some good and he was difficult. But because he was super competitive, was that part of it? I think so.

And you know, everybody's different. He's got SS personality and maybe, you know, you just have to learn how to deal with people, that's all. I just can't believe he was an outfielder. When they signed, they had to play him an outfielder because his mother said he's going to be an all-star outfielder. He was a centerfielder. He was a center fielder.

Yeah, Bobby Maddock and Al Amakia scouted him, and each one takes credit for him. But they saw his future as being a pitcher. He would come in and pitch. But they humored him. They let him prove prove show to himself that he couldn't hit at the professional level. There you go. I was wondering Blake if you could give some context to my second I pulled a second clip from that same conversation with Larry Larry Milson if you wanted to give it some

context before I played it. This is the the clip about The bad luck and versus whining. Yeah, there was a and I'm Stephen. I'm sure I could talk to this about Steve talking a lot post game about oh, you know bleeders bloopers And it gave off a vibe Especially when he was losing about he's how accountable is he? especially when he was losing, about how accountable is he versus just raw and what he thought. And one of the things we can talk about later is he wasn't necessarily the greatest strikeout pitcher of all time. He might have been one of the best soft contact pitchers of all time. The amount of times

that people could rarely get a bat on the ball and he would go long periods of time without a home run. But it was so interesting to hear Larry then talk about his research into the notion of bad luck. Is it bad luck or is it Steve just whining? So here we go. Here's more Larry. I think he's the best Blue Jade pitcher.

So better than Roy Halliday. You could make an argument for both, you know, I mean it I was You can make a case for both of them as being the best But I just think that Steve when he was on we just expected him to go The distance and he was so nasty is a slider was so nasty and I remember Buck Martinez would get mad at him that the times because he didn't use his fastball enough. And the other thing, he did have a lot of hard luck. Oh yeah.

And the thing is that people were starting to think that it was just whining, you know, by him or on his behalf. So this is the days before computers, so he had to do a little work. So I went back and analyzed all his starts, right? And it turns out he did pitch in bad luck. If it wasn't blue pits, it was feeling things or various things that went wrong, or the bullpen giving it up. So I went through all this and it went to Buck.

He was still catching and I said, you know what, Steve's right. He says, he said, it's right, he is pitching in hard luck. And Buck says, please don't show it to him. Please don't show it to him. Because it's just what he needed is confirmation, you know. In your opinion, having watched the bulk of his prime, should he be in the Hall of Fame? the bulk of his prime. Should he be in the Hall of Fame? You know, maybe by today's standard, yes, because when he was up for voting, it was things like 300 wins were important. Right. And all that. He played on some bad teams.

You know, yeah. And he really probably would have had a lot, but wins aren't as important now. People look at other things now. And and obviously the way the game has changed, you don't get as many 20 win pitchers. He never won 20, but that wasn't his fault. So Steven, I'm keen to talk about some of this tough luck and it's kind of the stuff of legends at this point, uh, taking a no, no, you know, eight and two thirds of an inning and then having it blow up in his face. And we'll kind of, we'll play a little clip

that covers a bunch of these and how he finally gets it done in Cleveland. What do you think, Blake and Len, maybe I play a little clip that sets up the hard luck and then we'll talk to Stephen Brunt about this. Because, you know, if we wrote this, we scripted this, like it was the natural part two or something, nobody would believe us.

But here is a little synopsis of the tough luck. Dave Steve took a no hitter into the ninth inning only to see it disappear over the rightful fence and Ole Kamisky. Then in September 1988 there was Steve again he was just one out away from throwing a no-no. A swing and a bounce in a second. Big hop over LeHanna-Blee in the right center. It took a bad hop. Unbelievably, in Steve's very next start, he again had a no-hitter going with two outs in the ninth. A swing and a shot down the right field line and for Bay 10, there goes another no-hit spin

for Dave Steve. In 1989, it was a perfect game on the line with just one more out to go. Holy cow, he broke it up with two outs. All told, Steve reached the ninth with a no-hitter four times in a five-year stretch and came away with nothing to show for. I don't believe it. Unbelievable! But Steve never gave up. On September 2nd, 1990, there he was again with two outs and a ninth.

For the fourth time he takes it to this stage. In the right field, he has got it! Another hitter for Dan Steve! The one frustration is finally over. The first in Toronto Blue Jays history. We'll call it here in Cleveland this afternoon. So we'll revisit that no-no in a moment here, but Stephen Brunt, you know, the statistical odds I've seen is that John Boyce, who put together the mathematics in terms of what

it would take to have those two back-to- go eight and two thirds and then have it broken up like that. But he did seem to suffer from some pretty tough luck. Wouldn't you say Stephen Brun? Oh man, I had the Manny Lee reference there, boy. Everybody remembers that one, right? That's the one especially just because that was like, yeah, that somebody on high kind of decided to create that terrible bounce. And that's the one where it felt like somebody was just

messing with Dave Steeve. He was something he did in the past life. But no, it's funny. When Bowden Francis had that run last year, where he had that run of kind of really dominant starts, which again, looks like a bit of a mirage right now. But people would reference the Steve thing and how close Steve had come,

because it looked like Doug Francis took some no-nos into the late innings last year several times in a row. But yeah, those ones in the context of, again, of his dominance, he was otherwise a dominant pitcher. Those were not flukes. you know, of his dominance is, you know, he was otherwise a dominant pitcher. Those were not flukes.

And, you know, it's the, you know, it's the Shakespearean quality of the story, isn't it? Right? Like then, you know, and until he, until he finally gets one. And again, I, you know, one of the things I remember trying to get at with him after when we did the piece, when I talked to him in Reno was, you know, whether that kind of gave him peace after those

everything and I'm not sure it did, you know. Um. I, he walked four guys in the no hitter, right? He didn't even consider it. His, uh, exactly. So yeah. And I think that's right.

Like that, that there was no, it wasn't perfect. And, and I think those other ones, I bet he could tell you today, you know, every at bat, every pitch of the four that he lost. Here's the irony though is, and when you think about his overall and his, the length of dominance, he had two other one hitters in 88 and 89 to go along with that. So this is him in his second peak era from 88 to 91 where he's doing all these one hitters. We're not even talking about the 82 to 85 period

where most people would say that the slider was harder, the fastball was more moving. He's even, he's taken pitching to a next level in those 88 to 91 periods where all of these one hitters and near perfect games are happening. So that was a really fascinating aspect. Well, let's discuss what made him so damn good before we get to the crux of this, whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame or not.

But because I do love the old clips and the nostalgia value, if you don't mind, I'm going to listen to not one but two different calls of that no no hitter he pitched in Cleveland. It's my show. I'm doing this guys. Go for it all going this afternoon. It was the fourth time in his magnificent career that Steve has taken a no hitter into the ninth inning. James in the left field. Cracking over his left Allen Hill.

There is room. There's the out one guy. Here is the power of Candy Mal Donato a seventy six RBI man for the Indian you're just excited to get really is the schedule hitter from center field will face him. He has twice grounded out. And he has walked today. And Steve starts him with ball one. He walks him.

His fourth pass of the day. Ball one. Steve in search of control of this critical juncture has thrown five balls in a row. Into right field, he has got a no-hitter for Dave Steve! The long frustration is finally over. The first in Toronto Blue Jays history recorded here in Cleveland this afternoon. Now Don Chevere calls a nice game but nobody calls it like Tom Cheek so let's just listen to this.

One ball one strike to Brown the pitch a swing and a fly ball right field Junior Felix is there he's done it he's done it Dave Steve has his no hitter Dave Steve has his no hitter finally he has done it here in Cleveland he is being mobbed by his teammates Dave Steve has pitched the first no hitter in Blue Jays history. That last pitch was almost more relief. The most exciting moment I think for both of us of that game is that 113 pitch. When Candy Maldonado strikes out you can just hear the crowd just go insane for the two outs and we were just jumping through the ceiling.

These are all hitters coming off the bench in the night. Then Deion James, Candy Maldonado, Jerry Brown had been in the game but the others are coming off just like the Bobby Higginson thing with Halliday. I was there that day. We all were. We were. And that prior at bat by the way that's the four pitch walked Alex Cole and Peter Gammon still harboring something against Steve actually took him to task in the Boston Globe the next day saying you know it's a pennant race he's not supposed to be just walking a guy in a three run game on four straight pitches. But whatever.

Steven has a serious cotton mouth, by the way, in that one. He's just licking his lips, because I think he's really getting to him out there. So Steven, where were you when that was happening? I was not at that game. I was not on the road with the team at that game. So where was I? Jeez, I may have to go and look at my own,

do my own search to figure out what I was, what they had me covered. But I was, yeah, I was not on the road with the team at that point. So I was probably, you know, watching or listening, more likely I was listening to that Tom Cheek call at home. I missed that game because I was working at the C&E and I got that news.

Mrs. Godaro gave me the news because she was a big Jays fan listening to the game in the office And she told me Dave Steve got us no hitter And I still remember the feeling of receiving the news like it happened like he didn't and I were Letting I was like by the way that guys apparently you know he's Dave. Did you get it? He's like yeah, because Lamont of course is living and dying with all this stuff So Len and I were in separate residents at that point

And we called each other at the start of the ninth because we didn't want to jinx it. But we were bouncing back and forth that day between the John McEnroe US Open quarterfinal I believe that he won that day too. So we weren't even locked in. Sanchez, Emilio Sanchez. We weren't even locked into the first few innings as much as we would have been. You got a diamond, you got nine men, you got a hat and a bat, and that's not all.

You got the bleachers, got them from spring till fall, you got a dog and a drink and an umpire's call. What do you want? Let's play ball. This episode of Toronto Mic'd was fueled by delicious cans of fresh craft beer courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Do you know what pairs nicely with Great Lakes beer? Palma Pasta, delicious authentic Italian food. We love our Palma Pasta. What are you doing this weekend? Celebrate the Festival of India Chariot Fest at Centre Island.

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Thank you Nick Ienies for fueling this Real Talk. And much love to Ridley Funeral Home. They only sell Canadian caskets at Ridley Funeral Home. They're proud to have Northern Casket to offer to their families. Brad Jones has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking. Subscribe, enjoy. Much love to all. What makes him a Hall of Famer?

Look, far be it for me to say what a Hall of Famer is, because I don't vote for them anymore, but, um, you know, I think he's arguably the best picture of, of, of a date for, of a, the best pitcher of a decade, depends how you want to measure the decade. And as you guys pointed out, there's like the two peaks. We normally talk about him as a 1980s pitcher, but he does creep into the early 1990s as a great pitcher. And I think if you can make the case

that a ball player is, you know, among a very select elite group over that much time, um, that to me is, you know, that's the measure rather than, you know, a single great season or you can make, look, it's easy to make a statistical case for him now. And you know, as Blair's talked about in that clip we ran, and everybody would say now, look, it's, we, we, and especially sports writers view the game and interpret the game differently because they understand that, you know, they stopped being afraid of advanced metrics

and started to understand that they actually revealed something. And although, you know, you still hear any analytics guys on TV all the time, so I may be not totally right about that, but, um, like I, I think the case is clear cut, you know, it's, and he felt, again, remind me if I'm wrong guys, but he did fall off the ballot after one year, right? He didn't, which is like, that's, that's just mind blowing. Well, he, and part of that was because he came back, uh, in 1998,

when he would have been likely what, on the ballot that year next year. So he pushed his ballotry another five years into the early 2000s where even fewer writers would have known or have seen him. You remember in the first half of the 80s, even Toronto was only seeing on TV like what, 20 games, Malik, it's crazy when you look at it.

I was just looking at that again through this stuff that I've been digging into and people, it probably hard to, for the first few years I think it was 16. There were 16 Blue Jays games televised. So that's in market, that's Canadian television. So if you were an out of market guy, ball, you might have seen, and you're an American league

writer, you would have seen Dave Steeb show up in, you know, and maybe start a couple of times against your team. But that's the only time you saw him. You know, and that would be it. So it's not like you can do what you do now, which is every game from everywhere is available and you can PBR it and you can, you know, you can, there's all kinds of options for watching. But in those days it was, so guys, we're really looking, you know, you can, there's all kinds of options for watching, but in, you know, in those days it was, so guys were really looking, you know, and think of that Cy Young balloting, like, you know, on what basis

did they make that Cy Young ballot? You know, did they, did they, did they see Steve pitch that year? Did they see him pitch more than once that year? Or did they just look at the wind count and say, well, you know, he won one less game than the other guy, so we'll give it to the other guy. Like, it's not like they saw Pete Bukovic a million times either. So, yeah, a very, a different world,

a different world where guys were reading boxcores in the sporting news. Even by 82, they only have about 40 games televised. And there's this one game out in California where there's one of the sidebar stories that the Globe runs in which Toronto actually declines the right to broadcast a game that night, so it's not even shown in which Toronto actually declines the right to broadcast the game that night. So it's not even shown in the Toronto market,

but they're showing it in, you know, Coburg and, and Barry and so forth, but not even bothering to show the J game. And that actually leads into this, the one comment from Bill James, this is off his website, but when he's talking to, I think it was Jack Atkin who was beat in Kansas city. And Atkin says are we ready to vote the Psy for a 17 and 14 pitcher and you know the answer between the two of them was no we are not and of course again five first place votes and

a distant fourth place finish to a guy whose whip was just god-awful and all the other underlying numbers weren't very good either. I'm gonna play a little clip from my most recent episode this This was Friday, I had Steve Simmons here in the basement and I asked him, knowing this episode was recording on the Monday, I said, well I asked him if Dave Steebe belonged in the Hall of Fame. I have a question for you, Steve Simmons. Does Dave Steebe belong in Cooperstown?

Yes. And I think what happens is you have to look at Dave Steeb's career now through the lens of what we statistically accept and appreciate now more than we did then. And he did not win a Cy Young, I believe, and I don't think he even came close to winning a Cy Young. If you look at the votes he got most years, he was a fair bit back. But if you look at Jack Morris's statistics, 10 year period, and you look at Dave Steepe's statistics,

and I'm doing this all at the top of my head, I don't have things in front of me. If you look at Dave Steepe's statistics over a 10 year period, I think Dave Steepe's statistics are more impressive than Jack Morris's, impressive than Jack Morris's other than Jack Morris's what he was able to do in big games and things like that. I thought Jack Morris was, I voted for Jack Morris a number of times as a Hall of Famer and I never

had the opportunity to vote for Steve because he was off the ballot, you know, before it got to that point. you know before it got to that point. So Jack Morris is a Hall of Famer and let's talk for a moment maybe about that comparison Steve versus Jack Morris. That's not our favorite. Stephen do you want to pick that up? That's our least favorite. Jack Boland saying that Steve's tearing his hair out over the fact that Morris is gonna win 20 with that 92 team while he's on the DL. I just, so here's the real, here's the real thing. And Steven, if you,

you were there at the time, right? I'm shocked at how, when you think about the difference between the teams that Morris got to play on a championship team with a, with a MVP closer, it always seemed interesting to me how teams like that, they got up for when their guy got onto the mound. It was like Grant, he was like the Grant Fuhrer. Jack Morris was like the Grant Fuhrer of MLB and Dave Steele was like the Billy Smith.

He was like the Billy Smith, right? So, but it always amazed me how when this younger, perhaps more just immature franchise or team, when Steve went up, it was like, oh, we can take like a day off because he's gonna do the work. And so you're sitting there watching going, how is this guy who lets in five runs a game winning 20 plus games all this? Meanwhile, Steve is sitting here throwing like nine, nine incomplete game shutouts and he's losing one nothing. It was just,

we were just shocked if they, if I think if you'd switched, if you'd switched the players. And then of course, Jack went on to really pull a Scotty Bowman and then cherry pick his teams, right? From Minnesota to Toronto at the perfect times. But it was just any comments on that Steven and just terms of the types of mentality and what those differences. Well, yeah, like you're right about him chair picking teams and I think a lot of look, and Morris was very good at promoting Jack Morris.

So there was also that. And I think the 10 inning World Series game, you know, was kind of the cherry on the top that, you know, if you talk to a Hall of Fame voter at that point, I think, you know, what would have tipped, that's probably the one that tipped the bounce. He's the Paul, he's the Paul Henderson. I mean, he, you know.

Yeah, better than Paul Henderson in context, but yes. But has that moment where everybody, you know, who follows baseball and say, that's one of the greatest performances in baseball history. And we were at the, we were at the, Len and I, my dad took us both to the game one of the 1985 ALCS, where Steve had, we think his signature moment

at the time, right? Was he goes out, throws a shout out, has that vapor lock pitch on George Brett, throws the shutout and he comes off there thinking, great, we, you know, we're on our way. Do you want to hear some, want to hear that vapor lock? I have a call here. Maybe we listen to this at that point. It appears on this series of pitches, Steve is going to run the fastball away to Brett and say, okay, if you want to hit it, you're hit it you're gonna hit it the lefty or center field I'm not gonna let you pull it and turn on.

Good curveball. Back short of it. Because Brett has gotten stronger. He's gotten that weight shift that Charlie Lough talked about. He can drive the ball to the left center and dead center field. He was on the dead center about 4.50 the other day. Wow, called third strike. The seed charged up, he just ball-cashed off the pitcher's oven. And that's the flip side. Some say he's sullen when things don't go his way,

but he's so exuberant when he's in a groove like now. Brett seldom strikes out, only 49 times all year a remarkable figure but with stuff like Steve is flashing tonight even the best of them can be victims. Watch Brett's reaction on that curveball that got him. He'll look it back into the glove and then glance back at Davey Phillips as if to say he couldn't have caught me looking on that one. Could he? There you go, Bob Costas. They were a great team for that entire series actually. Costas gets a lot of stick from people but Costas and Kubek were terrific through at 85 and Kubek even in the first

game, we mentioned Jim Sundberg earlier, but in the first game they're talking about the power alley out towards right field and he says watch watch out for that wind. Six games later. Trying, I'm trying not to think about it. I think Steve, Steve pitched through Steve, Steve had already pitched over the last four years, 92 to 85, like all averaging like 260 innings a game. And then Bobby Cox, God bless him. Our favorite season decides to go with a short rotation in that first seven game series, it used to be a five game series, and he pitches Steve three times in like nine days and each progressive

start is a little weaker than the others and then we end up with Sunberg and yeah, Steve, because of the injury in 1991, as we heard Buck say, he doesn't get that signature moments that Morris would have had in 91. So just before we say goodbye to Stephen Brent, who in my opinion is a hall of Famer. That's my opinion. Okay. Stephen Brent. I'm going to add actually that the diamond dreams is still to this day. I mean, it's the exemplar of any book that's ever been written on the J's because I

think what Stephen does is he just recognizes the fact actually talking to you directly. Sorry, Stephen is actually talking to you directly, sorry Stephen, is you know baseball fandom is the sort of thing where heartbreak is sort of built into cheering for a team because in those 11 consecutive years the Jays had a winning record. In fact they win 86 games at the minimum and there are only three teams in history that have won 86 or more for 11 or more years in a row. They're all the New York Yankees coincidentally. I can only think of maybe two seasons in that 11 year run, the first nine years before the World Series wins that you

might not term as heartbreaking. Maybe 83 because it's the new car smell of finally having a competitive team and I would argue that 89 is not so bad because they're so bad. Ceto gets it gets the job when Jimmy's fired after the 12 and 24 start, and I don't think anyone figured they had much of a chance against that Oakland team in 89, but what that book does so well is it just essays heartbreak and disappointment, and it's must reading for an EJ fan to go through that entire series, because by the time you get to that game seven and you're watching that ball, as you say, I think it's the passage later in the

book and you're talking about 92 now and just how, you know, fans of a certain stripe and era can trace the arc of Jim sunberg's fly ball. It's true. I mean, we all still think about that. And even though we won the pair of world series in 92 and three 85, the sting is still there. And they would have won an 85. Oh, I think so too. I'm, uh, I don't think convinced, you know,

just like I think the 2015 team would have won, you know, if they'd gotten by. I wonder if the 87 team might have won if they'd gotten through. Yeah. With the new playoffs and then the 91 team, if Steve hadn't gotten injured and then we're throwing candy audio there

for a couple of games. Yeah, refusing to throw his knuckle ball. Yeah. That's... Heartbreak. So again, we only have a couple minutes left with Stephen. Stephen, you've been amazing as always, but I do. I'm going to make you listen to a little bit of a Toronto mic'd episode that featured all three guys. I had Dave Perkins, Bob Elliott and Larry Mills and all in this basement, believe it or not. Holy smokes. I did that. Here we go. Buck Martinez still says Steve was the greatest pitcher in franchise history. I agree. Yeah I was gonna ask you guys that. I agree. So all three of you agree Dave Steve. Different errors hey Dave Steve made me get him he pitched up we took it for granted to go a complete game. Yeah. You know you don't

even have to go that far back because Roy Halliday pitched how many complete games right like that's not that long ago or maybe yeah but but we sort of he was a horse he was a we kind of snickered at that too because Because the number of complete games he threw wouldn't compare to say steves or somebody I'm gonna say snickered wouldn't be the right way, but even then there was an example of what? The number of complete games he threw because that was considered exceptional right kind of proved what was going on I guess that that's the best book Martinez still says Steve was the greatest pitcher in franchise history yeah we loop that one there because it's such a great bit and then just before we last clip Paul Beeston talking to FOTM Mike Wilner looking at players who were overlooked you saw

Every game this guy played every pitch this guy through do you think there will come a time when we'll see Dave Steve get Another look at the Hall of Fame. Well, I would like to think we would I mean, you know, I can talk about Dave Steve I mean, you know we start talking about the 80s We're starting talking about one of if not the premier pitcher in that whole era. He's certainly in the discussion for it. And for four or five years, he must watch television and must see as a player.

And so I would love to see Dave Steeve get another look at it. I mean, I don't know if he could have any better numbers. He might want to one a couple of Cy Youngs under these new analytics. But Dave Steve's special, this was a special pitcher. There's absolutely no question about it. But because he was off, they didn't get the 5%,

he didn't even get a second look. And that's what this is about. So yeah, I hope he does. Yeah, Dave, Steve, I, you know, honestly, I think with the modern metrics, if people looked at the game back then the way they do now, he would have won at least three Cy Young Awards and would would absolutely be a Hall of Famer. So Steven Brun, any final words before we say goodbye to you? We won't end the episode quite yet. I'll do a little little more with with Blake and Len,, any final words before we say goodbye to you? We won't end the episode quite yet. I'll do a little more with Blake and Len, but any final thoughts on what makes Dave Steeb a Hall of Famer? Well, again, I think those guys all made the case and we all agree on it. I think that's the years.

It's interesting hearing Beast there because Beast has been on the Veterans Committee. 23 most recently. Yeah. The second look committee. And so that's the, and the Veterans Committee, they're the guys that put Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame. They do some strange kind of look, they seem to kind of look out for certain people at certain times for certain reasons. I think that was a little nod to their good buddy Jerry Reinsdorf.

But yeah, I would like to think, you know, that's, that they'll get, that somebody will figure this out at some point and get them in. Um, I think he's one of the most fascinating athletes all top to bottom that I've ever, that I ever covered, you know, like I still, cause again, he's still a bit of a puzzle to me. Um, and you know, it was kind of as much as you wanted to admire him. And, you know, if, if, you know, if you sat here and told him how great he was, I think he'd still keep his distance.

He's, whatever was burning inside him is kinda, we never got to it. We never really figured that out. And you know what? And he didn't give a crap. That's the other thing. He was not brand aware. Even when he had the book to sell, it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to kowtow to anybody.

And a little kowtowing is okay sometimes. A little politeness is not a terrible thing, but he is unique. He was unique. He is unique. And again, it's him and Halliday in franchise history. And I always point out those two Clemens years,

even though people want to pretend he wasn't here and for a variety of reasons, but he, you know, he was pretty damn good and is one of the greatest pitchers who've ever lived. But yeah, Steve Halliday, you know, take your pick. But I, like Dave Steve Slider, you know, those, those three words, if you're a baseball fan, you are alive and aware in those days, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'll tell a story about his indifference or his brand indifference. We were contacted in the summer of 2023 by a couple of people out in San Jose for the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame. And one of the fellows is Dan Brown, who is currently still working with the athletic, but he does a lot of Bay Area writing, and he's roughly a contemporary of ours, so he would have been cheering for Steve as a kid at the time. But upon being, I guess, invited to the panel, he quickly noticed that there were several Bay Area baseball players who were in there, Carney Lansford, Ken Kameniti, Dave Reggetti,

Mark Langston, but there was no Steve. So they contacted us in the summer of 23 because they were having trouble getting some sort of arcana. I think with him being in, with the induction coming up, what they needed was footage that they could sort of cobble together a six minute, five, six minute clip of highlights and they didn't have much

because there wasn't much out there. So we got into this dialogue that went on for a few weeks while we were putting things together for them. And I guess the way Dan told the story was that he calls Dave to tell him he gets the number from Lamont and calls Dave to tell him that he's been, uh, inducted and there's this silence on the end of the line. And then Steve is just, why now? Why now?

So anyway, he says, do you have anything like, like, uh, childhood memories, footage, uh, trinkets, trophies, anything that we could use? And he says, no, I don't, but maybe my brother does. And so, you know, I, you know, you fast forward a little bit and I'm on, uh, writing his daughter to say, is there anything that you could possibly submit? They ended up getting a couple of pictures of his high school years, uh, from Oak Grove, uh, high school in, uh, in Oakland, but that was it. I mean, there's just, there's nothing and he wasn't really, he wasn't really willing to play the game.

Interesting guy, interesting story. Fascinating. I'm so glad we did this with Stephen Brunt too. So Stephen, enjoy Newfoundland. I'll catch you when you come back to the Hammer and thanks very much for doing this. Yes, thank you. Thanks guys. Yeah, absolutely. Huge pleasure, man. This has been a lot of fun. Oh yeah. And you know what? I I'm really excited to hear about, uh, about what you're working on right now too. I think that's, I don't know if this is the first time it's been mentioned, but that's fantastic news. That's like manna from heaven for us. So, um,

yeah, it's to black cool all that research. Yeah, it's going to be, it's it, I'm having a blast and uh, it will all be revealed, uh, start to be revealed next spring, I guess. Okay. Well, if it's coming on some sort of hard copy, you've already sold three just right here at this table, I think. Nope. That's fantastic. That's wonderful. Good luck with it. Thanks. Thanks, Stephen. See you guys. See ya. Bye, Stephen. So Blake Lynn,

what was that like having the legend that is Stephen Brunt as our special guest for this episode? Now that he's gone, I'm just going to, I guess I can't embarrass him, but I'm going to read something just a couple paragraphs from a piece that he wrote on Steve in September of 1990. And so this is a few weeks after the no-hitter or also a few weeks after Keegan Matheson was born, apparently. Right.

We learned that just the last little bit. He writes this, there are those who thrill at Steve's agony in the way they would also cheer watching the big man on campus do something particularly embarrassing and there's no mystery why. Human nature dictates that the guy who has everything and isn't overly pious about it might not have a lot of friends. Because he lacks the false humility that's supposed to go with being a professional athlete, Steve is a focus for emotion in a way none of his teammates, with the possible exception of George Bell, would ever be. He's one of those guys who will

only ever be loved by his home fans, and then only in the good times. It would have been a simple proposition after all for him to toss out a few homilies, win or lose, that would make him seem just swell. A little more restraint on the field, a little more baloney off, and Steve would have long ago been transformed from a fascinating but not particularly appealing figure into the king of Toronto, idol of millions. But that would have been false and that would have been easy. For better or worse those words aren't part of Dave Steeve's vocabulary. Well who wrote that that's so well-written of course the only one man could write that. Now we talked now we touched on Steeve's indifference. Like I think I read a quote about, you know, do you belong in the

Hall of Fame? He's like, no, I don't because I don't, I can't remember, didn't win enough games. It might be Simon Dingley of the CBC. He'd shot a video of Steve in August of 22 when he'd come by and Steve, oh, and this was telling to me, by the way, Steve comes out, he's just paraded out by a gopher and he's talking to the gathered media. And so Dingley's a CBC guy posted this. Sure he's an FOTN. Oh is he? Okay okay well yeah very nice. He did his exit interview here. He allowed us to share this and so that's where the quote comes from and Steve it sort of dawned on me because that day he also did a long booth interview with Buck and Dan and

you played a short portion of it earlier and he's talking about that moment when they win the series Timlin to Carter and he's the first one out with the you know the famous white sneakers and he falls under the the dog pile at it by Timlin and Carter yes and he says sort of colloquially he says you know I've got I've got, what is it? I know the words are escaping me. It's okay, you only had your A game when Brunt was on the line. I know, exactly, now I can take it easy. But he says, I'm claustrophobic.

And so I didn't like being under that dog pile. And that made me wonder if maybe that's part of it too, is that you've got this guy who's just burning hot fire after a good or a bad or an indifferent game, and then the the media descends and you've got all these people asking him questions and maybe he just didn't always want to have to deal with it. I just don't think that he was versed in the next city. He's a different cat for sure. He's an intense guy.

Now, so as we wrap up here, Blake, I'm going to bring into this because, you know, I mentioned Steve's indifference because he doesn't seem like he's going to start. You know, I just recently recorded at the Joe Carter Classic and both Cito Gaston and Joe Carter were basically like, yeah, I belong in the Hall of Fame. Like they're sort of, you know, Joe, particularly like if you look at this, he's given the case for why he belongs in the Hall of Fame. And I think I said he belongs in the Hall of Very Good. But I would never say that to Joe.

He's one of the greats, but in a sweetheart. But Dave, Steve's not, you know, tooting his own horn and he's not, he seems rather indifferent to this whole thing. And we've just spent, you know, 90 minutes making the case for why Dave Steeve belongs in baseball's Hall of Fame. What next? Blake, what's next?

Like, is there a committee that's gonna meet and there's a possibility at some point that Dave Steeve could actually end up in Cooperstown? Yeah, he's up again in 2026, and Len can keep me honest here, for that era committee who will give him another shot. We'll give all those representatives from that era another shot.

And I think it's, like we actually sat here a few months ago and thought, you know, Tio Mike, Ben, like, could he help us like figure out how to do podcasting? Because we would love to do exactly now what we're doing here, which is be a bit more of an advocate, like go out and talk to the Buck Martinez's of the world,

the in-house Toronto people who knew him and saw him, because that's so key, right? If you saw him. Hold on, Len's gonna crack open. Oh, I'm gonna crack open, yeah. Yeah, it's, but you only, at the very end of the show, he's cracking open his premium logger from Great Lakes. Okay, on the mic, my friend.

Premium logger, Great Lakes logger. And then we'll get right back to what Blake is saying. This'll be good. Oh, look at that. Okay, back to you, Blake Bell. Right. So we're thinking, okay, how could we do what was done for Tim Reigns to get him in there? And I think it really starts with efforts like this building out from the Toronto core and then

building out to the people who covered him or played with or against him. Because without that type of sight on him, it's going to be a big challenge. And, you know, when we talk about the numbers and the underlying stats, the case is there, like Len can very quickly walk us through, you know, why he's got the case for being a Hall of Famer. And that's important because it's not just about

our interest or admiration for him or, hey, we're the fanboys. Like it's there, it's legit. We're interested in him because of that. And the fact that he has everything that Brunt talked about, the best war for the 1980s, et cetera, but there's even greater cases to be made when you look, when you dig a little bit deeper into those underlying numbers. Yeah. So he's got the underlying stats, you know,

numbers don't lie. And when you do these comparisons, I know you guys both grimaced when I brought up the Jack Morris comparison, but when you do certain comparisons, it's obvious that, you know, Dave Steve- It's hard earned. Right.

And we talked in this episode, you said warts and all. So we talked about sort of in his time, you know, how the overvalue of wins, for example, and Cy Young awards. So these awards, the number of wins were key. You know, Dave Steve never won 20 games. The fact he played in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and how few games were televised and how, how little, I mean, I'm, I don't know that era. Like what did they have?

Did they have ESPN doing the, the, the shows back then? I suppose they did. I would've had a show like I was a sports line guy with Hepsey and Tati. That's my show, but I have a feeling they didn't spend a lot of time showing blue Jays clips. Right? So blue Jays, Canada, that's going to have an inherent disregard. His reputation with people who did have a vote, with the writers, I know what Hebsies told me through the years, basically said Dave Steeb was an asshole, basically, and

he cited all these examples of stuff. And I've had many a conversation of someone covering the team that how difficult and prickly Dave Steeb could be. Brunt was rather kind about it, but you know, he didn't make any friends of the writers. He sure didn't get them rooting for him. So he's got a lot working against him. But the fact that there is a path, like I guess we're just looking for a path. And if it means recording things like this very episode of Toronto Miked and getting them to the right ears, there is hope here. Bill James used to talk about how he thought that

the Veterans Committee would really benefit from precincts where you had a fan base, advocacy basically. It could be people like us, it could be historians or journalists or what have you, just basically suggesting people from each market so that they would get a bit better look. Because what's happening is you see, it's a moving target. just basically suggesting people from each market so that they would get a bit better look because what's happening is you see it's a moving target uh... this is uh... this ballot is coming up the end of this year and we do have a sense that three years

hence when the next get around to doing this particular uh... error that he represents which is the nineteen eighty two present era uh... that you have more people coming on the ballot by then you have more pictures including andy padditt and roy oswald who are picturesers with one has a higher war one has a lower war and we don't think that war is the be all and end all but these are people who would be in the conversation and they would clutter the field. What we really need is some form of advocacy from one place that hasn't done a thing about it and it's the Blue Jays itself. The number is not retired there's a piece that we

publish every year where Jim Hunt ex of the the Toronto Stun, calls it Hammond Eggers who weren't fit to basically carry his jockstrap and they keep on giving that number out. But you see there's no advocacy coming from the team itself. And whether that changes in this 50th anniversary, I don't know. But with Alomar no longer, you know, he's persona non grata and Alladay not available for anything. Who's going to be there to cut the ribbons and to kiss the babies and so forth when they get to all those 50th anniversary celebrations? They don't actually have someone in good standing with a retired number on that team right now. That's interesting. I spend a lot of time in U.S. ball parks and it's just stunning to see what how they balance, you know, the current team with the legacy

of the franchise. I was just down in Atlanta for the first time last August. What they have going on behind Center Field is just amazing from a museum standpoint. So yeah, it's really three things that are the challenge, right? Number one, it's Steve's indifference. That's a big challenge when he's not interested.

He's not Bert Blylevin, basically. Exactly. Bert spent his whole broadcasting career reminding people how great he was until they finally voted him in on the 14th of his 15-year advocate period. So it's Steve's indifference, it's the franchise's indifference, which we are getting hints that will be solved by the 50th, but that's not going to impact now. But then it's again, what we're doing

now and what we could do moving forward to the end of the year to just tell a story, not just about numbers and those things, but to have a people like a George Brett or a Wade Bogg, come on and say, like this guy was legit. Like he was, you had to see him to play against him to believe it. And we think there's your path, right? Those three things, if those three things come to play a little more, then you've got a slight opening.

I think they should unveil a statue of Dave Steeb's mustache at the Rogers. It would help. Blake Bell, this episode came together because we bumped into each other at the Keegan Matheson book signing. And I loved the idea and I'm excited we made it happen. Yeah, no, thank you so much for having us here, Mike.

It's been a pleasure to be in the basement. You, you hear about the basement, you think about the basement, you envision the basement and yet to have a chance to sit down and talk about a topic that we're passionate about. It's been a great thrill. Thank you. Do you, Blake, have any regrets you jumped on the

mic at Christie Pitts, because that meant you would not be the 1000th unique person to appear on Toronto mic like Len Lumbers is. Open the door for me though. Yeah. I'm a patient person, right? So that was the starting point to something like we're here today, which could cream off into

something bigger and better. So no, that was too much fun to just have that out-hawk moment with you. Any final thoughts Len on being number 1000? I am personally blown away by the fact that it's been a 1000 unique people because it's been 1700 episodes, but I've had repeat guests. It'll be an easy number to remember. I'm thinking of getting a shirt and putting a thousand

on the back. Nevermind 37. We were hoping this would be like 1737 or that he was like 1037. Why won't they retire Dave Stebes number? That seems like a no brainer. I was there with Mark Shapiro when they opened the TV ballpark in Florida and he said, it's a slippery slope. And they're like, dude, he's your number one guy of all time. They're retiring. They're doing weekends. They're doing weekends for Fernando Valenzuela. Come on.

Yes. Right. Gentlemen, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was great having Steven Brunt here, but having you two in the basement, I want to say just thank you very much for doing this. We got some great audio clips and we made a compelling case. Let's hope we get some, uh, traction here.

Traction's the word. And change some minds. I want the names of everybody on that committee. Get me those names. We will. I'll be making phone calls. And that brings us to the end of our 1,725th show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs.

Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. How is that lager, Len? It's tasty. It's got a nice kick to it. Brewed right here in Southern Etobicoke. That's charming. That's, you weren't sure how to reply.

No, but it's cutting my thirst and that's a good thing. Palma Pasta. Do you two gentlemen want a lasagna? Oh please. I'll do that but then I'll be thirsty all over again. No, I'll take it. It's frozen. You can't eat it right now. It'll break your teeth. But I do have a frozen lasagna for you from Palma Pasta. Thank you. Thank you sir.

Toronto's Waterfront BIA. Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. By the way, there's a book for each of you. I know you guys are the Blue Jays experts, but you have books in front of you on Toronto Maple Leafs, the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. This is a handsome tomb. Rob Butler's involved, isn't he?

He's the manager. There you go, he's a friend of ours. He played at Leeside at the same time I did. Yeah. Shout out to the Butler brothers, East York's finest. Recyclemyelectronics.ca, building Toronto skyline and of course Ridley Funeral Home.

I have measuring tapes for you two chaps. I'm gonna grab them here before you go. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Ed Keenan from the Toronto Star. He drops by for his quarterly. Maybe I'll ask him about Dave Stebe too. See you all then. Thanks Mike. I'm going to be a good boy. You