Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jerry Howarth: Toronto Mike'd #454

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

Mike chats with the voice of summers past, Jerry Howarth, about his life and Blue Jays baseball.

Welcome to episode 454 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Camp Turnasol, and Sticker U. Camp Turnasol and StickerU I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is the voice of my summers Jerry Howard Welcome Jerry

Toronto Mike, good to see you and I mean that I mean that so sincerely that I was a massive Blue Jay fan since about the 83 season. That's when I discovered the Jays. And I would fall asleep at a transistor radio. And I would put on 1430, CJCL, the music of my life.

And I would listen to Tom and Jerry call the Blue Jays games. And of course, the out-of-town scoreboard was often Scott Ferguson, as I recall. And I would fall asleep after the game, and I'd often wake up in the middle of the night listening to some music of your life, old-time 1950s music or whatnot. And I want to thank you so much for being basically the soundtrack of my summers. Well, you are welcome. And at 73, I still listen to music of the 50s. Hey, no shame in that.

That's the golden oldies, they call that. That's the good stuff, right? That was a lot of fun. And that was year two of 36 here, and I enjoy them all, Mike. Now, this song's not from the 50s, but somebody tipped me off. Let me just play a little of this. Yes. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pride and Joy.

My favorite song. Tipped off by Tim Langton. He's been on the show and he said that Matt, the audio mixer, tipped him off that this was your theme song. It really is. I would drive into the ballpark, have that in the background and go into, hello friends, this is Jerry Howarth and welcome to Blue Jays Baseball. Oh, I miss that, buddy. I miss that. But we'll get to that. So I'll bring this down just to talk to you a little bit off the top about Etobicoke, because here you are, you're in southern Etobicoke,

and you're an Etobicoke guy, right? You coached basketball here for 25 years? Yes, I did. Five at Islington Middle School, then I went across the street to Etobicoke Collegiate, and 25 wonderful years mentoring and coaching kids. Greg is a listener of the podcast and he says he wanted to know your fondest memory

of coaching Rams basketball. He says he was a Silverthorne Spartan and when he found out you were coaching at ECI, he thought that was rather fascinating. So do you have a fondest memory? I really do. And it's not the fact that twice we went through the season and played for the city championship in Etobicoke. Those were great years, but really my best year with 15 kids occurred, I think it was right around 2008. And we

ended up 0-19. We didn't win a game, but we started off, I remember we were at Weston Collegiate. I looked at the score in the first quarter. It was 22 to 4 Weston, and those kids that I assembled in the middle of October played until the end of February, and at the end, in our 19th and last game, we were in Richview, number one seed undefeated. We had the ball with 254 to play down by six. That was one of my most satisfying seasons. And those 15 kids all stayed together. They improved. They got better and better. And they still come up to me and say, coach, that's one of the best teams I was ever on. Amazing. Fantastic. And you're still living in Etobicoke? Yes. Kipling and Rathburn. Been there all those years and enjoyed it. It's

close to the ballpark, to downtown, to your studio to your studio i was gonna say this is not a long sometimes i got people they say i came in from ajax or i just drove in from like hamilton and you didn't have this problem no this was cake that's right so now you come on weekly if you like we'll see about that we'll see how it goes first of all all. Now, you did, okay, so you started in 82, and we're going to dive deep in a moment here. But you started in 82, and you go through 2017. I wonder how your health is. Health, I think, was that part of the reason you stepped down?

Like, how are you feeling these days? Well, that was the reason, Mike. For years after my 30th season with my first and only major league team, I thought anything after this will be a bonus. And people would ask me, how long do you plan to continue? And I would tell them two things, proficiency and health. Well, in November of 2016, I had prostate cancer surgery. They removed my prostate cancerous gland and a tumor. And it was all well done by Rob Nam, great doctor and surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital. But that next year, 2017, I began to start to lose

my stamina. My sleep patterns changed from eight hours to three and four. My voice began to lead to congestion toward polyps. So I said, Jerry, let's try one more winter and see if we can recover. And it didn't happen. So in February, just a little over a year ago, I decided to retire. I'm very happy that I did. No regrets. But that was the reason. And people ask me today, like you just did, how's your health? And it's very good. It's good to enjoy my retirement. My wife, our two boys, our three grandsons. I play a lot of duplicate bridge, but not good enough to continue my broadcasting career. So I look back and I think, wow, what a career. I'm very happy that I had it.

You answered my next obvious question, which was any regrets, any like remote, like, oh, you stepped aside a little too soon. Only basing that on the fact how great you sound right now in my headphones. Like you sound strong. You sound fantastic. And I'm thinking you would sound great, you know, listening to a Jays game on a, on a Monday night. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. It comes and goes and the stamina just isn't there. And at nighttime, when I think about going on for a seven o'clock game and I'm at home and trying to

establish a little bit of a strong voice, it's just not there. So two of my favorite words are no regrets. And I have none. And I was very happy to have painted a picture for all those years. And now I turn it over to other people while I do other things. And I'll point, let the people know there's a few people watching live on Periscopes. I'm just going to hold it up here. This is the book I bought. It's called Hello Friends, Stories from My Life and Blue Jays Baseball by Jerry Haworth. And we're going to talk more about this. Absolutely.

I'm going to just thank a couple of sponsors who help keep this show going and they fuel the real talk, as I like to say. I want to thank StickerU. You can make your own customized stickers, labels, decals. You can do it all, as many as you want, or you could order one.

You go to stickeru.com, so stickeru.com. They're at Liberty Village. I've met with the people behind Sticker U, and they're wonderful people. It's a great service, and if you need anything that sticks, like I said, I want to get a decal for this back wall. If you need anything, Jerry. Well, I'll give you an example. For, I'd say the last six weeks going to the various Indigos and Chapters and Costcos, I will sign books just in general, and they will put a sticker on the front

of the book saying, signed by author. Okay. I didn't have a, I got to ask you, I bought this at Costco. Okay. The one you're here. And there's no sticker on it at all to tell you anything signed. So I bought it because I'm going to ask you kindly after this episode to sign it. And I opened it up and it's signed by you already, which is for 99.99% of people who purchase that book. This is wonderful that you signed this. Well, I will put Mike on there and a couple other things too. But that was a nice way for me to sit down in the quiet of those stores and sign books so that people can say they did get a signed copy of

hello friends i always wondered when i bought it because i didn't know it was signed till i got it home and i cracked it open and i wondered did you sign them all or did i get like it's like an easter egg like i was lucky to find the signed copy well i tried to sign what i could now costco they have a lot of books and i probably signed about 50 of the 100 that they have. So you got one right at the top. Oh, I'm lucky. I'm lucky. Now, I want to thank Camp Tournesol. They've been providing French camps in the GTA

for tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14 since 2001. They have 15 campuses across the GTA. So if your child's francophone in French immersion or has no French experience, they have a day camp or an overnight experience for them. So I urge you all to go to campt.ca, read about what's on offer from Camp Tournesol. And when you do register your son or daughter

for the French camp, use the promo code Mike2019 and you'll save yourself $20 and it lets them know that you heard about them on Toronto Mike. So campt.ca. Get your kids in French camp. Let those skills blossom over the summer. Well, speaking of kids, as I see you do that, I'm looking right at the wall and a record there

that says Maestro Fresh Wes. And one of our three grandsons is named Wes. Perfect. And I hope that your grandson was named after Maestro because he's a great Toronto. He reps the city. I always say he's, forget Drake. He was our guy back in the late 80s and early 90s repping the city. Well, it's a great name, Wes.

And if he's Wesley too, nice to see you there on that album cover. He is Wesley. That is for sure. That's for sure. I'm going to give you a couple of gifts too. You're an Etobicoke guy, so you probably know that Great Lakes Brewery, they're near the Costco actually,

near rural York and Queensway. They are a local craft brewery brewed for you, Ontario. They would like you to take home that six pack with you. Thank you. Enjoy that. And Palma Pasta, not Etobicoke, but they're Mississauga and Oakville,

which is close enough if you ask me. They have four locations, and they're a fantastic family-owned Italian food eatery. You can eat there or you can buy in their retail store. Yes, that's a frozen meat lasagna. You'll have leftovers. It's just fantastic. I'll take it. One of our boys lives here with Wes and his wife Kathy. This beer and that great food will be part of a meal with them. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, let's dive

in here because there's so much I want to cover. I've been waiting for decades for this opportunity. We've got to dive in. Basement Dweller, he's a listener. He read your book, your excellent book, by the way. It's made for guys like me. I totally just love it because it's about your life, but it's about the Blue Jays that I love and it's just a fantastic read. So congrats on a great book. Thank you. Now, Basement Dweller says one of his favorite parts of the book involves one of your earliest jobs as a radio broadcaster for the Tacoma Twins from the Pacific Coast League. And I'm reading Basement Dweller here, but he writes, I laughed out loud reading about how there wasn't money to send him on the road with the team. to send him on the road with the team,

and so he'd have to wait for a stringer to phone in from such games, and then he'd belatedly recreate the action from the studio, complete with sound effects and the like. Please be sure to ask him to elaborate on this, time permitting, of course, everything's time permitting, when he visits in the near future,

if you don't mind. Can you tell us a little bit about that? It's a great story in the book. Well, it really was, and it was quite a surprise. And when I look back, it was so valuable. So I end up with my first job in Tacoma, Washington, broadcasting AAA games. And when I found out that I was not going to go on the road

because they couldn't afford to have me go on the road, I initially was so disappointed because I thought, here I am, I'm 27 years old, I'm a little bit of a late bloomer, and I wanted to do 144 games. Now I'm down to 75. Well, they said, okay, you have to recreate these road games. And I said, okay, how do we do that? So I kind of just began to do it all myself. And what happened was the team would be on the road, let's say in Albuquerque,

and let's say it was a 7 o'clock start. We wouldn't go on the air until 7.30 because they had to play an inning or two for that stringer there to call our stringer in Tacoma. And all he would hand me at 7.30, Mike was first hitter, grounded out to short, second hitter, flied out to left, third hitter struck out. Well, I got that, and then I thought, okay, let's see how we can do with this. So right away I realized within a couple of days, this was going to be a valuable experience because all you're getting is the at bat and then you have time to consider and

then you also have to remember that is the stringer does he have the information to go to the next couple of innings and if i don't have it i have to have a few foul balls and throw in a couple more stories and then i ended up buying two souvenir wooden bats they were about 18 inches long and i would click them together when there was a ball put in play i had a recorder in front of me with organ music and i had a loop crowd and i told the engineer i said now remember when tacoma scores don't bring up the crowd because they're on the road well when i look back at my season there those 75 games were so valuable because it taught me how to think on my feet, adjust, make different comments when I had to, and then recreate in my mind what was happening.

And that led to a great radio experience. Hearing you tell that story, which is fantastic, it reminds me of another part of the book. And I wasn't even going to talk about this, but hey, I'm also thinking on my feet here, I learned as well. So it's about your wife mary and uh she was a a big uh tigers fan yes so it was al cayline uh so can you tell me the story because from you know in 2019 this is like unthinkable i so i suppose in 2019 you

might try something like this via twitter maybe okay But tell me how you impressed Mary. Just share that story because I love this story. Well, I had known Mary about a month, maybe two, and now it's April, and I found out that she was from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and her favorite team were the Tigers, and her favorite player was Al Kaline. So it's April, and I also knew that her birthday was in July. So I thought, Jerry, let's have the light go on and see what we can do here to impress my date and maybe future wife, which turned out to be 47 years so far and counting. So I called the Oakland A's and I said, where did the Detroit Tigers stay when they come here? And they said the Edgewater Inn and right across from the ballpark. So I called the Edgewater Inn and I just said, may I speak with Al Kaline? And they said, okay, just a minute. And a voice comes on, says, hello.

I said, is this Al Kaline? He said, yes. I said, Al, this is Jerry Howarth. My girlfriend's birthday is today. And you're in town for this Friday game against Oakland for her birthday present. Here, I'm lying right through my teeth. I said, you are her favorite player. If we come out early after batting practice,

would you mind coming over to the first base dugout and saying hi to her? He said, no, I'd be happy to do that. That's the kind of gentleman and person he is. So I hung up the phone. I told my wife, I said, guess what? For your early birthday present, I'm taking you to the game tonight. So we went out there. It was about 5 o'clock.

We went down to the first base dugout. And guess who was in the batting cage with his last few swings? Al Kaline. Well, he came over, and I kind of sheepishly waved my hand like, this is that stranger who called you this morning. He came over, Mike, and he gave Mary and I a good five-minute conversation. How you doing? Where you from? Kalamazoo. Been there myself before.

And at the end, he said, enjoy the game. He trotted out to right field, and that was really one of the most impressive days I had, and especially with my wife-to-be. That was the moment she said, this is the guy for me. Yeah, I think she did. Yeah, she did. But I have to know, how surprised were you? Because I had fantasies when I was like 10 years old.

I'd have a fantasy where I'd have a chance to meet George Bell, for example, because he was my guy, George Bell. And what was it like when you had him on the phone? How shocked were you that you had Al Kaline on the phone? Well, I was pretty shocked. In fact, I thought, wow, I can't believe that this just happened. And then after that, I've always been one to relax and go with the flow. And so I wasn't nervous. I was just happy that he was there. And because he is such a great gentleman too, to finish the story. Now, later I become a major league broadcaster.

This was in 1972. No, this was in 1971 that all this happened. So here it comes 11 years later and we're in Detroit and the Blue Jays are playing the Tigers and I meet Al because he was down on the field and I introduced myself. I told him that story. He did not remember it, but for the rest of my career, Al was always on the field. We would talk, we would share memories and it was just a great friendship and still is to this day. Well, he knew he was partly responsible for this great life you'd have, right? Like if he helped get married to marry you, like that's uh key so he knew that yes i got a gal from

kalamazoo that's right uh earlier today i know we're recording pretty early i think what like 10 30 and already today i've had a visit from somebody who uh a name from from your past uh who recorded a question for you and i'm going to play the question and hear your response and this will be a great way to kind of get you to tor and find out how you end up in Toronto. So here, a mystery guest, if you will, asking you a question. Jerry, when you first came to Toronto in 1981, you came to CJCL radio, which is now the fan. And part of your job, I think, was being a sportscaster. You did some sportscasting and you and I sat down. Do you remember? We sat down and talked about some hockey names and you wanted to get

the correct pronunciation. I always remember that. And you did a heck of a job for someone that really had never spoken about hockey before. So, that's what I remember about Jerry. And besides that, just a good guy and great to work with. And I love the book, too.

Do you have any clue who that is? That voice sounds very familiar. Of course, we did sit right next to each other and if you gave me his initials, I might get. M is the first name starts of M, the second name starts of H. And I don't mean to embarrass you at this moment here, except I affectionately call him Hebsey.

Oh, Mark Heb, sure, sure. I knew that voice right away, and Mark is another one I've kept in touch with over the years, and he just released a book, too, where he had a book launch, I think, a couple of months ago, and no, Mark, I would see him on the field, and he covered sports, and right there with me at CJCL, and you you know, those were great memories too. So Mark, it's nice to hear your voice again. And I remember the other person who sat right next to me, Andy Barry, who later had a great career with CBC radio and now unfortunately has Parkinson's disease to deal with. And it's not been easy, but those are the kinds of names and people that initially formed great friendships with me. And a third, if I could, and he's the voice of the Detroit Red Wings on TV, is Ken Daniels.

Who's been on this show and was fantastic. And he's probably listening right now because he tells me he listens to every episode of Toronto Mike. Well, Ken, you are a great friend like Mark and Andy. And it's fun to kind of relive those memories now because all of a sudden I look back, Mike, and my wife and I have

lived here 37 years. I grew up in the States and lived there 35 years. And if somebody would have told me when I was growing up, you will spend more years outside the United States in Canada than here, I would have said no way, but it's been yes way and what a way. And you're an actual, you're a Canadian citizen, right? You got, did you get your citizenship? Yes. 1994 with our two boys who were under the age of 18. And we did that because first of all, we would have done it earlier than 94, but the U.S. did not allow dual citizenship until the early nineties. And after that, we wanted our boys to have the freedom to live here if they wanted, if we had by chance moved back to the States and it worked out well. So I've been very blessed to have two home and native lands. Absolutely, absolutely.

Now, so Hebsey, of course, was talking about 1430 CJCL, which is the same station I listened to you on as a younger person before CJCL moved to 590, of course. Can you tell me maybe about how you end up in Toronto and working at 1430 there, as Hebsey mentioned? Well, it was back, I broadcast five years in AAA baseball, two in Tacoma and three in Salt Lake. And then later when the Blue Jays became a team with the Seattle Mariners,

I interviewed for the job in Seattle with general manager Lou Gorman, who I had known. And Tacoma is right outside Seattle, like Hamilton is right outside Toronto. And I had such a good interview and I didn't get the job and I was so disappointed. And so I, my wife said, you should apply to that other team.

And I said, no, I don't even know where Toronto is. She said, this is a true story. She said, go down in the basement and bring up our Atlas. So I did.

I brought up the Atlas and I turned it to the back. Of course, alphabetically Q R S T. I saw T O R O N T O. I had no idea what the O-N-T stood for, but I saw something like page 194-D-3-G-5. I went to that page. I saw it. And on the opposite page, way back in the corner was Salt Lake City, Utah. And I closed it and I said, no, I'm not going there. That's a hundred miles away, a thousand miles and she said no get your name out so i did i applied and at the very end they sent me a note saying thanks a lot we really enjoyed your tape and resume we've decided to go with tom cheek and early win because early was the 300 game winner and they needed a a profile name a high profile name well i didn't hear from them again for about three and a half years and then all all of a sudden in 1980, I'm at a radio station in Salt Lake and Sue Rayson called and she asked me if I would like to replace Early Wynn for a weekend in Detroit because Early had an old-timers game at

Dodger Stadium. I said, I would love to. My first game, and here we are doing podcast 454. Well, my first broadcast was July 4th, 1980. That was on a Friday night. On the 5th, I did my second game. And on Sunday, Mike, I felt so comfortable like I had for five years in AAA baseball. And that was my introduction to Major League Baseball. The next year, I did 20 games with Tom and Early. And then the nice thing was is i replaced early after that 1981 season early was hired by the chicago white socks for two years on radio

and i felt very good for early because he knew why i was there to replace him but we both ended up in 82 and 3 doing games on radio now uh hebsey made a little joke about how i know this because the fact you didn't know where Toronto was when you're in California tells me you were never a hockey fan because hockey fans know all, you know, of course they know Toronto because there's a team in Toronto. But what was it like at 1430?

Because you didn't just call. There was a period here where you don't just call Jays games, right? You're actually doing like sports updates and things for the station. Well, it was great because first of all, growing up in California, there was no hockey at that time. There no kings no sharks no nothing and so when i

come here i go to cjcl radio and the arrangement we had was because i was new and to increase my profile and i moved up here in october of 1981 they had me cover sports in the off season for three years and so for those five months I basically covered the Toronto Maple Leafs and one thing I remember a great memory I go up the steps of CJCL radio at college and young and they said Jerry we want you to meet someone who's a legend here in Canada and I said okay we walked into his office and an older gentleman sitting behind his desk looked up and he said hi Jerry I'm Foster Hewitt and it just kind of touched me that here I am meeting somebody who was iconic who was legendary here and he passed away shortly after that but I had the chance and the good fortune

of meeting him and right away I was introduced to the history of hockey and Foster Hewitt coast to coast and then after that I got to know some of the maple leaves too and boria salming i remember one time going into the leafs dressing room covering the game and he just stood there he knew me so he stood there with a bigger than life frame in the doorway and i looked and he looked at me and he said where are you going i said well i wanted to go no you're not coming into this dressing room and uh we gave each other a smile and a hug. And those were the kind of moments I had later meeting Bobby Orr as well. And it was a wonderful three years.

And then after that, I moved into coaching basketball. Right, right, right. And now, I mean, I think Tuesday could be a great day, just a bit a little tangent. But Tuesday could be a great night in the city because the Raptors could clinch against Orlando and hopefully the Leafs can clinch against the Bruins. So it's kind of a great time in the city because we could the Raptors could clinch against Orlando and hopefully the Leafs can clinch against the Bruins so it's kind of a great time in the city right now with the sports well it is and for someone who's never watched hockey before now I'm glued to the

television to see if the Leafs can't get over that Bruins hump and with Tampa Bay out of the picture too the winner of this game could certainly go a long long way absolutely I don't even want to think beyond this Tuesday night we We just got to close the deal Tuesday night. Now, Jerry, you're calling Blue Jays games, but you have developed signature calls,

I would say, like Jerry calls, which are ripe for imitation and parody, if you will. But some of them, for example, I almost want to hear you say them, but the Blue Jays are in flight and hello, friends,

and call it to a double play. And my personal favorite, please, may I do a little Jerry? Hooking, hooking foul. And, of course, there she goes. We're going to play some of your calls in a moment. But can you tell me a little bit about how these signature calls came to be? Well, I always tell broadcasters, you be you and be spontaneous. And I wasn't really a big believer in signature calls.

I had none when I was in AAA. And I really didn't have any in my first couple of years here in Toronto because I wanted the game to be first, not me wearing something on my sleeve about, oh, listen to me or listen to my signature call. I didn't want that. My dad came up here in 1983 to see what I was doing and how I was doing. And when he left, he said, Jerry, one thing you might do is if you're at the microphone and the Blue Jays score

their first run, you could have the Blue Jays in flight. And I said, dad, I love that. I'm doing that for you. And that was a, that was a, how the Blue Jays came in flight, got to be because of my father. And then sadly, Hello Friends came about because of my partner, Tom Cheek. And halfway through the 2004 season, he developed that malignant brain tumor and he had to leave the microphone. So they asked me to take his spot in the lead role. And before that first game, to start the second half of that season, I said to myself, Jerry, you've been up here for years. You've made so many friends, not only here in Toronto, but in Ontario and across Canada. Let's just not like be everybody else.

Hi, everybody. Or hi, everyone. No, I didn't want that. So I came on that first day with hello friends. This is Jerry Howarth. And I stayed with that for 13 plus years and enjoyed it. The call it to a double play. That was just something that kind of spontaneously happened one day.

And I said, let's go with that. I love that. And when it's you and it's something that you like, go with it. And to talk about what you just mentioned there about hooking, hooking, or slicing, slicing, dropping, dropping. I got that from Dick Enberg. I was in Salt Lake City and our AAA club was a part of the parent angels and Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale called the games on radio. So after our games on the road,

they would have the angels broadcast on because all of our players are trying to get there to Anaheim. And one day I was listening after one of our games, they had the radio on and I heard Dick's call. The angels center fielder was Mickey Rivers. And the call basically went, there's a line drive to deep left center field. Mickey Rivers from centers are going over, running, running, running, makes the catch. And I said to myself, I love that. I had never heard a broadcaster repeat words like that. But I could see Mickey running and running and running. So after that, I started to make all those calls.

And people always thought that hooking, hooking, hooking was foul. I didn't know. I wanted to be as surprised as anybody. And many times it would be hooking, hooking, hits the foul pole, home run, there she goes, whatever it happened to be. And I thought those are the kind of calls that made me comfortable. And when you're comfortable, go with them. I can't, and this is the moment I've been waiting for.

I'm going to play a song that you and Tom cheek recorded. Okay. I'm going to play it. But first I just dug up the, uh, the George Bell promo for this podcast. And I just feel like playing it. Cause we talked about now I'm thinking about my blue Jays memories and

especially in the eighties. And I'm thinking of George Bell, my players. So I'm going to play. This is only about 10 seconds here. All right. Hi, I'm George Bell.

You listen to Toronto, Mike. So there I'm George Bell. You listen to Toronto Mike. So there's some George Bell listening to Toronto Mike. And here's the song. I'm going to play it, and then we're going to talk about it. But this is you and Tom Cheek. Hello, everybody. This is Tom Cheek, and with me is Jerry Howard. And fans, we'd like to send you some musical Blue Jay inspiration to help cheer the team on to victory.

So get your toes a-tappin' and your fingers a-snappin'. You do the singin', and we'll do the rappin'. Love it. Well, Jerry, it's another great night as our beloved Jays get ready for flight. That's right, Tom. The stage is set. What you hear is what you get. Leading off for the

Jays tonight, Mr. Lightning, Devon White Devo strokes one through the gap And Robbie follows with a two-base wrap The Jays score first to start the show Here comes Moore, cause here comes Joe He hits one deep, he got it all Way back, way back, it's off the wall

Oh, Jerry, I have so many questions. I don't know where to begin here. Who approached you? Do you remember being approached about this song and how they pitched it to you? Because this is essentially you and Tom Cheek rapping, which I think very few would have seen coming. No, that's going back years and years. And actually, I'd forgotten about it until about a month ago when somebody sent me that, and I listened to it, and I said, oh, yes, I forgot all about it until about a month ago when somebody sent me that,

and I listened to it, and I said, oh, yes, I forgot all about that. But I think it was typical of why people enjoyed Tom and Jerry, because we had fun together. We were opposites, but we covered the game. We showed our love for baseball in a different way, but together we addressed the crowd and said, we want you to be part of Blue Jays baseball on the radio. And Tom and Jerry became pretty iconic in its different way, but together we addressed the crowd and said, we want you to be part of Blue Jays baseball on the radio. And Tom and Jerry became pretty iconic in its own right.

And physically, he was the big cat, and I was the little mouse running around. It was a great fit. It really is fun. And these were, I think they were for Variety Village, if my memory serves correctly, these compilation CDs that were popular in the late 80s, early 90s. We don't do them anymore, but they were a big deal, right?

They were, and I love hearing those voices too. I think that's me way back then. Those were great times. There's a little more here before me. Kelly swings on the first pitchy bases, a two-out single to load the bases. Now this one's surely worth the wait. Big Dave Winfield takes the plate.

Winfield swinging amid missed strike one. Bottom of the ninth, the pressure's on. Here comes the pitch, he's swinging away. It's going, going foul. Out of play. Next pitch, swung on, he's hit it hard. He's hit it long. He's hit it high.

That's the ball game. Blue Jays have won. And you can kiss that ball goodbye. Oh, man. And the Blue Jays have won. And you can kiss that ball goodbye. Oh, man. And the Blue Jays win again. Oh, my goodness, what a ball game we've just witnessed. It's well produced, you know, listening to the background singers. This is a great jam, Jerry.

This could have charted, I think. This is pretty exciting. It really is. And I can tell you this, with three grandsons all under the age of three, someday they will hear this with their grandpa. And, you know, they could find it by Googling, like, Jerry Howarth rap, and I bet you they end up on TorontoMic.com. And I've been sharing this for many, many years now.

It's like a personal favorite. And anytime I get anyone associated with the Jays on the show, I play this for them, just so you know. Well, you know, my grandkids, after they hear this, will go, Drake who? But don't know Maestro Fresh West now. It's just going to impress at least one of your grandchildren. Yes, fantastic.

Let's talk about Tom Cheek. I want to know the rapport you had with him right away. Was this instantly that you guys worked well together? Just tell me a little bit about meeting Tom and working so many years with him right away. Like, was this instantly that you guys worked well together? Just tell me a little bit about meeting Tom and working so many years with him. Well, I always tell people the best broadcast teams are the most opposite. And from day one, Tom always would say, Jerry, you're with me. You come in my innings anytime you want. I'll come in and yours. Here's a tape recorder and a mic. Go get a pregame show. But our job is to make sure that we stay with the

game and tell the fans what's going on. And I believed in that 100% too. Tom and I were friends, but we also went our own separate ways. And I like that. I always tell people I'm an extroverted introvert. I'm really an introvert. And people say, wow, you are. And I said, yes, I like being by myself. I like my quiet time. When I have to be an extrovert, I can be that. And Tom was kind of an extrovert anyway. He was with a lot of different peoples and people. And I always thought we complemented each other extremely well. And our goal was one thing only.

Make sure that the broadcast was right there with the game. Stick with the game. Call it to the best of our abilities. We were not former players, so we didn't get into egotistical. he should have done this he should have done that no it wasn't about that at all we covered the game and i think tom and jerry became just part of people's background and families and that's what i cherish the most mike when people would say jerry you're a part of our family and sadly tom passed away october 9 2005. It's coming up to 14 years. And he died at the age of 66.

And people ask me, Jerry, what's your philosophy of life? And I say two short things. One, enjoy the moment as we are here. And two, we are not promised tomorrow. Let's play the, what I would say is the call most people associate with Tom Cheek. Now, he's had a lot of great calls, and you've had a lot of great calls, and we're going to play yours shortly.

But while we're talking Tom, I'm just going to play his most famous call and chat with you about it. So here it is. Joe has had his moments. Trying to lay off that ball, low to the outside part of the plate, and he just went after one.

Two balls and two strikes on it. Here's the pitch on the way a swing and a bell. Well feel way back. Blue Jays with the Blue Jays are World Series champions. As Joe Carter hits a three run

home run in the ninth inning and the Blue Jays have repeated as World Series champions touch them them all, Joe. You'll never hit a bigger home run in your life. Wow. Tell me about that moment, because you had the best seat in the house, as they say. Well, I was right down near the dugout

to conduct a post-game interview, and actually with that clip, it starts off where Tom is talking about Joe not laying off that pitch down and away. And when that pitch occurred, my thought there near the camera bay was, what Philadelphia Philly am I going to interview, and then set up game seven with Pat Henkin pitching the next night against the Phillies. And then the next pitch occurred, and that was history.

And what was kind of neat is that, uh, the, the best calls are the most spontaneous. And when Joe said, when Joe's jumping up and down, going down to first base, Tom said, touch them all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life. And the reason he said that was that he didn't want Joe to jump over the first base bag. And then at the end be called out because he missed first base. Right. And what was kind of neat too is my wife Mary was with his mom and she said, Mrs. Carter, what do you think? And she said, my son the kangaroo. I love that in 92 and 93 that it's Joe Carter who has the moment

jumping up and down for both of them because he was at first base when Tim Lin throws the ball. Two things of interest I find like fun facts about that moment. One is, do you remember, Jerry, who was on deck? Yes, I do. That's a great trivia question because in my baseball background with the San Francisco Giants, the biggest and most famous question was,

who was on deck when Bobby Thompson hit the home run off Ralph Brank at the shot heard around the world and that was Willie Mays a rookie and Willie said later I'm so glad I didn't have to come to the plate well here it was Alfredo Griffin and he was ready to go and I'm sure he was very happy too he did not have to come to the plate do you know where Dan Shulman was when Joe Carter hit that home run no I do. He's been on the show and he tells the story. He was in a Skydome elevator, stuck in a Skydome elevator when the home run was hit. Yes, I have it on.

I've recorded it. Absolutely. So that's Dan Shulman. I think he's probably told that story many times now, but he tells it on his episode of Toronto Mic'd. But that's another fun fact about that moment. Well, now there's a great friend who's very self-effacing, modest, humble, and a superstar among broadcasters for all that he has done. I have the greatest amount of respect for Dan, not only as a friend, but as a professional for how he handles his success. He really is fantastic.

I always, he could call anything, I think, and enhance the experience. Plus, I can tell you this too. When he handed me a book for me to sign, it's probably a book that he will never have signed again like this. His wife, Lauren, worked for the Blue Jays, and I got to know Lauren for 10 years. And when I signed that book for Dan probably a month ago, it was about three weeks before that,

that Lauren and Dan had their first child, a baby boy named Hudson. And they had sent to me the email as far as height, weight, and the date. And that's all part of the signed book for Dan and Lauren. And I treasure it greatly, and I know they do too. Amazing, amazing. I'm going to play a call of you. Actually, let me play Tom Cheek's Thank You really quickly here as we close off Tom's part here.

So at this time, I hope that the word gets out to one and all. I say from the bottom of my heart, thank you and God bless you. To everybody. To everybody. It chokes me out, man. We lost him way too soon. And you were the voice of my summer, but so was Tom.

We did it together. And that's what it's all about. It's teamwork. And, you know, you don't want it to be about you. It's got to be another directed career. And the more you do that, and Tom did that, and I feel I did that too. And then we did it together. That's what baseball is all about.

And that's what you're trying to do to make sure you inform and entertain the audience day after day and do it the right way. And he was emotional there because he passed away just a few months after that. Mike Rogoski, just to change the channels here, Mike Rogoski's got a question. He wants to know if there's anything you miss

about calling games at Exhibition Stadium after the Jays moved to Sky Dome. So any Exhibition Stadium specific memories? Well, I do have one. We're given complimentary tickets for family and friends. And when I first started there in April and really through the first two weeks in May, I would look down at my family and friends just freezing. And I felt so sorry for them. And I said to myself, Jerry, you're not giving away complimentary tickets until the middle

of May, if not June 1st. I have no regrets about leaving Exhibition Stadium. It was a nice start for me, but boy, was that a tough place there. And, you know, the first 10 years of my 36 years here, it was brutal. And you talk about global warming and people can say no or yes, whatever they want, but having lived here for 37 years, those 10 years winter wise were far more drastic and horrific than what you experienced now. And there's got to be a reason. Absolutely. No, I always feel bad for the TFC fans now because they're still playing at the same spot, essentially, BMO Field,

and they're playing, like, I see they play in, like, March or even earlier sometimes. Like, I'm like, oh, that's no fun. I can't believe the Jays were doing that in April for so long. Well, how do you feel for the Toronto Blizzard at that time, too? They were doing it at Exhibition Stadium in the 80s, so not an easy situation. That's right. That's right.

That's right. Let's play a call. Let's play one of your calls. Let me play a call. This is from 1992. This is Jerry Howarth. And a ground ball hit over third. A base hit down the line.

White scores. It's picked up and bobbled by Gant. He dropped the ball in the corner. Alomar scores on a dave winfield two base hit that uh i tried to find a clean version of that there's some stuff going in the background but of course that's the dave winfield the double in extra innings in 92 tell me about that call and the fact that you never called the Timlin sorry yeah the Mike Timlin to Joe Carter Otis Nixon Bunt tell me about that well the way it was set up when I first came here in 82 is that I would

call the third fourth seventh and eighth innings and after the ninth which Tom called if it went to the 10th he called it to give him back-to-back innings then we went every other inning so wouldn't you know it bottom of the ninth inning in Atlanta Blue Jays are set to win the World Series, and Atlanta scores a run to tie it at two. So in the 10th inning, Tom calls it, and we go to the 11, and with two down, Winfield takes that 3-2 changeup down and away from Charlie Liebrandt and doubles down the left field line for the lead. Well, unbeknownst to Tom, we go to the commercial break, and I just said, Jerry, do the right thing. Tom's been here since day one. You didn't come until 1982 so when we came back i said ladies and gentlemen i've had the pleasure of calling

dave winfield's two run double for the four to two lead here's my partner tom cheek to take you the rest of the way and tom just sat up and to the mic hi everybody thanks a lot jerry and he eventually called that timlin to carter and the Blue Jays win the World Series and I couldn't have been happier uh that he made that call that's damn classy of you like that's that's amazing that you did that well it was the right thing to do and that's what I try to tell people and really for that moment and you've got another album right in front of you here that says great moments of hockey and that was a great moment in baseball because it was the first ever world series that canada participated in and they win it and in the medley in the bedlam of the clubhouse later where families were invited in after the players got to celebrate my sons were there and ben and joe went

with me as i told every player what i thought they meant to the world series championship and then joe came over to me one of my boys he said dad over in the corners Wayne Gretzky I said no I know he's playing with the Kings he said no he's here and what had happened was Wayne got hurt and somebody slammed him up against the boards in a game and so he was there I went over and I had known him and his parents because I'd gone to Brantford met Walter and Phyllis and he gave me a hug and he said Jerry I wanted to be here for Canada's first ever World Series and the timing was perfect and for me what a great introduction to hockey and to Wayne as a person and for someone who wanted to be there for that moment. And he was.

So that's amazing. Now that's 92 we win the World Series. Of course, I've already played the clip from Tom Cheek of Joe touching them all in 93 back-to-back World Series. A question from Jake Gold. He managed the tragically hit My Favorite Band. A question from Jake Gold. He managed the Tragically Hip, my favorite band of all time. Jake Gold.

He was also a judge on Canadian Idol, if you ever saw that. But Jake Gold wants to know, and apparently, according to Hebsey, who's good friends with Jake Gold, Jake Gold's been debating this for years. I think you're going to settle a big debate here. He wants to know which team was better,

the 92 Blue Jays or the 93 Blue Jays? Well, for me, it was the 92 team. Why? Because of pitching and defense. And those games were over after six innings if the Blue Jays had the lead. Danny Cox would come in in the seventh, Dwayne Ward in the eighth, and Tom Henke in the ninth. And when you have pitching like that, pitching personified, and you have have defense you don't need a lot of offense and the blue jays didn't but the next year when pat gillick along those lines at the july 31st

trade deadline tried to acquire more pitching with randy johnson the 610 left-hander from seattle the mariners asked for too much so pat switched gears and he said okay i'm going to go with more offense so he went with ricky henderson and others. And the Blue Jays won that year in 1993. And I think typical of that, you'll remember it was in game four, I believe, in Philadelphia. The Blue Jays won 15 to 14. That reflected Pat's philosophy at that moment. But for me, the better team was 92.

And if they played each other, good pitching stops good hitting. Let me just ask you then about the 85 team, which was like, the drive of 85 was everything to me. I was 10 years old, it was everything to me. But how does the 85, does it even compare to the 92, 93? It won more regular season games. Well, they did. They won 99 games, still a franchise record.

But clearly, the best teams were 92 and 93. When you collect all the hall of famers to be on those two teams it's unbelievable what they did but that team in 85 they win three out of four and under the old format they would have gone to the world series but they did not that was the first year best of seven and the royals to their credit won three in a row and they went on to become world series champions much like you giving the microphone to Tom Cheek in 92, I'm going to let Brian Gerstein ask you this next question. Brian Gerstein is a real estate sales representative

with PSR Brokerage. He's been sponsoring the show for years now. Let's listen to Brian. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Jerry. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. Phase one of the Galleria Mall redevelopment plan and its condos are being sold exclusively by PSR and myself in a month or so. All ready to move in for 2023. Contact me now by phone or text

at 416-873-0292 and I can put you on my VIP first access list. Jerry, while I did not grow up listening to you, as a huge Expos fan in Montreal, it was Duke and Dave for me. I moved to Toronto in 88 and quickly appreciated your ability to make me feel like I was literally sitting right next to you in the press box. You painted quite the canvas on a daily basis on what was going on on the field, and your melodic voice was perfect for America's pastime. And I'd like to think that Canadians can also share in this wonderful game. My question for you is about the game itself versus all of the other sports, which are all clock-driven. Baseball is under tremendous pressure to shorten the games,

speed things up, and adapt to 2019 attention spans, especially for our youth. Do you think this is necessary? And if so, how far will they go? Are we going to eventually see seven-inning games, for example, at the extreme level? Well, that's a good question. And I think even players have been asked about this, too, regarding pitch clocks and what do they think. And for the most part, I think most players say it's a great game without a clock let's just play whether it's two and a half hours which is rare anymore or three and a half hours and right in the middle is the average

of a three-hour game i think what you want is you want the suspense going down to the last pitch of every game and if you can get that to heck with the time and i think overall though major league baseball has tried their very best to shorten the commercials now between innings they've also asked batters to stay in the batter's box rather than roam around and they remember mike hargrove they called him the human rain delay because after every pitch he would get out there and adjust his batting gloves and everything else So baseball is trying to look at maybe taking a three hour and 10 minute game and making it two hours and 50 or 55 minutes. I don't think it's that necessary. And I think they're trying to do their best to sharpen it, make sure that it stays on pace, but you don't want pitch clocks and you certainly don't want players looking over their

shoulder at time rather than that hitter to get out. So good question. And I think right now the game will stay pretty much where it is. May I ask you about a moral stance you took? And I commend you for this, but regarding the teams from Cleveland and Atlanta. Well, after the 92 World Series, I was at home and received a nice letter from a fan from up in the northern area, a First Nations member. And it was so heartfelt. And I wish I still had the letter, but I don't. But the later letter basically said, Jerry, I heard you talking about tomahawk chops and powwows at the mound. And I hear you talking about Chief Wahoo with Cleveland and the red-faced mascot that they have.

He said, we don't have a voice, but that's offensive to us and who we are and how we grew up and what we try to tell our kids could you just think a little bit more about what you say and how you say it because i love your broadcast but i think that would be good for us too and you would help us in the long run to respect what we feel we just don't have and that's a voice in these areas and something we don't care for well i wrote him wrote him back, and I said, that was such a great letter. You touched my heart, and because you did, for the rest of my career, I will not use those nicknames with Cleveland and Atlanta, and that's for you, and respect I have for you and the people that you live with, and everybody across North America, Native Americans in the U.S. as well. And so I didn't.

I didn't use those nicknames for the rest of my career, and I'm very happy that I did. And I like that you made that decision, and you just did it, and you didn't make noise about the fact you were doing it. You just decided not to name the Cleveland and Atlanta nicknames. And it wasn't until many years later that I think the media picked up on it. Well, it was about 22 years later, really. And for the first part, no, I've never wanted to have it be about me. That's the last thing that I wanted. And especially I didn't want to get up

on a soapbox and say, hey, don't do this or don't do that. Why? Because there are certain people, too, who feel, well, to heck with a nickname. It's meaningless. It doesn't have anything to do with calling a baseball game. Just stick with the game, Jerry. And I can appreciate that. I think it's a minority, but at the same time, I appreciate that. Well, when the Blue Jays played Cleveland in the 2016 season, I was about to go on the air with Jeff Blair, one of my great friends. And I enjoy my hour of Howarth with him on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. And just before we went on, he said, Jerry, I'm getting a lot of emails here about you don't use the Cleveland nickname. Is that true? And I said, that's right. I haven't for 22 years. And he said, can we talk

about that? I said, sure. So the first five minutes of the show, I explained why, like I just did here with you. And at the end of the show, my son Joe, who lives here, he said, Dad, you're going viral. You're trending across Canada and you're 10th in the trending area globally. And people are now realizing what happened in your career to make you do that. And they feel that they feel the same way. And now there's a strong voice and people began to talk about it and take a stand as we do this show it took a little while but cleveland no longer has chief wahoo as their mascot and those are the kind of advances that i was happy to see and hopefully there'll be more and at a quicker rate yeah and hopefully the the nfl wakes up about a team in washington say something there yes now uh a couple

of different people when i mentioned on twitter and on toronto mike.com that jerry howarth was coming in i got a few questions to this on this note i'm going to just read a couple but one is by this guy who calls himself the cleaning guy and he says looking forward to the episode mike can you ask jerry about his very honest critique of jose reyes that may have contributed to his eventual departure from the Jays. And Graham Lofton also asks a little more bluntly, why did you dislike Jose Reyes so much? Well, it's covered in the book, and here's the reason why. I didn't like, I mean, I didn't not like Jose Reyes.

But as they approached the July 31st trade deadline in 2015, there were a couple of situations where the ball went right through his legs father time I felt began to catch up to him and then in a series in Minnesota on a Friday night with my friend Mark Burley on the mound a third ground ball in a key situation went right through his legs and I began to say on the radio in a very discreet way because I always tell broadcasters, if you're going to be constructively critical, and that's fine, pretend that that player's sitting right next to you

so that you've already said it to them once. Well, I said on Friday night, if the Blue Jays are looking at a playoff opportunity in 2015, they certainly have to look at shortstop Jose Reyes to see how much of a liability perhaps he is. Then on Sunday, it happened a fourth time where the ball didn't go through his legs, but he picked up the ground ball, threw it into the stands at first base. And now I see him laughing at second base with a big Jose Reyes smile, which

he had. Well, that's when I said the Blue Jays are not going to go to the playoffs if Jose Reyes is going to be their shortstop. Now that that was very fair, and I had no qualms about that. But on Wednesday at home, I was asked by Dean Blundell to go on the morning show, and I knew what it was going to be about. I could have passed, declined, and I also could have said I have no comment. But for seven minutes, I talked firmly about Jose Reyes, what I thought was happening to not only the Blue Jays, but friends of mine in that clubhouse, his teammates, they're wondering too, what's going on here? Are we going to have any kind of an opportunity to get to the playoffs

if he's our key guy defensively at shortstop? And I don't think they did feel that that was a possibility if this continued to happen. But my tone of voice got a little bit firm. I got a little bit more angry as time went on. And as my son, Joe, who was listening, said, that's the dad voice. He had heard it growing up as a kid, along with his brother, Ben. And that night, Paul Beeston, the president, he called me into the office. And I've known Paul

from day one. He's always had my back. He said, Jerry, sit down. I'm not here to fire you, but I'm disappointed in the tone of your voice and how you came across regarding Reyes. And I said, Paul, I am too. I'm disappointed in myself that I lost a little bit of control there and let my anger kind of show with how I talked about the situation. Well, that night I tried to reach out to Jose two or three times to apologize to him for that. Not what I said about his play at shortstop, but how I said it. And finally at Fenway Park, when you go from the clubhouse to the dugout, there's a little tunnel right there, and I intercepted him. I was halfway through the tunnel. I stopped him, and I apologized for my tone of voice, what I had to say, and how I said it.

And he said, okay, and that's the last time we talked. At least I was able to say I was sorry for something that I didn't care for. And that was my tone of voice and my, uh, the anger that I showed. Well, what happened to cap the story? He was traded to Colorado and Alex Anthopolis, one of my best friends, he came up to me later. He says, Jerry, that trade took about another two and a half to three weeks because Colorado kept asking what's with Jose Reyes. If we're going to give you Troy Tulewitzki and acquire Jose Reyes, what's happening there in Toronto? And I realized too,

a broadcaster can have a negative effect too on a key deal. Well, the deal was made. Troy and Latroy Hawkins came over. As they say, the rest is history. The Blue Jays had two great playoff runs there in 15 and 16. So glad we're talking about that trade deadline in 2015.

What a time. And this leads nicely to Milan's question for you. Milan is with Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. By the way, everyone listening, Paul Beeston wrote the foreword for Jerry's book here, Hello Friends, Stories from My Life in Blue Jays Baseball. Speaking of Paul Beeston. And speaking of Paul Beeston and that trade deadline 2015,

these words belong to Milan. Hey Toronto Mike, it's Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. Hello Mr. Howarth, it's truly an honor to speak with you. On a personal note, I wanted to thank you for the wonderful hospitality you showed my father and sister when they met you during spring training a couple of years ago. First question, looking back at 2015, do you feel that the wild traits made at the deadline would have ever taken place if Paul Beeston and Alex Anthopoulos were not leaving at the end of the year with the Shapiro regime taking over? And two, Tony Fernandez is my favorite Blue Jay of all time. Is there a personal off-the-field story you can share about him? Thank you, Jerry and Toronto Mike. Tony Fernandez? Mr. Gadget, because he always had little nagging injuries, but he would

always try to get a little gadget to help him with his arms and legs and his rehabs and is trying to stay as healthy as he could be. Tony was a wonderful Christian who did not wear it on his sleeve. He was just as nice as could be. And he came to the Blue Jays four different times. And the third time was in 1993 for the injured shortstop Dick Schofield. And I thought that was one of the great acquisitions for Pat Gillick too, when he his regular shortstop and then all of a sudden he looks around he can't replace him then he gets Tony and that was terrific and Tony Fernandez for me is a great gentleman and right now he's undergoing kidney dialysis and looking for a kidney transplant that's unfortunately where he is health-wise right now and hopefully prayers will be answered for him to find that kidney transplant so that he can

continue his life for other people so that was that was tony and i really enjoyed that now the first question had to do with well so anthopolis and beaston knowing they were leaving at the end of the season because the shapiro regime was coming in is that what why they kind of went for broke at the trade deadline in 2015 did that have an influence there no i don't believe so for this reason alex anthopolis is one of the best young general managers in the game and at that particular point he and paul beaston worked together so well they were looking at 2015 with the possibility of trying to get to the playoffs i don't think it had anything to do with politics or being replaced. And at that particular point, they knew that Mark Shapiro was coming from Cleveland to take over. And I might

pause right here and say that when Rodgers made that announcement during the season and let it be known, they made a mistake in my opinion regarding judgment. Because at that particular point, if Alex Anthopoulos, who made those deals, and for for me when you look at all the i think he ended up dealing 14 minor league players and pitchers none of them save for maybe a couple noah syndigard maybe another one have really broken through and then mega stars but the blue jays broke through they were a 500 team at that time and tulowitzki and hawkins and Cliff Pennington and so many others. David Price. David Price took them to a great level. And had Alex and Beeston been there where the Rogers family would have said, let's just wait until the end of the season and see what happens,

there would be no change. Alex would still be here doing what he did with the Dodgers, taking them to the playoffs and the division title. Last year, taking a 500 team in Atlanta and having them win the division, he would still be here and he should be, he's a Canadian and he loves what he does and he does it so well too. So I don't believe that was a factor. I think they just said, let's play this out. And again, when you look at who they acquired for what they acquired, it was one of the great turning points in the Blue Jays history. Agreed. And as a fan, I call that the hype train of 2015,

which continued through 2016. We'd all make those deals. We'd all do them again in a heartbeat because what highs we got out of those deals. It was great to have the Jays back in the playoffs again. It's fantastic. Well, here's one possibility too, because after that season,

after the rapport that Alex had with David Price, I believe had Alex still been the general manager, I think Price would have seriously considered a three year contract with a lot of money, but have come back and then the run might have continued for another two or three years with other people as well. And Alex acquiring more and more. But because he left and was turned over to another group, that group was kind of put in a situation like, what do we do here? I like Mark a lot, and I like Ross Atkins a lot too, and I think they will build in Toronto what has happened in Cleveland

where they were the architects of some great teams there too. But that jolt to the system, I think, really hurt the organization. Let's hear some more Jerry Howarth. So one of the things about having Tom Cheek call the ninth inning through the glory years, if you will, back when the Jays were winning a pennant every couple of years or so, is that you never got to call these pennant clinching moments.

But you did get to call it in 2015 and 2016. So let's hear you calling this. I believe this is 2015. 3-2 pitch. Check swing. No, it's clocked by Martin. He struck him out. Ball game Blue Jays winning 15-2 over the Baltimore Orioles to clinch their first American League Eastern Division Championship in 21 years as they come sprinting

from the bullpen. A stream of blue running as hard as they can to the infield where a mass of humanity all wearing Blue Jays blue, celebrating, jumping upon each other, and a magic number of three for home field advantage as well over the Kansas City Royals. Joe, what a celebration. So you got to call that one.

How was it getting to call a clinching moment? Well, it was fun. And when I said Joe right there, Joe Sittle, a great partner. My last four years, I was fortunate to work with Joe, a great analyst. Catchers make great managers and broadcasters. And Joe caught 13 years for all of 73 major league games with the Montreal Expos, Detroit Tigers and the Florida Marlins, then the Florida Marlins. And Joe was just a great partner. And I've always believed that a two-man booth with

an orchestrator, a play-by-play man working with an athlete, especially a catcher who provides insight for the crowd is a great opportunity for fans to learn more about the game and working with joe i learned a lot about the game too and i'm happy to still with the blue jays working with jamie campbell on on television but those were great moments and um that was one of them and i was happy to sit in that seat but i would have traded it all to have tom come back and continue his long career speaking of of Joe, Brent had a question. He wanted me to ask you about Joe Siddle's first spring game. Is there a story there? Joe's first spring game? Well, there is. And sadly for Joe, the reason why he ended up with a job I had read in the paper,

and I'd known Joe just a little bit going to Tiger's games at Comerica Field. I heard that he was a former catcher, a Canadian from Windsor, so I just would go over and say hello to him, but not much of a friendship. And in February, six years ago, Bob Elliott wrote that Joe and his wife Tamara had just lost their fourth child, Kevin. He died a week before his 15th birthday of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. So I said to Bob, send me his email, and he did. And I sent Joe an email and just said, Joe, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family to lose your son like that.

And we went back and forth with emails that evening. And at the very end, he threw in a throw-in line that said, well, Jerry, maybe someday I'll see you in the broadcast booth. Well, at that point, I was without a partner, Jack Morris. My recommendation was going back home to be with his wife and son. And there were a couple of broadcasters, Jeff Nelson was one, CJ Nikowski, another who thought about joining me, but neither could do it full time. So I said to Joe, how about now? Two weeks later, they hired him. So to answer

your question specifically, it was February, I think it was February 24 later, they hired him. So to answer your question specifically, it was February, I think it was February 24th, 5th or 6th. And the first time we ever worked together, it was a webcast before the next day's first spring training broadcast with Jerry and Joe. And with the webcast, I could tell that Joe was good at what he did. He was going to get better and better, but he was natural. He was articulate. And I really loved working with him. And then about the seventh inning, it started to rain. And the Phillies had just taken the lead with a pitcher the previous inning having been called in from the bullpen.

As we waited there for the rain, I began to think. And I said to Joe, just kind of casually, I said, Joe, do you realize if this game gets rained out, who the winning pitcher is? And he said, no. And I said, Kevin Munson. Sure enough, the game was called about 10 minutes later. Kevin Munson won the first broadcast that Joe Sittle ever did with his son Kevin watching from above.

Wow. Man. I'm going to bring us back to 2015 now. Did you notice the shirt I'm wearing? The bat flip by Jose Bautista. Look at that. I love this call so much. One of my two favorite Jerry calls.

I'm going to play it now, and then I'm going to ask you about it. Here is... Well, I'll let it speak for itself. One and one on Jose. about it. Here is, well, I'll let it speak for itself. Kicks, the 1-1 pitch Fly ball deep left field Yes sir, there she goes I could let that play and just listen to the crowd, but I got to know, how did you notice to be quiet and let the crowd take it for a couple of minutes, which was remarkable?

Well, I've always felt in radio, crowd noise is essential to the broadcast to inform, entertain, and keep people in the ballpark wherever they are listening. And I didn't want to get in the way of that, especially in an inning, Mike, that took 53 minutes to play. And when I said those five words, I wanted to back up and just let the crowd come in

and enjoy the moment like they did. And there's my buddy calling up the next batter. But, I mean, next to, I guess we had, of course, Joe touched them all, which is the, we didn't call it walk-offs. When did walk-off enter the lexicon of baseball? We never called it a walk-off in 93. But today we'd call it a walk-off. Yeah, I think it was shortly after 93.

And it might have been Dennis Eckersley with Oakland Hall of Famer that maybe came up with something like that. Well, hey, all my teammates, I just saw them walk off the field and walk-offs became part of baseball. And history-wise, I think it's probably 20, 25 years old. Now, the, the, Jose, that was not a walk-off when Joey Batts hits the, the big homer, but it felt very like symbolic sort of walk-off ish, even though we had to finish the game. But that was a crazy seventh inning, and there was so much like, it's just that moment, it was like, okay, we're going to do this.

I want to hear your official take. I've read the book. I know it. There's a little spoiler there. But, I mean, the bat flip is kind of infamous or famous, depending which side of the fence you're on. What are your thoughts on Joey Batts flipping the bat? Well, I thought for the moment, it fit, except for the Texas Rangers. I think many other big leaguers at that time said, show your emotions. That's what baseball is getting to be. That's

what it's all about. If you're down in Latin America and you're in winter ball and you're seeing moments like that, they happen in the third, fourth innings. You see celebrations in front of the dugout and the Blue Jays began to do that as well but i do think that it can be tough pill to swallow for the team that has to see that home run leave the ballpark there's the old unwritten rule be quiet and it's already happened this year when randall gritchick has said things about well i'm not going to show anybody up with a bat flip and there was a bat flip that led to an incident with the chicago white socks but i think overall in the game more and more emotion has been shown Well, I'm not going to show anybody up with a bat flip, and there was a bat flip that led to an incident with the Chicago White Sox. But I think overall in the game,

more and more emotion has been shown. The only difficult part is if you're going to show it, and even if it's acceptable, get ready to be drilled the next time up because that's also part of the game and has been for over 100 years. I wish I had said this. After Milan asked you that great question

about Tony Fernandez, etc., I wanted to mention that Milan is with Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. His family, the Telsanians, they run the Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair business. They've been doing it for almost 40 years. You can go to fasttimewatchrepair.com to find a location near you.

They just opened a new one in Richmond Hill. And if you mention that you heard about them on Toronto Mike, you get 15% off your regular priced battery watch, your watch battery replacement. So you get it replaced while you wait. Get 15% off. That's a great deal. So please, if you need any watch repairs

or a battery installed or any jewelry repairs, consider going to Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. And Jerry, now I'm going to play the other call that I just love of yours. This is 2016, and you can probably guess which one it is. But let's hear a little more Jerry. They're on their feet at the Rogers Center. Jose Bautista on deck, but Edwin's the man of the hour. The infield drawn in.

Edwin 0 for 3, walked intentionally his last time up. Travis at third, Donaldson at first, one out. The Jimenez pitch, fly ball deep left field. Yes, sir, the Blue moment we got from that team. So 2015-2016, we're back in the ALCS and a lot of great memories. Well, they were. And there again, too. I love the crowd noise to come in.

And I think it's so apropos for radio. And again, I just sat back and enjoyed the moment as well with everybody else. And that was the whole idea. And I think you can't talk over a crowd like that. That's just too loud. And you don't want to. And please tell me we'll get the dome filled like that again. Like this will come back again, right?

Because it was so long where it was not like that and then it became like that again and it was so exciting to be part of that and now it's calmed down again. Well, winning is so essential to having people come in. There's no question about that. And this year, Mike, I tell friends of mine, I just say, forget the one loss record.

Enjoy the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who I believe, as we do this interview, will come in this weekend. He's had that oblique strain too. And then, of course, the bureaucratic red tape regarding trying to save another year. There's also Kevin Biggio, who can play the outfield, can play the infield.

I love seeing this Beau Bichette develop in the minor leagues at shortstop, and all three of their fathers were outstanding. Two are in the Hall of Fame. Ryan Barucki, a left-handed pitcher, and so many others. Reese McGuire, another catcher coming up. So enjoy the development this year and next year of all those kids. And then in 2021, hopefully the team will be a viable contender. Then you'll see the crowd start to come out

because they'll begin to see that team compete with Boston, New York, and anybody else to try to get back to the playoffs. Absolutely, absolutely. Can't wait for Vladdy to get here. Now, I want to thank James and Tio because he helped me score the audio for the bat flip and for the Edwin walk-off, Homer, in 2016. So thank you, James, in TO. Jerry, I have a question.

I hope it's not a controversial question, but a lot of people wanted to know about this, as I do, is when you were, you know, stepping down and then kind of, we were all Rodgers particularly, but everybody was celebrating your long, fantastic career calling Blue Jay Games.

You never appeared on Primetime Sports with Bob McCowan, and I'm just wondering, it seemed a little conspicuous by your absence there, and I was just wondering if there's anything there. I'm not trying to cause any trouble, just curious if there was any particular reason that you weren't on with Bob. Well, I wasn't asked, first of all. Okay, well, that's it. And I try to keep a low Well, I wasn't asked, first of all. Okay, well, that's it.

And I try to keep a low profile. And with my career, the profile got a little bit higher when I retired. And, of course, now even so much more with the book that I was able to write, my one-and-done book. But, no, the last time I saw Bob was in the radio booth, and he came on with us there for a game at the Rogers Center. And I like Bob. He's had a wonderful career.

So, no, it's just a matter of I didn't receive an invitation and had I, I would have been on. Okay, that's the only trouble I'm going to try to cause this entire episode, Jerry, that's all. And that's not trouble at all. Okay, good. I was like, I don't know if I should ask this. Who's your favorite Blue Jay pitcher of all time?

Well, my favorite player happens to be a pitcher, and that's Tom Hanke. Wonderful family man. He and Kathy have four kids, a third, a man born with Down syndrome. Tom has just such a loving heart. Who would have thought a bricklayer from a town, Taos, Missouri, 750 people, would end up in the major leagues with a wonderful career and one of the best closers in the game.

But that's what I say when people ask me about players. say you can't hide talent they'll find you and they found Tom in Taos Missouri there are many others too I think of Lloyd Mosby, Jesse Barfield, Sean Green, Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield there are many many but Tom stands out as far as the person he was both off the field especially and on the field in particular what kind of person we know what kind of pitcher Roy Halladay was but what kind of person was Roy Halladay covering them all those years I like Roy a lot we knew each other for 20 years and Roy just had both of us had a certain discipline and routine his was even more accentuated than mine but to be very good at what you do you need a discipline and routine and stay with it every day.

And I was fortunate enough to be able to do that in my career regarding preparation and then working on the field and interviewing people. People say, Jerry, do you read a lot of books? I say, no, but I do read a lot of people. And when I read people, I would take in, they didn't even know the fact they were being interviewed by me in a casual conversation. Then I would take those stories, retain them in my mind and use them for broadcast books or whatever. Roy was the same way. And I remember one time in the clubhouse and spring

training, I was talking to him and he was reading a book. And I said, what are you reading? He said, Harvey Dorfman's the mental ABCs of pitching. And I said, are you just starting to read it? He said, Jerry, I read this five times a season. Wow. Five times. I said, why? He said, well, to continue to reinforce in my mind the right thing to do on the mound to be the best pitcher I can be. And I said, with all of that, what have you taken out of the book? And you tell me one thing you've taken out of the book in particular. He said two words, next pitch. He said, for me, that's what Harvey really has reinforced in my mind through this book. And that means if I see a call by an umpire that I don't agree with,

that I thought maybe should be a strike, but was called a ball, I go to next pitch. I forget it. If I see a ground ball that's aired by one of my teammates or a fly ball dropped, and I end up giving up a couple of unearned runs in the lead next pitch. He said, that's helped me so much in my career. Now hall of fame career. He'll be inducted in July in Cooperstown.

And when he passed away at the age of 40, I reached out to Brandy who I've known for years, his wife and two boys. And I told Brandy when Roy told me that all those years ago, I left that clubhouse and I told Roy, Roy, I'm using that too. I'm going to use that in my life that when there's adversity and things that don't go well, I'm going to say to myself,

next pitch and move on and let it go because of what you do on the mound. And that's the legacy he leaves behind for me. And I told Brandy just that and she was very happy to hear that and she knew right away exactly where I was coming from. Who had the better career as a Blue Jay Dave Steeb or Roy Halladay? Both had equal careers and I think the difference is the fact that Dave was a very very good pitcher Roy was

too I'd say for me it was Roy won and Dave won eight and And why was that? I would say this, that Roy Halladay never gave in because of the next pitch. And I think overall his career led to two Cy Young Awards, which you don't see too often in the game, let alone in each different league. Roy also pitched not only a no-hitter as Dave Steeb did, he also pitched a perfect game. And I think overall, when you look at both of their careers, they were 1 and one, a holiday Steve respectively. Paul Hawk yard, uh, listens to the show and he heard you were coming on. He

wrote, uh, Hey Mike, I know Jerry still follows the Jays. Uh, what is it, but what is his preferred way TV or radio? And if it's radio, does he still get, uh, the itch to broadcast again? Because he is missed. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. No itch at all. No regrets at all. Now what I do is I spend a lot of time with my wife and our two boys and our three grandsons. I also fill up a lot of my time with a routine and discipline

like baseball broadcasting, but it has to do with duplicate bridge. The irony being everything is the same, save for after the three-hour game, you look back, and and in bridge there's no talking and in broadcasting all it was was talking and so no i'm very happy doing what i do and occasionally i will turn on the tv and i'll hear buck and tabby at the same time i'll turn on the radio here ben wagner and i just kind of go with that but i don't spend a lot of time anymore following the broadcast as I did when I of course was the broadcaster. When you do tune in the game on the radio in your honest opinion how are Ben Wagner and Mike Wilner doing? They do a good job it's a different broadcast than what it was when you had a two-man booth and a broadcast a play-by-play

man and a former athlete now you have even three men in the booth with Scott MacArthur at home and two men in the booth on the road, but you don't have that former player. And for me, I've always felt a two-man booth with a former player is really the best broadcast, and someday maybe that will come back. Yeruj Islam says, I can't wait for Toronto Mike to ask Jerry Howarth how he felt about all the impressions people did of him over the last few decades, from the Don Landry ones

to the Mike Richards, quote, evil Jerry Howarth, quote, impression. There have been many of them. Do you have a good sense of humor about those? What did you think about it when somebody on the radio in this city would do kind of a Jerry Howarth character? Isn't the old line, imitation is the greatest form of flattery? No, I've known Mike Richards for years,

and when he first started to do that and people told me about that, I said, Mike, continue to do it. That's great. I love it. I've never had a problem with that at all. In fact, I look at it as a great compliment. Yes, sir. I'm going to start doing it then, too, now and then,

because it's a great compliment. Dave Gillis wants to know uh oh and actually did you have any he wanted to know if you had any uh anything to do of choosing your replacement like when you decided you were going to step down did you have anything to do with who would take over or did you just leave that up to the uh rogers uh people well that was one area that i did have a little say in and i've always respected minor league broadcasters I was one myself for five years one of the big differences is when I was a minor league broadcaster there were two play-by-play men in the booth so you had an opportunity 60 opportunities to move forward but over the years

athletes and I think it's good former athletes have become analysts so 60 jobs became maybe 30 or fewer but when I began to realize I was going to move out, I reached out to Ben Wagner, who I'd known and was a longtime minor league broadcaster, 14 years, the last five in Buffalo. And of course the Blue Jays AAA team right there. And I encouraged Sportsnet 590, the fan, to hire Ben because I wanted to give that hardworking minor league broadcaster a chance to carve out a major league career. And he comes here at the age of 37 last year, and that was only two years older than when I was. And I told Ben, you'll have the same career that I did and keep moving on forward. And I'm happy you got the opportunity. Listeners of this show know the

name Jamie Dew because when I, when Gore Downeyie, one year after the passing of Gord Downie, lead singer of my favorite band of all time, the Tragically Hip, Jamie Dew came in with Tyler Campbell and we did a retrospective on the career of the Tragically Hip. And it was a really, a really, I think it was really strong episode. And I think Jamie had a lot to do with it. So Jamie contacted me on the weekend and asked me if I wouldn't mind sharing some news. So he has an evening of laughter and magic and giving back planned. It's called Crazy Funny, The One Brave Night Extravaganza. Elvira Kurt and others are booked.

And basically, this is all to help raise funds for CAMH and mental health initiatives. These are causes very close to Jamie's heart. So just let people know that on May 10th, that's a Friday at 8.30 at the Social Capital Theatre, this event is taking place, Crazy Funny, the One Brave Night extravaganza. Tickets start at $20, and you can go to ashowofstrength.com to buy tickets. So I just wanted to throw that in there before we wrapped up. It's a great cause, CAMH and mental health initiatives.

And I just want to, again, as we close, and Jerry, this is a dream come true, to be honest. Even meeting you at the door, I was like, this man, if he only knew. How self-aware are you of the effect you had on people my age who are kind of like in the mid-80s are listening to, you know, that outfield, you know, Jesse Barfield, Lloyd Mosby, and George Bell, and kind of listening to your voice and kind of dreaming about one day

maybe my Blue Jays could win the World Series. Like, are you aware of this effect you have on us? Well, I am. I'm very aware of it. And what it leads to is a great deal of satisfaction, gratification for what I did, and to inform and entertain the audience over the years. And that's why I loved writing this book, too. There's no ghostwriter. I wrote it right from my heart. And it was a three-year project, two years to write, a year to edit. I'm very proud of that. But yes, I'm aware of it. And I'm very happy to have given that opportunity to be able to do that for everybody across Canada. And like I said, this is really my home and native land here and lived here more years in the States and couldn't be happier. Hello, friends, stories from my life in Blue Jays baseball. Again, I picked it up at Costco. It's everywhere right now. And it is

legit, just fantastic. Like I couldn't put it down. It was just full of great memories. And I love how you interweave your life in with the history of the Blue Jays. It's a fantastic book for anybody who loves Blue Jays baseball or just baseball or just interesting life stories. I highly recommend it to everybody. Thank you. Toronto Mike, thank you for having me. you toronto mike thank you for having me and that brings us to the end of our 454th show you could follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike jerry i've noticed you're absent from twitter

you're not on social media i don't even own a cell phone that's why would you ever cave in? No. It's a good way to communicate with the grandchildren. No. No. No. No regrets. No regrets there either. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptor's Devotee.

We're clinching that series on Tuesday night. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Jerry, you got your meat lasagna there. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. And Sticker U is at Sticker U. See you all next week. ¶¶ ¶¶

¶¶ where you've been because everything is kind of rosy and gray yeah the wind is cold but the snow won't be today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away because everything is rosy and gray Everything is rose and green You've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears