Sergio Santos missed nearly all of last season following shoulder surgery and after just five appearances this season he’s going back under the knife, as the Blue Jays announced that he’ll undergo surgery to “clean out” bone chips/spurs from his elbow.
As far as elbow surgeries go that’s a pretty minor one, but given Santos’ health history it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he’s sidelined for longer than usual. For now at least the Blue Jays are saying only that they expect him to pitch again this season.
Acquired from the White Sox in December of 2011 with the idea that he’d become the Blue Jays’ long-term closer, Santos has appeared in a total of 11 games for Toronto while Casey Janssen has taken over as the ninth-inning man.
Ejections happen most every day in baseball, but the ejection that happened 20 years ago today was like virtually none other.
Typically it comes when a player or manager argues with an umpire and says the magic word to earn the old heave-ho. But on May 22, 1993, it wasn’t a manager or player getting ejected. And the ejection didn’t happen due to an argument with the umpire.
Typically the ejection happens after a call that doesn’t go the team’s way. But 20 years ago, strangely enough, that wasn’t the case. This was a very different ejection indeed.
But the most notable part of the ejection was the person being ejected. You see, it wasn’t a person at all, it was a giant foam rubber costume. Specifically, it was BJ Birdy, the mascot for the Toronto Blue Jays.
It was May 22, 1993 when Toronto hosted the Minnesota Twins and it didn’t take long for Birdy to go bye-bye.
In the bottom of the first, Roberto Alomar came to the plate with none on and one out, and he promptly drilled one to left that Minnesota outfielder David McCarty tried to catch. Was it a hit or an out?
The man in the form rubber mask was sure he knew—it was a hit! Of course it was a hit! He knew it was a hit! And that wasn’t all. Birdy also knew that second base umpire Jim McKean blew the call.
Well no self-respecting mascot was going to take that lying down. So Birdy tried rile up the Saturday crowd of 50,510 against the ump. That’ll show him!
Yeah, well, there are a few problems here. First the good news. Birdy was right—the ball was trapped. But he was wrong in thinking the umpire blew the call. In fact, McKean called it “no catch” and Alomar skated into second with a double.
Oh, and Birdy doesn’t really have the authority to show up McKean. You know who does have the authority to show someone up? The umpire, that’s who. For trying to incite the crowd against the umpire—and not even realizing the umpire made the right call (a call that helped the home team), Birdy got the thumb.
Oops.
The rest of the game was pretty generic. Alomar scored a few seconds later on a Paul Molitor single, and Toronto went on to romp, 7-0. But not before the Jays' mascot got ejected for arguing on a call that went his team’s way. Weird. And that weirdness was 20 years ago today.
Somebody needs to learn about a thing some baseball folks call plate disipline.
J.P. Arencibia has started 37 of the Blue Jays' 47 games this year. He has 168 plate appearances through Thursday. He has walked twice and struck out 55 times.