Simmons Says – the usual collections of thoughts, dots and shots

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There was a way to say goodbye to Joey Votto that might have made everyone happy.

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He didn’t need to go to bat as a Blue Jay, as much as he might have wanted to earlier in the season.
The calendar was clear this week. The Blue Jays were playing the Cincinnati Reds, the only major-league team Votto played for. The game, like most games between now and the end of September in Toronto, was rather meaningless, except to the opponent.

The Jays could’ve called up Votto from Buffalo to be part of their lineup on Monday night. They could have started him at first base, not unlike what they did with Jose Bautista in his final Blue Jays home game.

They started Bautista on right field, then they removed him from the game to a standing ovation. It was a day to remember for Bautista and the Jays.

They could have done the same with Votto. He knows he can’t hit any more. He didn’t want to embarrass himself or the Jays by trying to pretend otherwise.

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But why not bring him up, start him at first base against his old team, bat him ninth, and either in the top of the first inning or top of the second and remove him early in the inning? To a standing ovation. In his hometown. The only truly great major league player to grow up in Etobicoke, learn his baseball in Toronto and eventually head to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

This wasn’t a Blue Jays story, it was a Toronto story, a Canada story.

There’s Ferguson Jenkins, whom we don’t talk about enough. There’s Larry Walker, the Hall of Fame outfielder. And now there’s Votto. And that’s it. The big three of Canadian baseball.

The Blue Jays love to talk about how they represent Canada. How it’s an honour to represent a country instead of just a city. They had a chance to give Canada a moment it deserves, and Canadian baseball an even bigger moment.

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All they had to do was be a touch creative. Instead, Votto announced his retirement from a barren parking lot in Buffalo — which, in itself, said more than he did.

He then found his way to the Rogers Centre that night to meet with his friends on the Reds, friends he had hoped to see two days earlier. Friends he might have waved to from first base, wearing a Blue Jays uniform for the only time in a regular-season game as a professional, the chance to celebrate a career so worthy of celebration.

MORE VOTTO

Votto retires with a .920 career OPS. That’s higher than Ken Griffey Jr., Albert Pujols, Mike Schmidt, George Brett and Reggie Jackson. He retired with a .409 on-base percentage, career. That’s better than Walker, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson and Alex Rodriguez … Seven times he led the National League in on-base percentage. Twice he led in OPS. Five times he led in walks. The only number that doesn’t seem Hall of Fame is 356 home runs.

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THIS AND THAT

The naming of Auston Matthews as captain of the Maple Leafs is as much about the business of hockey as it is the immediate future of the team. There is money to be made here with Matthews as captain. This is big tournament time in hockey and there is nothing the NHL wants more than to pit Canadian captain Connor McDavid against American captain Matthews in the 4 Nations Faceoff and, one year later, the Olympic Games. The fact that McDavid and Matthews are represented by the same firm makes co-promotion and sales pitches even larger for two of hockey’s biggest names … You couldn’t sell John Tavares as Leafs captain in a corporate or public way … Does anyone actually believe Matthews will be more inspired as Leafs captain? He scored 69 goals last season. How much more inspired can he be? How much better — playoffs aside — can he play? … It will be interesting to watch how much, or how little, the Leafs front office babies Matthews as captain. When Mats Sundin wore the ‘C’ for 13 seasons, he did media virtually every day but became a say-nothing machine … The Leafs try too hard to protect their players rather than make them responsible or accountable. Will Matthews be strong enough to be himself as captain rather than allow him to be shaped by worrisome management? … The Leafs seriously considered naming Matthews captain in 2019 before some off-season trouble ended that idea … Sundin is considered to be a great captain from his years with the Leafs. He wasn’t. The team missed the playoffs in five of his 13 seasons. He was a natural player, but not a natural off-ice leader. In four of Sundin’s seasons, Gary Roberts was the true leader of the Leafs. Tavares, who has scored at .95 points per game — just down from Sundin’s point a game time in Toronto — never missed the playoffs as captain, but never seemed to inspire, either. The Leafs leadership group last year was Tavares, Matthews, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly and maybe William Nylander. The Leafs leadership group this year is Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Rielly, maybe Nylander and Chris Tanev. Not much difference, really. The big change starts with new coach Craig Berube … Mark Messier, considered by some to be the greatest leader in hockey history, was a superb captain when he had Hall of Fame players around him in Edmonton and New York. When he went to Vancouver, then returned to New York and didn’t have Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Brian Leetch or Adam Graves beside him, he didn’t make the playoffs for the final seven seasons of his career. Was he less of a leader then? … From the day he entered the NHL, Marner is sixth overall in assists: Sometimes with all the noise, we forget that. The list of those ahead of him is rather impressive: McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Artemi Panarin and Leon Draisaitl. If you were starting an NHL from scratch today, McDavid, MacKinnon and Draisaitl would be three of the top five players picked … If Yaroslav Askarov is close to being the goalie he believes himself to be, then GM Mike Grier is putting the San Jose Sharks in a really comfortable position for the future … If I were an NHL GM, the free agent I would have gone after with an offer sheet was Vancouver goalie Arturs Silovs.

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HEAR AND THERE

We miss Pat Gillick. He and Paul Beeston spoiled baseball fans in Canada, running the best franchise in major league sports. In an 11-season run as GM and club president, from 1983-93, the Jays averaged 91 wins, won two World Series, were in the playoffs five times — when fewer teams qualified for the post-season than do now — and went into the final week of almost every season in contention. And using today’s expanded playoff format, with three wild cards, that Jays team would have made the playoffs 11 straight seasons … The Mark Shapiro-Ross Atkins duo of semi-competence is still looking for its first playoff win — a game, not a series … Vladimir Guerrero Jr., far and away the best Blue Jay, was inherited by Shapiro and Atkins. Alex Anthopoulos, the previous GM, signed Guerrero as a free agent in 2015. What exactly has current management delivered other than paying very good money for very good starting pitching? … It’s easy to want to cheer for George Springer. He has that natural enthusiasm. But in the offensive categories that matter most — OPS, OBP, and home runs — Springer’s number are in decline for a third consecutive season … The biggest surprise of this Blue Jays season: They’re 24-24 in the second half (prior to Saturday’s game) … Davis Schneider is Exhibit A on why you don’t know about most prospects until they go through the American League numerous times. The unlikely Schneider looked like a natural when he first came to the Jays. Now he seems completely lost. It makes you wonder about whether they have anything real in Joey Loperfido, Will Wagner, Spencer Horwitz, Ernie Clement and Addison Barger. If they’re all 24th or 25th men on rosters, which is possible, that doesn’t bode well for the Jays future … Every time I see a prospect look great from the beginning, I wonder: Is this the next Gustavo Chacin? Great cologne. Below average pitcher.

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SCENE AND HEARD

Not sure I’d bring back Jordi Fernandez as coach of Team Canada basketball. Fernandez seems like a terrific man. Not sure, though, that he’s a terrific coach. Didn’t like the way Team Canada came together from the beginning of the Olympics to its elimination against France … A coach I might consider if available or interested: Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. He was Steve Kerr’s assistant with Team USA at the Paris Games. If he isn’t the next American head coach, why not ask Spoelstra about Team Canada?… No doubt former national team coach Nick Nurse was paying close attention to the Olympic basketball tournament. As soon as it ended, Nurse’s Philadelphia 76ers signed French power forward Guerschon Yabuesele, who dominated Team Canada in Paris. The Sixers play their first road game of the season in Toronto, a chance to boo Nurse, Joel Embiid and Yabusele all on the same night … LeBron James was the MVP of the Olympic basketball tournament. Should have been Steph Curry, who by himself all but won the final two games and the gold medal for Team USA with his magical three-point shooting, which was truly wondrous to witness. Not so wondrous was Curry’s unnecessary taunting of the opposition and fans in the tournament. Really, he’s bigger and better than that … Bottom line: The NBA is a players league. If Andrew Wiggins wanted to play in the Olympics, he would have been there … Some of the Canadian athletes I talked to did not enjoy being part of the closing ceremony in Paris. They loved the parade into the stadium. They loved the pageantry. The rest of the night got way too long. And when concerts from a beach in Los Angeles were being piped into the Olympic Stadium on a big screen with a poor sound system, the athletes started to walk out. Too bad to see an event as great as these Games end with such a disconnect to its athletic performers.

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AND ANOTHER THING

If there was booing of Chad Kelly’s return to the Argonauts from suspension on Thursday night, I didn’t hear it. And I was surprised by the number of fans wearing Kelly jerseys at BMO Field. The troubled quarterback would have passed for around 400 yards — he ended up at 322 — had his receivers made the catches available more often against the Roughriders … I’ve never liked the rule that provides a single point — a rouge — on a missed field goal that clears the end zone. You should not be rewarded for doing something wrong. I don’t mind the rouge on balls punted or kicked off, just not on missed field goals … Caitlin Clark is everywhere these days, including her name — caitlinhergrtness — as both inspiration for the winning horse at Friday’s King’s Plate, which still should be called the Queen’s Plate. Clark is tearing it up in her first WNBA season and she’s a show every night: There have been 16 league games in America with television audiences greater than one million, 14 of them were tuning into Clark’s Indiana Fever. After starting the season 2-9, the Fever has won 11 of its past 16 … Andre De Grasse is easy to remember. You see him in enough commercials to know his name and face. Not so easy to remember are the names Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney. Those were his teammates in the 4×100 gold medal race. That makes three Olympic relay medals for Brown and Rodney along with De Grasse. And two for Blake. This is a special group … Still amazed by this statistic: De Grasse has participated in nine Olympic sprinting events. He has seven medals from them … What is the PWHL waiting for in giving nicknames and logos to its six franchises? I understand getting through the first season without them. But it’s time for names and logos now to better merchandise the product … It isn’t spelled the same but I take notice every time KeeSean Johnson makes a catch for the Roughriders … Happy birthday to Pete Stemkowski (81), Cal Ripken Jr. (64), Marvin Harrison Sr. (52), Bill Derlago (66), Anze Kopitar (37), Reggie Miller (59), Cornelius Bennett (59), Albert Belle (58), Rollie Fingers (78), Vince McMahon (79) and Gill Fenerty (61) … And, hey, whatever became of Andre Rison?

ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve

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