Elliott: Blue Jays’ first expansion pick, Bob Bailor, prefers life out of the spotlight

Bob Bailor, the Toronto Blue Jays first pick in the 1976 expansion draft hit .310 for the Blue Jays in 1977.

March 26, 2026

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

Get ready.

It won’t be long now ...

Highlight after CBC highlight of the Blue Jays’ first game in franchise history, played at Exhibition Stadium on April 7, 1977, will be shown when the Jays open Friday against the Athletics at Rogers Centre.

In case you haven’t seen the highlights, you will see the Zamboni cleaning snow off the artificial turf, Chicago White Sox Wayne Nordhagen shushing across the field in “snowshoes” custom-made from catcher’s Rawlings shin guards.

No doubt, you’ll also see Doug Ault hit two homers, future Cy Young award winner Pete Vuckovich work two innings for one of his eight saves and reliever Jerry Johnson earn the victory, one of two he had in 1977.

But you may have to look hard — as hard as Blue Jays fans have over the years — to spot the man voted player of the year that season by the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Bob Bailor didn’t see any action in that memorable first game but there are shots of No. 1 holding a hockey stick in the Blue Jays’ clubhouse.

Bailor cut his hand opening a can of oysters during spring training in Dunedin requiring stitches. He didn’t make his first start until the 17th game of the season. As difficult as Bailor was to spot in those first 16 games -- aside from appearing in two games as a defensive replacement -- he’ll probably be just as hard to find in this anniversary season.

He was the Jays’ first pick in the expansion draft, No. 1 in the program, and No. 1 with many Exhibition Stadium fans from 1977 to 1980.

He then managed in the Jays’ system for five seasons, earning “manager of the future” tag.

He coached the Jays for four seasons.

Yet, Bailor has not been seen either in a baseball capacity or in person in Toronto since the end of the 1995 season, when then-general manager Gord Ash and manager Cito Gaston replaced him as the first base coach, hiring Alfredo Griffin. Fans complained Bailor didn’t argue enough on bang-bang plays at first. Halfway through the next season, they were upset that Griffin made the safe call when a Toronto hitter was out by three steps.

Let’s see we’ve talked to Bailor three times -- usuallly when we phoned former pitching coach Galen Cisco --- when he is hunting in Pennsylvania and he’ll pass the phone over to Bailor. Yet, Bailor knows when opening day is and zero calls this week were returned. In 2010, we took Bailor and his wife, Jamie, plus Cisco and his wife Martha, to Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Safety Harbor, near Dunedin.

That was only 16 seasons ago. Back when the 85-win Jays opened with a loss in Arlington and the lineup consisted of leadoff man RF José Bautista, 2B Aaron Hill, DH Adam Lind, CF Vernon Wells, 1B Lyle Overbay, C John Buck, 3B Edwin Encarnación, SS Álex González, LF Travis Snider and starter Shaun Marcum.

Bailor turned down Flashback Friday invites, is mentioned often in “Where are they now?” columns and chose not to return when the 1992-93 World Series winners were honoured. During those championship-winning seasons, he served as a first base coach -- and called Jumpin’ Joe Carter back to touch first base in Game 6 of the 1993 Fall Classic after Carter took Mitch Williams deep.

Hard feelings?

Like when George Steinbrenner fired manager Yogi Berra, leading to a 14-year snit? He is after all a PPM -- a Proud Pennsylvannia Man.

“No, no hard feelings, not at all,” Bailor said during that night at dinner. “As a player or a coach, I never liked those things. When you were in uniform you have to do them. Now, I don’t have to, I mostly hunt in Colorado or fish or hunt in Pennsylvania.”

Bailor’s rookie season saw him play 122 games, mainly at shortstop and in centre. He missed a month with torn knee ligaments, returning for the final seven games. He finished that season with a .310 batting average, best among all big-league rookies and still a record for expansion teams.

* * *

On a personal note I was supposed to attend that snowy season opener. My uncle Sam Sheridan in Kitchener was going to take his son, Geoff, and myself to the game, which was a Thursday.

I flew home from Sweden after covering the Air Canada Silver Broom. Landing at Pearson I was awaiting a shuttle to Kitchener when I phoned my Aunt Lorraine.

There would be no trip to Exhibition Stadium. While training to run in the Boston Marathon -- one of the first to do so with a pacemaker -- Uncle Sam had collapsed and passed.

* * *

Once we asked Todd Stottlemyre about the angriest he had ever been on the mound.

He had the answer. It was pitching at Syracuse in a seven-inning doubleheader. Two were out. Stottlemyre had the hitter 0-2 and was at 97 pitches -- he has three pitches to get a shutout.

“So, the guy goes foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, now I am at 100 and out comes Bailor,” Stottlemyre recalled. “One more pitch, Skip, I can get him.’”

At the time, Stottlemyre was a prized prospect.

Bailor said, “I really like you, but I like my job. If I let you throw your 101st pitch, I’m probably fired. We’re going to a reliever.”

* * *

There was a time when Bailor was in the picture to replace Jimy Williams after a 12-24 start in 1989. New York Mets coach Buddy Harrelson declined. New York Yankees broadcaster Lou Piniella flew from Seattle to Toronto to be interviewed. The Jays were interested. Except Yankees owner George Steinbrenner wanted two bullpen arms of David Wells, Todd Stottlemyre and Mike Timlin for Piniella’s services. Would you trade two of those arms for Jerry Howarth and Joe Siddall?

Bailor, triple-A manager with Cisco as his pitching coach, had done an excellent job in his post, earning International League manager of the year in 1989. At the time. president Paul Beeston, Pat Gillick and assistant GM Gord Ash were doing the interviewing.

Bailor told Al Ryan of the Toronto Star he was asked by someone if “when on the road he would take a struggling player out fishing to try and talk him out of his troubles?”

The prospective manager answered yes. Then he added “it would depend on who was paying to rent the boat and who was buying the beer.”

It was an answer that baseball people loved. They laughed at his sense of humor. Finally, after 14 games as interim manager, Beeston said “Let’s go with Cito Gaston.” And the Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series in 1992-93, with Bailor as the first base coach.

* * *

We remember one night in Milwaukee in 1989, right-handed hitting 1B Bob Brenly hit his first homer as a Blue Jay.

In the clubhouse, coach Mike Squires approached us to say, “I called that -- just so you know”.

Now Squires could pull a leg quicker than anyone, so we looked to the other coaches dressing nearby. Old County Stadium and Shea Stadium were the only clubhouses where the coaches dressed with the players -- without a separate change room at the time.

“It’s true,” Bailor said, “of course, Mike says it every time Brenly comes up.”

It was Brenly’s 76th plate appearance of the season when he homered off Mark Knudson in a 6-1 win in support of Dave Stieb. Ten games later in Seattle, the Jays released Brenly and his .173 average.

* * *

Bailor told us that night at dinner that he keeps in touch with former coaches Rich Hacker who showed up at his door with a shotgun in one hand and two gloves in the other (“half expected the SWAT team to come around the corner,” Bailor said), Rocket Wheeler, who was managing in the Atlanta Braves’ system and is now retired, former coach Cisco and John Sullivan before he passed.

Bailor had a dry sense of humour. Maybe only Mike Flanagan was funnier.

Dinner at Carrabba’s turned into an old-fashioned baseball night.

Bailor: “Galen, remember how wild Juan Guzman was at Syracuse?”

Cisco: “Usually I would take two balls to the bullpen to warm up a guy. For him, I’d take six. He became a different pitcher when he got to the big leagues.”

Bailor: “We knew he was ready when he’d hit that tin sign on the fence.”

After losing his first two starts in 1991, Guzman went 45-10 in his first 90 starts with the Jays, including post-season.

One image we have of Bailor 45 minutes after Joe Carter’s homer, with the SkyDome replay button on non-stop, we looked into the dugout.

There was Paul Molitor sitting with daughter, Blaire, explaining how she should remember this moment.

Bailor sat alone a few feet away.

How was the view?

“Not bad,” Bailor said. “Ball clears the fence every time.”

Bailor recalled lefty Balor Moore, who joined the 1978 Jays.

“When we were young, he’d say Jamie and I should have a son, he’d have a daughter, name her Balor, they could marry and wind up being Balor Bailor,” Bailor said.

The Jays dealt Bailor to the New York Mets for Roy Lee Jackson in 1981. Bailor told of two New York Post back covers he still has.

The first was the day after a Mets win in extras at Candlestick Park, thanks to pinch-hitter Rusty Staub. The headline read: “Rusty does it again!” A week later, the Mets were home and in the 14th (“we had to be out of players, if I hit.”) Bailor hit a ball into the corner and the Mets won. The head read: “Miracle at Shea!”

Bailor looked his playing weight, sported a two-tone moustache and we’re told he hasn’t changed much since 1995.

Bailor explained he was on a deer and elk hunting trip to Colorado and returned with a snow-white beard.

“I shaved the beard, but there was a little brown in the mustache, so I kept it,” Bailor said. “You, you haven’t changed much either.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Hold on,” Bailor said, “I didn’t say it was a compliment.”

That was Bailor. There may have been better Jays, but none had more fun. None was better liked.