news
2010 Hero: Jose Bautista
Illustration by Matthew Daley/Torontoist.
Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—Toronto’s very best and very worst people, places, and things over the past twelve months. From December 13–17: the Villains! From December 20–24, the Heroes! And, from December 27–30, you can vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year.
Prior to this season, Jose Bautista was best-known for the ignoble honour of being the only baseball player to appear on the roster of five teams in a single season. Now, he’s a break-out star who led the major leagues in home runs. In addition to his fifty-four home runs—which surpassed George Bell’s previous Toronto Blue Jays record of forty-seven—he drove in 124 runs and has played well defensively at right field and third base.
In a city full of luckless sports franchises, he gave fans something to cheer about all season long—as well as optimism for the future. And now, at season’s end, his trophy shelf is packed: He’s won the Hank Aaron Award (along with Etobicokian Joey Votto), and a Silver Slugger Award. He was chosen as the Jays’ team MVP and most improved player. An all-star for the first time this year, he finished fourth in balloting as the year’s American League MVP.
Bautista’s surge from journeyman to power hitter began in September 2009 when, finally given the chance to start every day and backed by a hitter-friendly coach in Cito Gaston, he cranked ten home runs in a single month. Working on the timing and technique of his swing with batting coaches Gene Tenace and Dwayne Murphy last off-season ensured his success with the long-ball continued.
He seems to be the real deal. In the steroid age, imputations were inevitably raised, but Bautista navigated this terrain deftly and gracefully. The majority of his homers have been near line-drives over the outfield wall in the hitter-friendly confines of Rogers Centre, and sportswriters like Jeff Blair lined up to explain and defend his success.
It’s a deserved turnaround for a player who nearly walked away from baseball as a youth in the Dominican Republic for the lack of opportunity. In the late 1990s, a former coach, working for the Latin Athletes Education Fund, found a place for him at a low-profile junior college in Florida, and Bautista was drafted in the twentieth round of the 2000 amateur entry draft.
Now Bautista is looking to return the favour, and is working with the NCAA to develop a program that will provide financial assistance to young Latin Americans to study and play ball at NCAA universities. He’s already mentoring Latin American players within the Jays organization, taking newcomer Yunel Escobar under his wing this season. For such class and grace, it’s no wonder he earned the club’s John Cerutti Award for demonstrating goodwill and character on top of everything else.