The pear-shaped Captain Kirk makes Blue Jays history

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There is no picture more descriptive of this great and still stunning Blue Jays season than the photo of the unusually shaped catcher named Alejandro Kirk.

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He doesn’t look much like a professional athlete. He’s not very tall. He’s not very trim. He doesn’t run particularly well. He’s not at all natural.

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But now he’s a figure for the baseball ages in Toronto. At the top of any list with the greatest of Blue Jays performances. His home runs Sunday afternoon didn’t win the World Series the way the Joe Carter blast did 32 years ago. His home runs didn’t come with any kind of bat flip, the way the still-famous Jose Bautista did in 2015.

Maybe he should have flipped the bat after the second homer, which restored the Jays’ four-run cushion in the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays, but that wouldn’t be Kirk.

That would get him noticed. That would get him attention. And even as the crazy champagne spray flowed in the hallway outside the Jays clubhouse into the early evening, Kirk moved strategically from celebration to celebration, almost trying to avoid being the centre of attention or being the most soaked of those wearing Blue Jays colours.

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Who has had a bigger game than Kirk had Sunday as a Blue Jay? Who has hit two home runs, knocked in six on the final day of the season when all that was at stake was first place in the American League East.

The first first-place finish in 10 years. The seventh time in club history winning a division that includes the historical teams such as the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. And the big moments came off the shortest, widest, least athletic looking Blue Jays player.

“I’m so proud of him,” said Tyler Heineman, the veteran who backs up Kirk behind the plate. “We all have these dreams as kids, hitting the big home run in the big moment. And nobody deserves this more than him.

“He’s our captain (without official status). He’s our leader. He rights the ship when we need the ship righted. He might be our most important player. And he wants it so much for the team, for this city. That’s who he is. And I know how much this means to him.”

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Kirk doesn’t speak a lot of English in interviews throughout the season or any day for that matter. But there he was Sunday, with champagne spray coming down on his head, answering questions in English as best he could.

“I thank God for everything,” said Kirk. “You dream every single night that something like this might happen. You dream … I’m so happy. For the team, for our organization, for everybody.

“We’re just so happy right now. You can’t win in this game every night. You can’t do this every night. We did it today.”
Manager John Schneider, who talking before and after the game about how proud he is of the Blue Jays’ selflessness, used to be a catcher himself. So he has this soft spot — different from Kirk’s soft spot — for his starting catcher.

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“He’s a unicorn,” said Schneider. “He doesn’t say a lot. He doesn’t necessarily get noticed a lot. But he’s there when the fight starts. That means something. He took all of this on himself today. With his hits, he said this is our game and we’re not giving it back.”

Kevin Gausman couldn’t do what the Jays hoped he could accomplish on the final day of the 162 game season. He didn’t have his good stuff, struggling with a Tampa Bay lineup he would normally own. But at the bottom of the first inning, he had a rare premonition.

“I had a feeling he was going to hit the grand slam,” Gausman said. “I normally don’t think that way. But I had the feeling he was going to do it.”

And he did. The home run in the first inning. The double in the fourth inning. The two-run home run in the fifth, which changed the score from an uncomfortable 6-4 to 8-4, and eventually a 13-4 romp which gave the Jays the division title.

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Now instead of wild-card games on Tuesday, Wednesday and maybe Thursday, there is a home game on Saturday against either the Yankees or the Red Sox at the Rogers Centre. A best-of-five series. The Jays can now set their roster and their pitching rotation in any order they require. The win Sunday provided that kind of freedom.

“I’ve been here for four years and I’ve heard a lot about how great 2015 was,” said Gausman, who has been here for four years, with Sunday being his 126th start as a Blue Jay. He knows how desperate Toronto is, and has been, for a winner. He knows there’s a chance of that happening this playoff season. He’s ready to put the past behind him, and if he’s not ready, his catcher will be, or the multi-faceted Ernie Clement, or the spectacular and surprising George Springer. There are a lot of moving parts to the success of this Blue Jays team with the best record in the American League. The heroes change capes rather regularly throughout the season.

But what happened on Sunday was historical, memorable and breathtaking and, like so much about this team, it was completely unexpected.

We live in this market with the Carter home run, the Bautista bat flip, the Edwin Encarnacion extra-innings home run, the homers hit by Roberto Alomar and Ed Sprague.Not a lot of moments in 47 years to grasp on to. There’s been just enough to hold on to all of them.

And now, one more. The day Alejandro Kirk made history all his own.

ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve

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