We have a quartet of Blue Jays’ birthdays today. Jim Clancy would have turned 70 (but he died in July of this year), Roy Howell turns 72, Jeremy Accardo turns 44, and Willie Blair turns 60.
Clancy was an original Jay, picked up in the expansion draft in 1976. The Jays called him up in July 1977, our first season. He would be a Blue Jay for 12 seasons, battling Dave Stieb for the franchise lead in wins for much of that time.
His best season was in 1982, when he made 40 starts, posted a 16-14 record
(on a team that finished tied for last in the AL East), threw 266.2 innings with a 3.71 ERA, and made the All-Star team for the only time in his career.
As a Jay, he had a 128-140 record in 352 games, 345 starts, 73 complete games, and 1 save. He is still 3rd on the team list for wins (behind Stieb and Halladay)(he’s safe for a while, Jose Berrios is the active leader at 53), 2nd in innings (2204.2, and will likely stay second in innings for my lifetime), and 3rd in strikeouts (Kevin Gausman has 793).
After the 1988 season, he left as a free agent, and the Astros signed him, but the 2,200 innings he threw for us took a toll on his arm. He had an excellent half-season pitching out of their bullpen in 1991, and then he was traded to the Braves at the deadline.
Howell was the Texas Rangers’ first-round (number 4 overall) pick in the 1972 draft (Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley and Gary Carter were third-round picks that year). On May 9, 1977, the Rangers traded Roy to the Jays for Steve Hargan (a pitcher whose best days were behind him), Jim Mason (a shortstop who flirted with the Mendoza line in his good seasons), and $200,000.
Roy played four seasons with the Jays, mostly at third base, hitting .272/.335/.407, with 43 home runs and 234 RBI in 516 games. He made the AL All-Star team in 1978 (mainly because they had to have one player from each team). After the 1980 season, he signed as a free agent with the Brewers, playing for four seasons, mainly as a DH platoon partner with Don Money (I bought a Don Money model bat when I was a teenager; I still have it).
When he left the Blue Jays, he held the team records for career hits, RBI, and strikeouts, but the franchise was very young. Now he is 39th in hits, 45th in RBI and 44th in strikeouts. Roy also has the team record for RBI in a game, driving in 9 against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on September 10, 1977 (Edwin Encarnacion tied it on August 29, 2015). He hit .272/.335/.407 in his career with the Jays.
Accardo had an eight-year MLB career. Five of those years were with the Blue Jays.
He had a 3.67 ERA with 35 saves in 138 games with the Jays. His best season was in 2007. He pitched in 64 games, had a 2.14 ERA, and had 30 of those 35 career saves. He missed most of 2008 with injuries. In 2009, he started the season in the minors (and was none too happy about it). He was called up in June and pitched in 26 games with a 2.55 ERA. He didn’t pitch much in 2010 in the majors and, again, wasn’t happy about being banished to Vegas. And was released after the season. After his release, he complained that Alex Anthopoulos had made promises but didn’t follow through. He did get a raw deal with the Jays.
Blair played 12 seasons in the MLB, the first one with the Blue Jays. The Jays drafted him in the 11th round of the 1986 draft. He made it to the major league team in 1990, pitching in 27 games, 6 starts, and posting a 4.06 ERA. Not a bad way to start an MLB career.
After the season, we traded him to Cleveland for Alex Sanchez. Sanchez went on to pitch 11.2 innings for the Jays in 1989. Sanchez had an interesting story. He was our first-round pick (17th overall) in 1987. He was a top prospect for a bit (Baseball America had him #51 on their top 100 prospect list before the 1990 season).
We traded him to Cleveland near the end of the 1990 season for Bud Black. Black made 2 starts and a relief appearance down the stretch of the 1990 season. But we finished the season in second place, two games behind the Red Sox. Black left for free agency after the season.
Sanchez found his way back to the Jays, but things never worked out for him. He pitched in the Royals, Mariners, Padres, and A’s systems, but his major league career totalled 11.2 innings for the Jays. I saw him pitch in Calgary for the Mariners’ Triple-A team, and he didn’t impress, but it was a tough place for a pitcher.
It would be interesting to know how life has gone since then, but, unsurprisingly, if you Google search Alex Sanchez, you find out there are a number of them. He is in the Antioch Sports Legends Hall of Fame.
But this was about Willie Blair, who played 11 more seasons after being traded away by the Jays. He played again for Cleveland, the Astros, the Rookies, the Padres, the Tigers, the Diamondbacks, the Mets, and the Tigers again.
In 12 seasons, he pitched in 418 games, 139 seasons with a 5.04 ERA and a 60-86 record with 4 saves.
