May 28, 1989: George Bell walks off White Sox as Blue Jays bid farewell to Exhibition Stadium

“Unloved and unappreciated, it will be un-missed.”1

That’s how the Detroit Free Press described Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium on the cusp of the Blue Jays’ final game there. Yet for many on hand to say goodbye to the facility that had been home to the expansion Blue Jays since their 1977 debut, the May 28, 1989, finale proved to be a rollicking good time.   

Plagued by cold, dampness, fog, and seagulls, “the Ex” was a two-headed monster. Situated on the shores of Lake Ontario, it had been the home of the Canadian Football League Toronto Argonauts before being converted into a multipurpose facility in the mid-1970s.2 Uncovered baseball-style seating surrounded the infield, but an 800-foot-long left-field grandstand and a smaller uncovered grandstand built on the opposite side for football angled off into the distance. Spectators in those two structures suffered arguably the worst sight lines of any major-league ballpark, having to turn to see home plate, some almost 90 degrees. “By the time you sat and stared for three hours,” said Toronto Globe & Mail columnist Trent Frayne, “you’re lucky if you ever got your neck straightened around again.”3 A 12-foot-high chain-link fence, wrapped in blue padding, arced across the outfield, marking the boundary between diamond and gridiron.

Despite the ballpark’s oddities, in years that the Blue Jays were competitive, fans flocked to the Ex. The Blue Jays drew over 1.9 million fans every year they were above .500, including a league-high 2.78 million in 1987.

Knowing they’d be moving in June to SkyDome, the first major-league ballpark with a fully retractable roof, the Blue Jays had mixed feelings as the season opened. “I’m sure most guys would say just shove the whole thing in the lake,” was reliever Tom Henke’s perspective.4 “A lot of things are true about this park,” said outfielder Lloyd Moseby, a Blue Jay since 1980, adding, “More importantly, it’s a park that opposing players hate.”5

Derisively called Prohibition Stadium, Excruciation Stadium, and Mistake-by-the-Lake for varying reasons during its tenure as the Blue Jays’ home,6 Exhibition Stadium was a house of horrors to many visiting ballplayers – on the field and off. Texas Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins was arrested there in 1980 for drug possession,7 and New York Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield had a run-in with the law there in 1983 after killing a seagull with a baseball he’d thrown. In 1986 Detroit Tigers center fielder Pat Sheridan lost a ball in the fog that turned into an inside-the-park home run.8 Days before the finale, the Minnesota Twins’ Frank Viola, a dreadful 2-9 lifetime at the Ex, said jokingly, “I’ve got a bomb set in the bullpen for about 10 o’clock Sunday night. I’m going to help get rid of this place.”9

Not around to bid the Ex farewell was Toronto’s Opening Day manager, Jimy Williams. Two weeks earlier, with the Blue Jays off to a sluggish 12-24 start, general manager Pat Gillick had fired Williams and named batting coach Cito Gaston interim skipper.10 The Blue Jays responded well to the change, winning six of nine coming into a three-game weekend series with the Chicago White Sox that would mark the end of major-league baseball at Exhibition Stadium.

Swept in a three-game series by the Blue Jays a week earlier at Comiskey Park, the White Sox split the first two games in Toronto. They lost the Friday night opener in an 11-3 thrashing marked by eight Blue Jays extra-base hits, and won a blustery Saturday day game in which the winds reached 65 kilometers per hour (40 mph).11

Sunny skies with a temperature of 18C (64°F) greeted a festive, above-capacity crowd of 46,120 at the Ex, there that Sunday to say goodbye to their “always goofy, but sometimes charming quasi-ballpark.”12 “The score in this game is really secondary,” said one local fan. “We’re all here because it’s an occasion.”13 Nostalgia was the theme of the day. As they entered the ballpark, spectators received booklets celebrating the team’s past, and a number of ballplayers from the 1977 team were introduced in pregame ceremonies.14 It was fitting that the White Sox, who helped inaugurate Blue Jays baseball at the Ex on a snowy day back in April 1977, were the opposition.15

The honor of starting the game for Toronto went to 31-year-old Dave Stieb, a Blue Jay since 1979 and the franchise’s all-time winningest pitcher.16 A loser in his last three starts, he carried an unsightly 5.65 ERA but was facing a team he’d long dominated: 16-4 lifetime, with three shutouts, a WHIP under 1.00 and a 1.91 ERA. Chicago’s first-year manager Jeff Torborg countered with second-year southpaw Steve Rosenberg, a middle reliever who six days earlier had made his first major-league start.

The two halves of the first inning were replicas of each other. First Stieb and then Rosenberg surrendered one-out doubles to right field, allowed the number-three batter to reach first base, and escaped by inducing an inning-ending double play from the cleanup hitter, Iván Calderón for Chicago and George Bell for Toronto.

Chicago broke the ice with a run in the second, on a leadoff single by Greg Walker, a hit-and-run single by Dan Pasqua, and a two-out ground-rule double down the right-field line by rookie catcher Matt Merullo, bouncing off a bullpen mound and into the crowd.17

Toronto knotted the score in the third when Kelly Gruber, a fan favorite headed to his first All-Star selection, lined a two-out opposite-field single to right, bringing in Bob Brenly from second.18  

Good fortune opened the door for Chicago to retake the lead in the fourth. After doubling to lead off the inning, Walker appeared to be a dead duck when he tried to advance on a fly out to rookie sensation Junior Félix in right.19 As Walker pulled into third standing up, he inadvertently “rabbit punched” third baseman Gruber, who was reaching down to tag Walker on the leg. Gruber dropped the ball and was charged with an error.20 Pasqua’s sacrifice fly brought in Walker to put Chicago up 2-1.

Strong infield defense kept both teams off the scoreboard over the next two innings. Rosenberg worked around a Blue Jays runner on third with nobody out in the fourth thanks to the quick hands and strong arm of rookie third baseman Carlos Martínez, who seemed to master the Ex’s fast AstroTurf surface. A sparkling barehanded play by Toronto second baseman Nelson Liriano on a two-out drag bunt by Steve Lyons with a runner on third dashed Chicago hopes of taking the lead in the top of the sixth.

After he walked Gruber and Bell to start the sixth, Rosenberg’s day was done. Left-hander Jerry Reuss, three weeks shy of his 40th birthday and recently bumped from the Chicago rotation, came in to retire Fred McGriff on a high chopper to second. The next batter, struggling DH Pat Borders, hitting .125 with only one extra-base hit over the last month, ripped a double down the left-field line that chased both baserunners home. Three pitches later, Moseby lofted a Reuss breaking ball over the right-field fence to give Toronto a 5-2 lead.

Stieb kept Chicago off the scoreboard in the seventh but weakened in the eighth. Inning-opening singles to center by Dave Gallagher and, on Stieb’s 100th pitch, DH Harold Baines, prompted Gaston to go to his coveted closer, Duane Ward.21 Celebrating his 25th birthday, Ward walked the first batter he faced, Calderón, loading the bases for substitute second baseman Fred Manrique.22 Manrique punched an opposite-field single to right, scoring Gallagher. A first-pitch single by Pasqua one out later plated Baines and Calderón, tying the game, 5-5.

Chicago threatened in the ninth but failed to score. Ozzie Guillén walked leading off the inning and took second on Gallagher’s sacrifice. Lefty David Wells came in for Ward and retired Baines on a grounder to the right side, with Guillén advancing to third. Righty Henke, temporarily displaced by Ward as Toronto’s closer two weeks earlier,23 came in to face Calderón, and fanned him on an outside changeup to end the inning.  

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Calderón whiffed once again, running in when he should have retreated on a Liriano line drive.24 With the winning run now on second, Torborg went to his hard-throwing closer Bobby Thigpen. He coaxed both Félix and Tony Fernández to ground out to first, sending the game into extra innings.

Left in to pitch the 10th, Henke surrendered a one-out infield single to Lyons. Lyons swiped second as Pasqua went down swinging but was left stranded when Martínez grounded to second.

Thigpen also came back out for the bottom of the 10th, having thrown only four pitches in the ninth. Toronto’s first batter, Gruber, lined Thigpen’s 2-and-2 offering the other way into right-center field for his second double and fourth hit of the game. Coming into the game, Gruber had been in a 3-for-23 funk. “It may be the beginning of the end,” intoned hopeful Blue Jays play-by-play announcer Don Chevrier.25

With the count 0-and-1 to the next batter, Bell, TSN color commentator and former Blue Jays backstop Buck Martinez echoed his partner’s sentiment.26 “Well, this would wrap the Ex up pretty nicely if George Bell could come through with a base hit, all the great games he’s had here.”

The next pitch from Thigpen was an inside fastball that the 1987 AL MVP drove deep into the left-field grandstand. “There it goes as Bell rips up the Exhibition Stadium history,” chimed Chevrier over the roar of the delirious crowd, adding, “Rain, snow, wind and cold will bother us no more.”27 Bell had delivered the day’s capstone with the third Exhibition Stadium walk-off home run of his career.

Expecting fans to storm the field in search of mementos, security officials lined both baselines, backed on the third-base line by a half-dozen mounted police. Nobody tried, but Toronto catcher Ernie Whitt – the franchise’s sole holdover from their 1977 roster – did persuade groundskeepers to dig up home plate for him.28

“A more fitting ending to the Toronto Blue Jays’ stay at Exhibition Stadium couldn’t have been written,” opened the game summary in the next day’s Kingston (Ontario) Whig-Standard.29

On June 5 the Blue Jays played their first game at SkyDome, falling to the Milwaukee Brewers. Rarely used over the next decade, Exhibition Stadium was demolished in 1999.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the TSN (The Sports Network) telecast of the game and the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, Stathead.com, BaseballSavant.com, and Baseball-Almanac.com websites, including box scores listed at these links:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR198905280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1989/B05280TOR1989.htm 

Photo credit: George Bell, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Tim Jones, “Toronto Shed No Tears as Baseball Moves from Exhibition Stadium,” Detroit Free Press, May 27, 1989: 1A.

2 “The Strange and Infamous History of Exhibition Stadium,” 13th Man Sports website, https://13thmansports.ca/2022/02/19/the-strange-and-infamous-history-of-exhibition-stadium/, accessed July 5, 2024.

3 “Toronto Shed No Tears as Baseball Moves from Exhibition Stadium.”

4 Allan Ryan, “Some Jays Will Miss It – Honest!” Toronto Star, April 14, 1989: B1.

5 “Some Jays Will Miss It – Honest!”

6 “Davis Decided on Beer at the Ball Park,” Toronto Star, July 8, 1982: 34; “Toronto Shed No Tears as Baseball Moves from Exhibition Stadium.”

7 Tracy Ringolsby, “Perry, Jenkins Await Word from Hall,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), January 9, 1989: D5.

8 “Astros Topple Giants; Blue Jays Rip Tigers,” Newport News (Virginia) Press, June 13, 1986: E2.

9 Tom Conaway, “Viola Is Glad to see Last of Exhibition Stadium,” Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) Record, May 25, 1989: D1. Viola’s won-lost percentage at Exhibition Stadium (.182) was the lowest for any ballpark in which he started five or more games. His ERA in 13 appearances there (5.76) was more than two runs above his career ERA. Ironically, Viola finished his career in 1996 as a Blue Jay.

10 “Bell’s Vow Proves to Be Prophetic,” Alberni Valley (British Columbia) Times, May 16, 1989: 7. Three days after this game, Gaston, having led Toronto to an 8-7 record as interim manager, was given the job on a permanent basis. “Jays Will Be Gaston’s Gang,” St. Catharines (Ontario) Standard, June 1, 1989: 25.

11 Kevin Glew, “Remembering the Last Game at Exhibition Stadium 32 Years Ago Today,” Cooperstowners in Canada website, May 28, 2021, https://cooperstownersincanada.com/2021/05/28/remembering-the-last-game-at-exhibition-stadium-32-years-ago-today/.

12 “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 1,” YouTube video (Top of the Third), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs95B970k9s,1:44:27, accessed July 25, 2024; Rosie DiManno, “Jays Say Goodbye to Ex after Playing 966 Games,” Toronto Star, May 29, 1989: A5.

13 “Jays Say Goodbye to Ex after Playing 966 Games.”

14 Garth Iorg, a utility infielder “known more for his hustle and spirit than his talent,” reportedly received the loudest ovation. Viewers watching the TSN telecast of the game were treated between innings to live interviews with a number of original Blue Jays and replays of memorable happenings at the Ex. “Jays Win in Farewell to Exhibition Stadium,” Kingston (Ontario) Whig-Standard, May 29, 1989: A-11.

15 Unlike in the 1977 opener, the White Sox weren’t wearing all black uniforms with collared jerseys and horizontally striped white socks.

16 Stieb entered the game with 134 victories, more than any other Blue Jay until then, and finished his career with 175 wins as a Blue Jay and one as a member of the White Sox. In the opening minutes of TSN’s telecast of the game, announcer Fergie Olver mistakenly credited Stieb with 135 wins as he prepared to throw the game’s first pitch. “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 1.”

17 Early-season injuries had a significant impact on all three of the White Sox who got hits in the inning. Walker was subbing for Ron Kittle, who was nursing a sore knee, Pasqua had missed nearly six weeks with a broken wrist, and Merullo was standing in for Carlton Fisk, who was days from returning to lineup after breaking his right hand early in the season. Merullo’s double proved to be his last hit of the season for Chicago. Three days later, when Fisk came off the disabled list, Merullo was sent to Double-A Birmingham, where he remained the rest of the year. Though he didn’t play in this game, Fisk shared his perspective on Exhibition Stadium the next day. “Take a look at it,” he said. “It’s a football stadium. I don’t think many people are going to miss this place.” “Jays Bid Old Stadium Not-So-Fond Farewell,” Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1989: 2-3.

18 Right fielder Calderón looked to have a shot at gunning down Brenly, a faster-than-average Toronto catcher at the plate, but he didn’t field the ball cleanly. Brenly collected 45 stolen bases across his nine-year career, the sixth-most among all catchers during that time period (1981-1989).

19 Felix, who had made his major-league debut earlier in the month, went 9-for-22 with 6 RBIs in his first seven games. He had cooled off since his hot start, batting .217 in his last 64 plate appearances.  

20 “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 1.”

21 Earlier in the day, in response to Toronto inquiries regarding the availability of Yankees executive Lou Piniella to take on the job as Toronto manager, a list of pitchers that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner would accept in return for releasing Piniella from his personal services contract was widely published. Ward was one of the pitchers on that list. Allan Ryan, “Price for Piniella Too Steep for Jays,” Toronto Star, May 28, 1989: G1.

22 Manrique had entered the game an inning earlier, taking Walker’s place in the batting order, with Lyons moving from second base to third and Martínez from third base to first. Neither the TSN broadcast nor newspaper game summaries provide an explanation for why Walker came out of the game.

23 Henke returned to the closer’s role, a position he’d held since the summer of 1985, in early July after Ward blew back-to-back saves.

24 “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 2,” YouTube video (Top of the Third), 1:18:13, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT3gKVMZiZk. Accessed July 25, 2024. Calderón had also misplayed a first-inning double by Tony Fernandez, shuffling back to try to catch a line drive that hit near the top of the padded fence when according to Blue Jays color commentator Buck Martinez, he should have turned and run to the fence instead.

25 “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 2.” Chevrier replaced regular Blue Jays play-by-play announcer Fergie Oliver for the ninth, reprising his role as the Blue Jays play-by-play announcer for Toronto’s inaugural game at Exhibition Stadium 12 years earlier, which he did alongside Hall of Fame hurler Whitey Ford.

26 Martinez, recipient of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney Award, for “significant contribution to the game of baseball in Canada through [his] life’s work,” was still broadcasting Blue Jays games more than 35 years after this game was played. “2023 Award Winner: Buck Martinez,” Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame website, https://baseballhalloffame.ca/jack-graney-award/, accessed July 26, 2024.

27 “May 28, 1989 Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays Part 2.”

28 Allan Ryan, “Jays Leave the Ex on a High Note,” Toronto Star, May 29, 1989: D1. Chicago’s Guillen tried to take second base, but when asked to give it back, he did.

29 “Jays Win in Farewell to Exhibition Stadium.”