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Carlos Delgado Joins Blue Jays Level of Excellence

By Travis |
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If you happen to be friends with Doc Brown and have access to his Delorean, you could take a trip back to 1998 and ask a 9-year old me who the best baseball player of all time is, and without hesitation 9-year old me would answer “Carlos Delgado”.

In the years since I have grown to actually understand (at least somewhat) the game of baseball, and know that Delgado most definitely wasn’t the best player in baseball, and probably wasn’t even the best player on his team that season (hello Roger Clemens). To those Blue Jays fans that are too young to remember the “glory years”, Delgado was more than just another ball player.

With Delgado set to take his rightful spot in the Level of Excellence at the Dome this weekend, I mulled over a few different ways to “honour” Carlos here on the pages of Jays Journal, but the only way to fully appreciate of Delgado’s greatness was to remember his greatest moments.

Instead of just listing my favourite Carlos Delgado moments, I decided to ask my fellow contributors here at Jays Journal  to share their favourite memories of number 25 in a Blue Jays uniform.

Do you remember any of these moments? Do you have a favourite memory that we missed? Share your thoughts down in the comments below.

To get things kicked off, I present to you this awesome interview I stumbled upon in my quest to find Carlos Delgado highlights (life before GIFs/Easy to find highlight packs was the worst).

And with that little nugget of gold, I present to you the defining moments and memories of Carlos Delgado as remembered by my fellow Jays Journal contributors.

Michael Wray fondly remembers the affirmation of King Carlos’ spot among the best in baseball in 2000.

Lame as I find it now, my favourite Carlos Delgado moment was probably when he was selected to his first All-Star team in 2000. I was at an age when I still thought that the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby were the coolest things ever but in retrospect being named an All-Star solidified Delgado’s superstar status in Toronto. He had won the Silver Slugger in 1999 but being named to the All-Star team carries a bit more cache, or at least it did for me at the time. I just remembered how excited I was when I read about it in the newspaper (remember those?) as I thought Carlos Delgado was the best baseball player in the world at the time. Looking back now, he probably was.

The race for the Triple Crown is always exciting (even though RBIs are dumb), and Justin Jay reminisces about Delgado’s chase for the crown:

I think for me, it was the race for the Triple Crown back in 2000 and in 2003.  If it weren’t for two cheaters (Giambi and A-Roid), it’s possible he could have beat out Frank Thomas for the 2000 MVP.  In 2003, he most certainly should have been declared AL MVP because A-Roid had admitted the use of performance enhancing drugs.  His BA was too low to win the Triple Crown, but disregarding A-Roid, he had 2 of the 3 categories.  I’d say that was my favourite.  Those two years of chasing history.  Top 3 Blue Jays of All Time

Charlie Caskey goes way back to Delgado’s rookie season to remember the first flashes of just how prodigious his power would be, and to a time when the Blue Jays game presentation didn’t suck

The one that sticks with me the most is his rookie year when he hit homers in consecutive games off the windows of Windows (appropriately enough) restaurant.  My two most abiding memories of those moon shots are Joe Carter, who was on base for one of them, looking back with incredulity after crossing home plate, as if he couldn’t believe where the ball had hit and the CBC’s broadcast team of Jim Hughson (a very underrated baseball announcer) and whomever was his colour guy (Rance Mulliniks??) doing a bit the next day where a window supply team asked outside the Rogers Center (with giant sheet of glass in hand) if this ‘was the place where Carlos Delgado worked’

*Note if anyone can find video/GIFs of Delgado’s Window’s homers or the bit with the broadcast team/window supply team please pleae please tweet them at me so I can die happy.

Jeff Morten struggles to find one specific moment of Carlos that properly encapsulates his memory of the slugging first basemen and in the process summarizes the entire theme of this post.

I keep trying to figure out that one defining moment.  The one nuance or highlight that Carlos Delgado provided.  I read old box scores.  I try and come up with something other than his 4 homer game.  To me the one defining thing about Carlos was respect.  Respect for fans, for peers, for elders,  for people in general.  He was a humble hero.  Each at bat you crept forward on your chair as he waggled his bat behind his head.  His body positioned to cover the plate.  To let ‘er rip.  More often than not Delgado answered the call for his talent and expertise.  He knew who he was.  He was the same guy when he left for Florida as he was when he first popped up behind the plate or in left field his rookie season and started hitting bombs.  His smile is etched in everyone’s memory and that is the man you remember.  Carlos was just a fine ballplayer and even better person.

As for the man himself, while he did not answer our request (via Twitter) for a favorite memory of his own, he gave Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca a brief insight into what it would be:

Carlos Delgado was a very good baseball player, and spent a couple of seasons among the best in the game. While he was one of the best players ever to don a Blue Jays jersey he is by no means even close to being a Hall of Famer, but as these memories attest but his contributions to the Blue Jays were much more than just his on the field presence, he transcended the game in Toronto, and is now in his deserved place in the Level of Excellence

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