Blue Jays 2024 Media Guide: Best tidbits you did (and didn't) need to know about this team

Collecting media guides is a bit of a lost art in the digital age we currently live in. For many, including most of the staff at Jays Journal, bringing home your favorite team's annual media guide was a huge part of their childhood.

Media guides are essentially books with hundreds of pages of information on specific team's players (both major and minor leagues), coaches, front office executives, staff members and everything in between. It's a fun little insight into your favorite team.

Last year, we took a look at the 2023 media guide and picked out some of the funniest and strangest factoids the media guide provided on the Blue Jays' players. We found out that Whit Merrifield once participated in a Japanese Game Show, Wynton Bernard was once on Family Feud and that Trent Thornton is a "rock and folk virtuoso" on harmonica.

We're going to take another look this time around and see what kind of unique information we can uncover this time around. There's still some carryovers from last year's squad, but there's also plenty of info on new faces.

Here's everything you did (and did not) need to know about the 2024 Blue Jays.

The best of the best in the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays media guide.

The catchers:

• Payton Henry is a spokesperson for an anti-bullying organization called Especially for Athletes.
• Max McDowell is an instructor at a place he owns called The Baseball Academy of Norwin.
• Brian Serven was a basketball star in high school.

The infielders:

• Addison Barger began his baseball journey as a right-handed batter. He took up switch-hitting so he could bat like Ichiro from the left side. He eventually dropped right-handed hitting at 16.
• Luis De Los Santos is the longest tenured minor leaguer in the Blue Jays system, logging 552 games since 2015.
• Isiah Kiner-Falefa is related to Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner.
• Damiano Palmegiani grew up idolizing Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson.
• Justin Turner and his wife Kourtney were married in a ceremony officiated by Orel Hershiser.
• Daniel Vogelbach is one of two Blue Jays who are nicknamed "The Babe" (Davis Schneider).
• Joey Votto is one of just two active players to have 16 or more years of big league service time (Justin Verlander).

The outfielders:

• Kevin Kiermaier hauled in a 43-pound buffalo carp at 2:00 in the morning while bowfishing in Wisconsin back in 2019 (do with this what you will). His brother Dan is head groundskeeper for the Cubs, too.
• Nathan Lukes attended high school in a city called Antelope in California.
• Alan Roden has a degree in physics (Creighton, 2022).
• George Springer was a soccer star in high school. Both of his parents are also former athletes.
• Daulton Varsho is named after Darren Daulton, a former teammate of his father's. His middle name is John, after John Vukovich, a former bench coach of the Phillies. Daulton was also the catcher for Tyler Gilbert, who threw a no-hitter in his first big league start back in 2021.

The pitchers:

• Jose Berrios would be a teacher if he was not a baseball player.
• Genesis Cabrera did not allow a single home run until he was in his third professional season. Additionally, he is the only player in MLB history to wear uniform No. 92.
• Connor Cooke was a three sport athlete in high school, playing baseball, football and basketball.
• Yimi Garcia's son's name is Jimmy.
• Chad Green has a twin brother who is three minutes younger than he is.
• Alek Manoah is one of just two first-round picks of the Blue Jays to be on the big league roster (Mayza).
• Tim Mayza has a Masters Degree in Sport Administration from Ohio University. His teammates had a ceremony for him after his graduation in 2021.
• One of Nate Pearson's hobbies is jet skiing.
• Zach Pop played baseball, golf, volleyball and hockey in high school.
• Trevor Richards is the first graduate from Drury University to make the big leagues since all the way back in 1968.

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