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Full Count: Four Decades of Blue Jays Baseball Paperback – April 1, 2014

by Jeff Blair (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 45
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From one of Canada's top baseball writers and radio hosts: a retrospective of the Toronto Blue Jays that comes more than 20 years after Joe Carter's World Series-winning home run. A must-have for all Blue Jays fans, and a great read for Toronto and Canadian sports fans in general.
     In Full Count, Jeff Blair takes us back to the days when the Toronto Blue Jays were "the Cadillac of franchises," and shows us exactly what they did right to become baseball's premier club. Then he explores the disappointing aftermath, when the league's fourth-largest market became an also-ran: seemingly destined to languish behind the big-spending Yankees and Red Sox and free-wheeling Rays--until the offseason of 2012. Full Count will appeal to the casual fans wanting to re-live Blue Jays history, and to the serious fans who relish the nitty-gritty business decisions and behind-the-scenes details that made this team what it is today.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage Canada
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    5.18 x 0.74 x 7.99 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0345812549
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0345812544
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Full Count:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Blair is lucid, informed and intelligent.... We can appreciate...Blair's judicious commentary on a team that always seems to be on the wrong side of the baseball gods." Philip Marchand, National Post
"Full Count is learned and thorough, with a keen eye on engaging readers instead of drowning them in the deluge of the author's knowledge.... The book manages that rare narrative pull that eludes so much contemporary sports writing." Quill & Quire
"This history of the Jays is by one of the country's most accomplished baseball writers, so it's not just a love letter, but instead explores both the glory days and the ruthless business decisions that kept the team hovering near the bottom of the standings. Until this year. Maybe." NOW (Toronto)

About the Author

Like Joe Carter, JEFF BLAIR has "touched 'em all" in more than 30 years of sportswriting and broadcasting. The Globe and Mail's sports columnist and host of The Jeff Blair Show on Sportsnet 590/The Fan in Toronto has covered Olympics, World Series, Stanley Cups and earthquakes while working in Winnipeg, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. But his first love is baseball, which he covered from 1989 to 1997 as a beat reporter with the Gazette and has covered since then as a columnist with the Globe and Mail. Blair grew up in Morden, Manitoba, and attended the University of Manitoba. He lives in Hamilton with wife, Shelley, and daughter, Emma Rose.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Canada (April 1, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345812549
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345812544
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.3 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.18 x 0.74 x 7.99 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 45

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
45 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Chad MacNeil
4.0 out of 5 stars Covers the not-so-glory days well
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2013
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I was hoping for a "what happened to the Jays" book. The author has done a good job of relating events since the World Series years. Would have liked a few pictures in there, a little more about the pre-WS days, and a bit more about some players that I've asked myself, "what happened to so-so". Overall, a nice effort.
2 people found this helpful
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Bryan
3.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2014
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I enjoyed this book very much. Jeff Blair's writing is easy to digest, and his analysis of key events in Blue Jays history is well-developed. Unfortunately, the title of the book is misleading. Blair devotes much of the book to the past decade of Blue Jays baseball. Anyone looking for colorful anecdotes or insightful analysis of the Jays' origins as a franchise to their rise to prominence in the '80s and early '90s will be disappointed.
One person found this helpful
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Dan Winegar
4.0 out of 5 stars ... business side of the Toronto Blue Jays but still good.
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2015
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Book is more about the business side of the Toronto Blue Jays but still good.
One person found this helpful
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WDX2BB
4.0 out of 5 stars Looking at what went wrong
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2018
In 2013, Canadian baseball fans had a simple question. What ever happened to the Toronto Blue Jays?

This is a reference in the competitive sense. The Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993, and were drawing about four million fans a season. With a retractable domed stadium that was state of the art, it seemed like the Blue Jays had the financial resources and the baseball smarts to be a very good team indefinitely.

As we know now, it didn't work out that way. Toronto has had some good teams and bad teams over the years, but few teams that even had a strong chance at being a serious playoff contender.

That's essentially the focus of "Full Count." Jeff Blair takes a look back at Blue Jays history and comes up with some interesting perspectives on what happened.

First things first - the subtitle of "Four Decades of Blue Jays Baseball" is misleading. Blair, who writes for the Globe and Mail in Canada, briefly covers the team's beginnings and then jumps to the World Series titles, more or less. That means this is not a history lesson, usually produced for major anniversaries. Since the team played its first game in 1977, this is more of a celebration of the team's assumed return to relevance in 2013 after 20 years in the wilderness.

Blair sought out many of the people who were involved in the management of the Blue Jays, as well as some key players, for insights into what was really going on. There are a few factors involved in what went wrong with the team, and Blair outlines them nicely.

As a starting point, the Blue Jays did mortgage their future a bit in order to win those championships. No one can blame Toronto for doing that, as the team acquired a few veterans who helped them win at the time for some prospects that were in the pipeline. From there, it was tough to get off the treadmill of mediocrity. The team was certainly affected by currency exchange issues, as the Blue Jays took in Canadian dollars and paid its players in American dollars. There was a good-sized difference in those rates at times, at one point jumping above 30 percent. When the team tailed off on the field and the fans didn't come out in large numbers, Toronto didn't keep up on payroll.

By 2000 or so, the poster boys for big spending became the Red Sox and Yankees - two teams in the Blue Jays' own division, no less. They dominated the landscape for years, leaving Toronto looking up. The team tried all sorts of approaches, but the problems - which also included some ownership and leadership changes - remained.

Blair spoke with such people as Pat Gillick, Cito Gaston, Buck Martinez, Paul Beeston, J.P. Ricciardi, Carlos Delgado, and Alex Anthopoulos, who tell good stories and are quite frank about what went right and what went wrong. It's a fine lesson in sports management.

The one catch in the book comes at the end. The last chapter is dedicated to the subject of Canadians who play major league baseball. Brett Lawrie is the first such player in Blue Jays history to be a regular. The weather up there works against player development compared to, say, Florida or California, and the good athletes often move on to other sports. Sidney Crosby was a very good shortstop growing up, but hockey turned out to be a very good career decision. It's not an uninteresting area, but does feel like it's from a different book in some ways.

Still, going 13 for 14 is an exceptional batting average, and Blair's writing style is smooth as he keeps the story moving nicely. "Full Count" probably isn't for readers who prefer their baseball books to concentrate on runs, hits and errors, but those who want to see what goes on behind the curtain at key times will find this to have many rewards.
One person found this helpful
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Doug B.
1.0 out of 5 stars A Subtitle that Kills
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2016
You know the old adage: Don't judge a book by its cover. That's true in many cases. But you SHOULD be able to judge a book by its title, and because of that this may be one of the most disappointing baseball books in years.

A title like "Full Count: Four Decades of Blue Jays Baseball" implies that this is a narrative history of the Blue Jays franchise, but that couldn't be further than the truth. If you bought the book based on the title, you'd expect to learn about the formative years of the franchise that made its debut in 1977; about its rise to prominence in the 80s, spearheaded by the best outfield in baseball and one of the game's premier pitchers. You'd learn all about Exhibition Stadium and the events that transpired on the diamond within. It would carry on through SkyDome, the World Series wins and so forth. That's what you'd expect, right?

You're not going to find that here. In fact, we'll let the book's Index tell the story: Exhibition Stadium is mentioned twice in the entire book. Yes, the home of the Blue Jays for the first twelve-and-a-half years of their existence is mentioned a grand total of two times. The greatest outfield in the Major Leagues throughout the eighties...Bell, Barfield and Moseby... receive just one mention in the entire book. Seriously. (Yes, Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish receives six times more coverage in a book about the history of the Blue Jays than do three of the greatest players in the team's history.) Dave Steib is mentioned only in the context of Jack Morris. I swear I couldn't make this stuff up.

I could go on and on and on. In Jeff Blair's mind, Blue Jays baseball began in 1989 when he started covering baseball for the Gazette. Apparently, nothing before counts. The reality is that this is not a history of the Toronto Blue Jays. If that's what you're looking for do not purchase this book.

But maybe it's not Blair's fault. Perhaps it is the subtitle alone that makes this such a bad book, and perhaps someone else wrote the subtitle. With another title this might actually be an enjoyable read. "Full Count: My 25 Years in the Blue Jays Press Box" or "Full Count: The Rise, Fall, and rebirth of the Toronto Blue Jays" or "Full Count: Two Decades behind the scenes with the Blue Jays" might be more apropos. With any one of those titles, the reader would know what to expect.

In actuality, there's very little on-field baseball in this book. Beginning with the opening of SkyDome (which is incorrectly called "the" SkyDome throughout), this book concentrates on the business end of the franchise and explores the reaches of Canadian baseball from sandlots to the Majors. It is about the progression of ownership of the franchise from the breweries through Ted Rogers and Rogers Communications; the General Managers and Managers of the team; it explains the thought process and impact on the moves and the trades, the hirings and firings, and explains the economics of the game as they pertain to Canada's only remaining Major League ball club.

If you know what to expect when you purchase this book, you may find it a worthwhile read. But if you expect a book's subtitle to be an accurate reflection of what's on the pages within, you're bound to be terribly disappointed.

-Doug Brei
[...]
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Applecart5
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on August 25, 2017
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Very happy with purchase, item exactly as shown
One person found this helpful
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spangles
5.0 out of 5 stars baseball
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2013
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Ihave followed this team for some years and I found the contents accurate and upto date a very worthwhile read for people interested in the game
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Dave Langton
4.0 out of 5 stars Does what it says on the tin...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2022
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Informative book, lacking in the imagery department, which would have helped to bring it too life a little more. And delivery was late also, so missed its gift date for our son.
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nascatrain
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Canada on January 13, 2016
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thanks
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Johanna
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on March 1, 2016
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loved it
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