Ferguson: How The Giants Nearly Came To Toronto

[polo007]

http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=408185

In fact, the history of baseball in Toronto would have changed drastically if one potential move had gone through. In the mid-70's Horace Stoneham had run into financial troubles and worked out a deal to sell the club to a Toronto group, which included Labatt's Brewery, Vulcan Assets and CIBC for $13.25 million. The team was slated to move to Toronto and play out of that re-vamped Exhibition Stadium in 1976 as the Toronto Giants.

Bob Lurie came to the rescue though and bought the club for $8 million and kept them in the City by the Bay. In the wake of that, Toronto and Seattle were awarded expansion teams and the Blue Jays were born in 1977.

Sometimes you wonder what it would have been like, if Toronto had landed in the National League and had been a rival of the Expos. Would a team still be in Montreal if that had happened?

There were some interesting names on that '76 Giants team who could have played in Toronto. The manager was veteran Bill Rigney. The outfield included former Yankees outfielder and broadcaster, the late Bob Murcer, Gary "the Sarge" Mathews who would one day become a Blue Jays batting coach and broadcaster. How about this one: Larry Herndon, who hit that fateful homer for the Tigers on the final day of the 1987 season at Tiger Stadium off Jimmy Key that gave Detroit a 1-0 victory and a division title over the Jays.

Those Giants also had former Expos shortstop Chris Speier who's now the bench coach at Cincinnati. Plus they had and a couple of relievers who would wind up with the Blue Jays, Randy Moffitt (Billie Jean King's brother) and Gary Lavelle.

[Skin Blues]

Chris Speier is Justin's dad. I wonder if Larry Herndon is related to David.

[take1fortheteam]

It's crazy to think about stuff like that, all kinds of questions pop into my mind:

-Would Toronto have less or more than 2 World Series' by now?
-How crazy is it to think the Joe Carter home run would probably never have existed?
-Would the Giants be as relevant as they are right now?
-Would the Expos still be here?
etc. etc. etc.

[duppyy]

It would be sad if the Joe Carter HR never happened.

[IMAN5]

im still happy with how it all worked out.

[Jatt]

Of all the woulda-coulda-shouldas, biggest one for me is if the Huskies had never left the Gardens. Having a team here during the height of the Bird/Magic rivalry/dynasties, Jordan taking over the league etc., you wonder what the landscape would be like in this city towards basketball. I'm sure having an original NBA franchise with as much history as the Knicks would have made looking like a basketball outpost nearly obsolete, if not the opposite to players.

[SCF99]

I am happy with the blue jays and how it worked out