Jays' Top Ten Most Exciting Home Openers: #1: 1977

Top Ten Blue Jays’ Home Openers

#1: 1977 vs Chicago White Sox

               

Opening Day hero Doug Ault

                I will never know the excitement that Blue Jays fans had on Thursday, April 7, 1977. I was only 17 months old at the time and couldn’t possibly understand what has happening at Exhibition Stadium on a cold, snowy afternoon. But for the 44,649 hearty fans who defied the elements and saw Major League Baseball for the first time in Toronto, it will be a memory they will have for a lifetime.

                The Jays team was nothing more than a bunch of castoffs and minor-league calibre players who most likely would not have made it anywhere else, but it didn’t matter for the Toronto fans. This was their team and the beginning of a long love-affair that would culminate in back-to-back World Series Championships a decade and a half later.

                For the Jays, Bill Singer would be the first pitcher to throw a regular season pitch in a Toronto uniform. For the visiting, Chicago White Sox, Ken Brett would toe the rubber. Singer gave up two runs in the top of the first, but Doug Ault cemented his place in the heart of every Jays’ fan in the bottom of the inning he hit a home run, accounting for the first hit, run, homer and RBI in franchise history.

                Chicago scored two more in the top of the second to take a 4-1 lead, but the Jays closed the gap to 4-2 in their half of the inning when Pedro Garcia singled in Gary Woods. An inning later, they would tie the game when Ault belted another long ball, this one with a runner on base, Hector Torres.

                In the bottom of the fourth, an RBI single by Canadian-born Dave McKay scored Garcia and the Jays had a lead, 5-4, their first in franchise history. The Jays made it five consecutive innings in which they scored when Al Woods hit a home run, with Otto Velez on base and Toronto now held a 7-4 lead.

                In the top of the six, the Sox cut the gap to 7-5 and the score remained that way until the bottom of the eighth. Ault singled to centre for his third hit of the day, scoring John Scott. A few batters later, Gary Woods hit into a double play, scoring Jim Mason making the score 9-5.

                There would be no more runs as Pete Vuckovich pitched the ninth inning, getting Oscar Gamble to ground out to short to end the game. Toronto had won their inaugural game, sending the already false hopes of Jays’ fans even higher. By the time the season was over, 107 losses later, those expectations would be tamed somewhat.

                Jerry Johnson picked up the win in relief for Toronto, While Vuckovich picked up the franchise’s first save. Other firsts for the Jays: double (Pedro Garcia), sac bunt (Jim Mason), stolen base (Gary Woods), and strike out for a pitcher (Singer).

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