World Series Memories: Kelly Gruber of the '92 Blue Jays on playing through pain
Toronto Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion battled through injuries to remain on the field and stay productive for the club through the postseason. After the team was ousted from the playoffs in the ALCS by the Kansas City Royals, it was revealed that Encarnacion's injuries were worse than previously thought.
He's not the first player to conceal an injury in the postseason, as a Blue Jays icon did during one of the franchise's most memorable playoff runs.
1992
The Toronto Blue Jays had been on the brink of playoff success in the years that preceded 1992. They'd won the AL East in three of the previous seven seasons, only to lose in the League Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion each time.
But there was a different feel around the club in 1992, particularly when Pat Gillick supplemented his two major free agent signings of Jack Morris and Dave Winfield with the acquisition of David Cone in a trade with the New York Mets in August.
After dispatching of the Oakland Athletics in six games in the ALCS, the Blue Jays were through to the World Series, making the 89th playing of Major League Baseball's annual championship series the first to feature games played outside the United States.
The Blue Jays faced the Atlanta Braves - who had compiled the league's best regular-season record that year - and knocked them off in six games. For the first time, the World Series banner would fly north of the border.
The significance was not lost on the Blue Jays' players.
"We had a situation where we played for the whole nation of Canada," Kelly Gruber recently told theScore. "It was completely different than the Yankees, or the Braves, calling themselves 'America's Team.' They didn't play coast to coast for fans, like we did. That made it very, very special."
For Gruber, who now hosts the Silver Slugger Baseball Camp to promote the game of baseball and teach young players valuable skills, winning the World Series was a childhood dream he knows he shares with a lot of young players.
"To actually have it come true is very special," he said. "It's a great feeling."
Playing through pain
Playing in that World Series was very much a battle of mind over matter for Gruber, as he dealt with a serious injury.
"I had to preoccupy my mind to put the physical pain behind me. I'd been playing all year with blown out C3 and C4 cervical disks up in my neck, and it was everything I could do to stay on that field," Gruber said. "It was one of the toughest things I've really had to do."
The injury rooted back to an at-bat in late-April against the Kansas City Royals. Entering that series, Gruber was hitting .306, but his average fell to .248 by the end of May. He'd finish the season with a .229 batting average.
Gruber's high pain tolerance allowed him to stay on the field and keep the injury under wraps, but things really came to a head in Game 3, starting with the most memorable play from that series.
"In the top of the (fourth) when I dove for (Deion Sanders), that's when everything just fell apart, because I dove for him and I blew out my left shoulder, because I'd just been playing so long and everything was so weak and finally it just gave."
Redemption
With the Blue Jays leading 2-1 in the top of the eighth, an error by Gruber at third allowed Otis Nixon to reach base and eventually score the game-tying run.
He was afforded an opportunity to make up for his blunder immediately, leading off the bottom half of the eighth. But the shoulder injury he suffered diving for Sanders left him in pretty rough shape.
"Everything blew out on that left side, so I couldn't lift my arm going to get my bat," he said.
Gruber knew he couldn't catch up to a fastball, so he looked for something off-speed - and he got it - taking a Steve Avery pitch out to left to break the tie and put Toronto up for good.
"It was the only pitch - it was a change-up - I could get that bat around (on). It was up and in, where I didn't have to get any separation with my arms, and just rotate and throw the head of the bat at the ball. Hit it just right. Going around those bases, finally, it was like 'Wow. Well, at least I could do one good thing this series.'"
World Series Memories
Mookie Wilson of the '86 Mets on his hit through Buckner