BALTIMORE -- Alex Anthopoulos sat quietly in his seat in the first row of section 48 just behind the visiting dugout at Camden Yards. With the game well in hand, a large group of Toronto Blue Jays fans turned their adoration toward the general manager.
"Thank you, Alex," the crowd chanted.
Anthopoulos found it cool, if not a little bit weird, to receive that kind of attention. But without his moves, most notably last off-season and at the trade deadline, the Blue Jays wouldn't have even been in contention, let alone been able to clinch the American League East with five games to play.
For a moment, Anthopoulos smiled and appeared to soak it all in.
"To experience that for nine innings when it was an easy game to watch was just fun, and just to see to the pride and the emotion of everybody was just a lot of fun for me to experience that," he said.
Criticized by his own players for sitting on his hands and not making any trades at the 2014 deadline, Anthopoulos bided his time. He said Wednesday after a 15-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles that deals made back then may have cost the Blue Jays a chance to have Josh Donaldson or Kevin Pillar on this team.
After signing catcher Russell Martin to a US$82-million, five-year deal, Anthopoulos pulled the trigger on the trade that landed Donaldson from the Oakland Athletics for third baseman Brett Lawrie and prospects. With a .300 average, 41 home runs and 123 runs batted in, Donaldson is the likely AL MVP.
But Donaldson was around, and so was the best lineup in baseball, when the Blue Jays were playing sub-.500 baseball. Anthopoulos traded a pile of pitching prospects for ace David Price, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, outfielder Ben Revere and relievers LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe near the MLB trade deadline. Those moves provided the spark that pushed Toronto past the New York Yankees and into the playoffs for the first time since 1993.
Anthopoulos repeated Wednesday what he said at the time, that the Blue Jays were better than their 50-51 late-July record and there was belief that this team could win. The makeup of the clubhouse played a role in that.
"I just lived through this and it's real," Anthopoulos said. "Don't get me wrong: Talent's important, talent is the first thing that you need, but that other element is huge. Just from a consistency standpoint, the room, the group of guys stayed consistent. They were great.
"And I think that's why, even when we were six games under or whatever it was, the floor didn't cave in."
Everything Anthopoulos touched turned to gold. Price is 9-1 on the way to potentially winning the AL Cy Young, Revere has become the speedy leadoff hitter with sterling defence, and Tulowitzki is expected to bring his Gold Glove fielding back for the playoffs after getting injured three weeks ago.
The groundwork for those trades was laid in the off-season, when Anthopoulos said his staff studied players and knew they'd fit in. Even he couldn't have imagined Toronto going 42-14 since the Tulowitzki deal.
"The unknown is, over a two-month period, how well are these guys going to perform?" the Montreal native said. "Guys can go into slumps, guys can have bad games. You don't know when that's going to happen. So from a performance standpoint, there was an unknown. But in terms of these guys all being able to come together and be a group, we don't have any doubts at all."
By Wednesday, clinching the division felt like an inevitability. But there were still moments of raw emotion as relievers streamed out of the bullpen to mob Hawkins and as Anthopoulos embraced Tulowitzki.
Anthopoulos had tears in his eyes at one point as he was getting text messages about his father, who died when he was young. The 38-year-old choked up again when discussing it afterward.
Soon it'll be back to business, like figuring out the playoff roster and rotation. But for a few fleeting minutes, Anthopoulos was able to enjoy the fruit of the organization's work, on the field with players and in the stands amid fans calling his name.
"You want to smile and it's nice, you're definitely grateful," he said. "You're not a player, and you certainly don't expect that. Their support has been great. Can't say enough about that."
