A look back at Jose Bautista's impact as he joins the Blue Jays Level of Excellence

Jose Bautista, the Dominican slugger who helped bring the Toronto Blue Jays back to the postseason for the first time in more than 20 years, and was the face of the franchise for nearly a decade, will take his place on the Level of Excellence prior to this afternoon's game at the Rogers Centre.

Bautista developed into a multi-time all-star and silver slugger winner after he was traded to Toronto in 2008, but his impact was felt far beyond the diamond, as he helped bring excitement and swagger to the city at a time when it was sorely missing a sports icon.

“Bautista was a breath of fresh air at a time when Toronto didn’t have a lot to cheer for,” TSN’s Matt Cauz told CP24.com.

“The Blue Jays won the World Series in ’92 and ’93 and then after that, they didn't make the playoffs until 2015, so we were just always looking for little blips of positives and then with Jose Bautista, suddenly it’s like ‘wait a minute, this guy’s on our team? We have a star.”

Cauz says Bautista’s rise to stardom was even more celebrated by Jays fans because it was unexpected. Not a highly touted prospect, Bautista came to the Jays from Pittsburgh in an obscure trade no one paid much attention to at the time, he said.

The Jays gave up catcher Robinzon Díaz in the trade, who played a total of 44 games in the major leagues.

But by 2010, Bautista was an all-star, silver slugger winner and led the major leagues with 54 home runs. He led the majors in home runs again the following season, and made the all-star team for six consecutive seasons between 2010 and 2015.

Bautista hit another 40 homeruns in 2015, helping the Jays win the AL East division title and return to the post-season for the first time since 1993.

And it was during that post-season that Bautista delivered one of the most iconic moments in the history of Toronto sports.

“The atmosphere when Bautista went up to bat, everyone was like; ‘he's going to do something, we know he's going to do something, but what is he going to do?’ And everybody was quiet,” said Chandler Nicolucci, who was at Rogers Centre for Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS.

After falling behind 2-0 in the best-of-five series against the Texas Rangers, the Jays had won two straight to force a deciding fifth game at home, and with the score tied in the bottom of the seventh inning, Bautista hit a go-ahead three-run homer that sent Toronto fans into a frenzy.

“When the pitch came, as soon as he hit it, it was just silence, then people saw how hard it went and they were like, oh my god, it's going to go all the way,” Nicolucci recounted.

“I just don't think it would have felt that kind of moxie and pizzazz from any anybody else. It had to be him.”

Bautista punctuated the drive with an infamous stare down and bat flip that became the talk of the sports world for weeks.

In honour of his career achievements, the first 20,000 fans to head into the ballpark for today’s game against the Chicago Cubs will get a Jose Bautista Bat Flip Bobblehead.

An image of the Jose Bautista Bat Flip Bobblehead to be given out to the first 20,000 fans during the pregame ceremony on Aug. 12. (Courtesy of Toronto Blue Jays)

LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE

The Blue Jays bestow the Level of Excellence award upon players with “tremendous individual achievement,” the team said in a recent news release. Other Blue Jay greats that have received this award include George Bell, Joe Carter, Carlos Delgado and Roy Halladay, among others.

“It’s great, you know, being able to share my career with the fans and just being a part of the organization moving forward. It’s awesome,” Bautista told CP24 Breakfast Tuesday. “I’m incredibly humbled and happy and thankful, so can’t wait to be back this weekend and celebrate with the fans.”

Bautista leaves behind a legacy full of memorable moments and team success that won’t soon be forgotten, said Cauz.

“He’ll be remembered as a guy who brought energy and swagger,” he said.

“It’s a great story because it was an unusual journey to stardom. It wasn’t something preordained from his early 20s. And we love those sort of stories, he's not a Cinderella story, he's not this hard-core underdog tale. This is a story of a self-made player who became a legitimate star.”

And his legendary bat flip will remain cemented in Toronto sports lore for many years to come.

“That bat flip game is unparalleled,” said Nicolucci, who was in the building for many of the biggest Toronto sporting moments in recent memory, including Kawhi Leonard’s series-winning shot in Game 7 of the second round of the 2019 NBA playoffs.

“I'll always be able to tell my son and anybody else who will listen, this was the greatest single sports moment in Toronto history that I ever experienced.”