what’s shakin’

Blue Jays Way

As a longtime successful Major League general manager who assembled three World Serieswinning teams, Pat Gillick helped shape baseball history. That’s why Gillick was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame Sunday, July 24, in Cooperstown. But before he became a famous general manager, Gillick played a large role in shaping Syracuse baseball history.

From 1974 to 1976, Gillick worked for the New York Yankees as their scouting director. At that time, the Triple- A Syracuse Chiefs were affiliated with the Yankees, so Gillick developed a cordial relationship with Chiefs general manager Tex Simone and other team officials. In 1976, the American League awarded an expansion franchise to Toronto, and the Blue Jays hired Gillick as their general manager.

“For a baseball person, it was a dream come true,” Gillick said during his induction speech. “Imagine being able to build a team from scratch in a city where everyone was excited about finally having a Major League team.”

Things weren’t so rosy in Syracuse. A one-sided argument between Yankees tyrannical owner George Steinbrenner and Simone in spring training of 1977 made it clear to Simone that Steinbrenner had his sights set on moving his Triple-A team to Columbus, Ohio, the hometown of Steinbrenner’s wife.

“He yelled at me ferociously one day in spring training because we didn’t have room in Syracuse for the $20,000 Nautilus equipment he bought,” Simone told this reporter in the early 1990s. “I was talking to {Yankees general manager} Gabe Paul in the parking lot and {Steinbrenner} comes charging into that lot with his car, got out of his car and started saying, ‘We should have went to Columbus.’” Meanwhile, the Blue Jays were going to need a Triple- A team in 1978, and Gillick started to court the Chiefs. In the fall of 1977, Gillick and Elliott Wahley, Gillick’s assistant with the Yankees who also moved to Toronto, attended the World Series between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.

“The Yankees had named one of their hospitality rooms the ‘Syracuse Room,’” Wahley recalled several years ago. “Pat and I walked in there and I joked to Pat, ‘Why don’t I steal that sign? It’s going to be our club next year anyway.’ It’s one of the great ironies.”

Later that fall, the Chiefs signed an agreement with Gillick and the Blue Jays. Syracuse fans wondered how the Chiefs could dump the World Series champion Yankees, but the truth is that the Chiefs dumped the Yankees before the Yankees could dump them.

The Yankees’ Triple-A team had to play one year in Tacoma, Wash., before it moved to Columbus. That’s because when Syracuse hooked up with Toronto, it left the Yankees without an International League affiliate. Syracuse was Toronto’s only Triple-A affiliate for 31 years until after the 2008 season, when the Chiefs aligned with the Washington Nationals.

Some Syracuse fans could argue that the Chiefs-Blue Jays partnership should have ended a lot earlier than 2008. In three decades with Toronto, Syracuse made the International League playoffs only five times and did not win a league championship. The Chiefs’ last title was in 1976, when they were still with the Yankees.

But Gillick and the Blue Jays did rescue the Chiefs from an island of uncertainty. If Toronto and Syracuse didn’t hook up and if the Yankees still dumped the Chiefs, what would have happened to Syracuse?

And while Triple-A franchises were being bought and sold and moved around the country in the 1980s and 1990s, the Chiefs were always on solid ground because of their relationship with Toronto. Above all else, Gillick valued loyalty, and he never forgot how the Chiefs took the hit for leaving the Yankees to join a fledgling team north of the border.

“Baseball is about talent and hard work and strategy,’’ Gillick said during his speech, “but at the deepest level it’s about love, integrity and respect—respect for the game, respect for your colleagues, respect for the shared bond that is bigger than any one of us.’’ We’ll never know what would have happened if there had not been a mutual respect between Gillick and the Chiefs in the mid-1970s. But we do know that Gillick was the anti-Steinbrenner who helped keep Triple-A baseball going in Syracuse.

Hall of Fame notes: Gillick was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with former players Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven. After the 1990 season, Gillick traded a pair of former Chiefs—Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff—to the San Diego Padres for Alomar and Joe Carter. Alomar and Carter helped lead the Blue Jays to World Series titles in 1992 and 1993. Gillick was also the general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies when they won the World Series in 2008.

In case you’re looking ahead, the 2012 induction ceremony will be held July 22 in Cooperstown. There are no clear Hall of Famers among the eligible first-time players, so look for two or three of the players who finished behind Alomar and Blyleven in last year’s voting to get inducted next year: Barry Larkin, Jack Morris and Lee Smith.

—Matt Michael

Speak Up!

We hear voice-overs every day—on television, on the news and in videos. Ever wonder whose voice that is? Now, you can make it yours by attending “Getting Paid to Talk: Making Money with Your Voice,” a class on Voice Acting presented by Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES and Voice Coaches.

“This class is an upbeat, realistic introduction to voice-overs,” said David Bourgeois, president and creative director of Voice Coaches, based in Albany. “It gives students a feel of what it would be like to do voiceovers.”

Voice Coaches has been in business 15 years, with the goal of providing educational advice to get your voice out there in the underrated career of voice acting. The company has trained more than 6,000 voice actors in the United States, Canada and abroad. While job opportunities keep trending downward, this career has potential.

Bourgeois, 46, grew up in Boonville and travels around with other teachers to conduct classes. He has worked in the audio production business since he was a teenager, most notably for cable channels such as the Discovery Network, HGTV and TLC. “I’m not a voice actor,” Bourgeois said. “I’m a voiceover producer. If you came in to the studio to do voice-over work, I’d be directing you.”

The class at BOCES will give people a realistic idea of what voice acting is. “A lot of people imagine voice-overs and think strictly commercials. The truth is commercial voiceovers only make up 10 percent of voice-overs, the other 90 percent is narrative,” Bourgeois explained.

This class goes into deeper detail of what exactly “narrative voice-overs” are, giving students real examples of work for audio books, websites, television and gaming. Also, the class informs students about what is expected of them in the voice-over industry and what Voice Coaches look for—“sincerity and believability,” as Bourgeois put it. Job opportunities are discussed as well.

Voice Coaches’ producers will be in attendance, and students can record a mock commercial with their help, along with a playback session at the end of the class to get a feel for how they performed.

“I encourage anyone who is curious, has been told they have a great voice, or uses it in their daily job to come out,” Bourgeois noted. The class is located at BOCES, 4500 Crown Road, Liverpool, and tuition is $39. Registration is due by Wednesday, Aug. 3. For more information and to register, call 453-4666 or visit www.voicecoaches.com. Class is limited to 25 students.

—Emily Longeretta