Blue Jays Jose Bautista looking to continue success of last year

After a stellar 2010 season, Jose Bautista is clearly the leader of the Blue Jays this season.  The team is hoping he can continue to be a great leader, after proving himself one of the best players in the league last season.  The Blue Jays trust in Bautista is evidenced by the five year $65 million contract he signed during spring training.

Bautista, for his part, knows teams will be gunning to shut him down this season, and he is out to prove that last season was not an anomaly.  He is happy to have a regular position in the lineup this season, after bouncing around all over the batting order last season.  It will be hard to repeat his season from last year, as he won the Hank Aaron Award and was fourth in the AL MVP vote, but Bautista plans to play within himself and not pressure himself to hit a home run every time.

The Blue Jays have been one of the most active teams in signing Dominican talent, since they brought in George Bell and Tony Fernandez in the late 1990s.  Bautista is an anomaly among Dominican players in that he was a member of the Dominican middle class growing up, and he attended junior college in Florida before being drafted:

"I played on the street, I played with bottle caps, I played with rubber balls, tennis balls, real baseballs, but I never played on rocky infields like some of these kids that grew up outside of the city.  I was very privileged and fortunate that I was part of the Dominican Republic middle class, which is not very big. I was able to get a good education, go to a private Catholic school."

In any case he is another Dominican bone a fide big leaguer now, and already has two home runs through seven games this season.  He is from Santo Domingo, DR.

Jose Bautista, by Keith Allison on Flickr

Dominican Baseball Card #4: Tony Fernandez

Dominican Baseball card #4 is 1990 Fleer #634 Tony Fernandez/Cal Ripken Jr.  Obviously Tony Fernandez is the Dominican Part of this card.  Tony was part of the Dominican influence with the Blue Jays throughout the 1980s.  The Blue Jays were one of the first teams of the modern era to have a bunch of Dominican players on their big league team and in their farm system.  Epy Guerrero was responsible for signing a lot of these Dominican players.  Here is an article from 1989 and a more recent one on Epy.

 Tony Fernandez was a great shortstop that played an incredible 18 seasons in the big leagues from 1983-2001.  He had four strait gold gloves in the late 1980s and made the all-star team 5 times.  Tony was part of the Blue Jays World Championship team in 1993 and reached the World Series again in 1997 with the Cleveland Indians, but lost to the Florida Marlins.  He had a career .288 average and hit .300 four times.  He actually played one year in Japan, before returning to Toronto to retire as a Blue Jay in 2001.  Tony had a very long and successful career.  Another Dominican from the famed city of San Pedro de Macoris.

Tony was in Toronto in August to honor the anniversary of a no-hitter in which he played.  From Slam Sports:

The most exciting moments of the day came just before the game when the Jays celebrated the 20th anniversary of Dave Stieb's no-hitter. With old teammates Tony Fernandez, Jesse Barfield, Pat Hentgen and Duane Ward on hand, the crowd of 26,624 applauded warmly for all five players, but especially for Stieb, who appreciated the ceremony. "It was a real thrill to relive a few of those old moments," said Stieb, who was daughter Patty accompanied him. "I will never forget this day."

Not sure what else Tony is up to now, but post a comment if you have heard anything.  Hopefully he is still involved with baseball in the DR or somewhere.