Open this photo in gallery:
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hits a two-run home run off Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani during the third inning of Game 4 in L.A. on Tuesday.Mark J. Terrill/The Associated Press
Back when he thought he was losing him to free agency, Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro pronounced on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s baseball standing: Good, but not great.
“I don’t know, generational player? What’s your definition of that?” the Jays cheque-signer said after last season. Clearly, he didn’t meet Mr. Shapiro’s.
After signing him, Mr. Shapiro tried to walk it back: “I didn’t say he wasn’t. I said he wasn’t at that moment.”
So what you’re saying is that that’s what you said.
Mr. Shapiro wasn’t wrong. It was something you could argue over at the time. You could have been arguing it a month ago. You can’t argue it any more.
Cathal Kelly: Basebal is having its first truly international World Series
By anyone’s definition, Mr. Guerrero is generational now, and more. Over the last week, he’s become the foil to the best player in the game. Does that make him the co-best? Second best? It’s something in that range.
If the Blue Jays end up winning this thing, the indelible image of the series will be Shohei Ohtani and the Canadian-born star tracking the same batted ball as it heads over the wall at Dodger Stadium. That’s when the power shifted.
After the Jays won on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Dodgers were doing one of their endless post-game segments. This one featured L.A. great Orel Hershiser. Describing that at bat, Mr. Hershiser called it “hall of famer versus hall of famer.”
That someone who has no rooting or business interest in Toronto baseball would put it like that means that it is a consensus. Mr. Guerrero has arrived. It’s happened so quickly that you can chart it in real time.
Open this photo in gallery:
Few players in baseball history have had better playoff performances than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. this season.Dan Hamilton/Reuters
Oct. 4: A home run in his first at-bat in Toronto’s first playoff game, against the New York Yankees, put baseball on notice.
Everyone thought the Jays had a chance in that series, which is another way of saying everyone thought New York would win it in the end. Mr. Guerrero’s 3-for-4 performance in a 10-1 Game 1 demolition didn’t change any minds, but it put some hearts up for grabs.
Oct. 5: In Game 2, Mr. Guerrero hit a grand slam that led to another rout. As it happened, I was in Edward Rogers’s box, where he was glad-handing journalists. The mood wasn’t joy or elation. It was shock. People could not believe what they were seeing. Here? In Toronto? This guy?
It helped that while Mr. Guerrero was ascending, Yankees star Aaron Judge – everyone’s in-an-AL-mirror Mr. Ohtani – was receding.
Oct. 8: Mr. Guerrero was as good in that series as anyone has been in any series ever, but he didn’t have his memeable moment. That’s a prerequisite for icon status now. David Ortiz gave it to him on Fox Sports right after the elimination – “Daaaaaaa Yankees lose.”
As World Series shifts to Toronto, Ohtani could make his first MLB relief appearance for Dodgers
For as long as he plays, Mr. Guerrero will be best known for the same reason Mr. Ortiz was once everyone’s second-favourite player – he’s a Yankee killer. It’s a special rank in baseball, and only one man can hold it at a time.
Oct. 12-20: Mr. Guerrero was a human bludgeon against New York, and then one of the gang against the Seattle Mariners. Good, but not Reggie Jackson good. George Springer got the laurels in that series, which, let’s face it, was the lesser event in the grand scheme.
Great ones have a sense of occasion. Mr. Guerrero is now at his best when he knows there are a maximum number of cameras on hand.
Going into the World Series, Jays manager John Schneider provided the elevator pitch.
“The one thing we cannot do is look over there and say, ‘That is Goliath,’” – which is the most flattering way of saying, ‘That is Goliath.’
Everyone understood who he was talking about – Mr. Ohtani. He’d just played the greatest game of playoff baseball in history. Everybody else was a bit player in the upcoming drama.
In Game 3, Mr. Ohtani had another one of those hard-to-believe-it-happened-even-though-you-saw-it games. Reaching base nine times in one game should be impossible. Doing it in a World Series is whatever you’d call the level beyond impossible.
On a handful of occasions in this job I feel like I’ve seen something that is the modern pop cultural equivalent of being in the studio while Géricault was painting. This was one of those.
That should have been it – the story of the series. It still might be, but not yet.
Oct. 28: Mr. Guerrero grabs the wheel again. Following Mr. Ohtani’s love-in, he hit that home run, and the world’s perception of who sits where shifted again. Mr. Ohtani was still the best, but now someone had joined him at the top. He’d found the Frazier to his Ali.
You can see this in the glancing way the two men interact at first base whenever Mr. Ohtani reaches it safely. Via his elaborate politeness, Mr. Ohtani likes to make everyone seen. Most people get a smile and a nod every time. He’s not like this with Mr. Guerrero. Their interactions are civil, but glancing. It’s the sort of acknowledgment you give an equal when you are both busy working.
Oct. 29: Mr. Guerrero hits the third pitch of the game out of the park. The crowd in L.A. audibly gives up. Their guy has met his match, at least during this homestand.
After the game, a 200-strong clutch of unruly Canadians refuse to leave the park. They stand over the visitors’ dugout singing O Canada. Eventually, security pushes them out. You can still hear them as they slowly make their way to the gates in right field. Mr. Guerrero made that Heritage Minute possible.
Winning or losing the World Series will not alter Mr. Ohtani’s status, but it was always going to be determinative for Mr. Guerrero’s. Whatever ceiling he had when it started, he’s already busted through it. From this point on, Mr. Guerrero leads every ‘After Ohtani, who would you pick?’ conversation in every bar in every city on the continent.
You could argue that other players through history have had better playoffs. A couple, maybe. No one has ever had a more transformative one. It happens so rarely in Toronto that it’s difficult to believe, but every once in a while, comes the moment, comes the man.
