Throwback Thursday: Cito Sucks

As the Orioles take on the Toronto Blue Jays for a three-game series in Baltimore, this Throwback Thursday looks at another conflict between the Blue Jays and Orioles. Or rather, the Blue Jays’ manager and Orioles’ fans.

The 1993 All-Star Game was as much an exhibition of Baltimore and its revolutionary ballpark as it was the star players of each league. With the AL comfortably ahead 9-3 in the 9th inning, fans started getting restless to see an appearance by home-town all-star Mike Mussina. Manager Cito Gaston (whose Toronto Blue Jays had won the previous World Series) had no intention to pitch him. Later, Gaston explained that he was holding Mussina back in case he needed a pitcher for extra innings. He also assumed that Mussina, in his second Major League season, would get another shot at the All Star Game.

Mussina did not take kindly to the snub. In the top of the ninth, he got up and started throwing in the bullpen – without having been asked to do so by the coaching staff. Fans saw him warming up, and got excited. Said Mussina:

It was the biggest ovation I ever got for never being in a game. I knew I wasn’t going to get into the game. There was nothing said. They all wanted to see me pitch. They’re die-hard Baltimore fans. They waited 35 years for this game.

Not the classiest of moves. And Gaston saw it exactly that way:

By standing up, he showed me he’s a person with little class. Screw him. I just won’t take him next year.

When the Orioles visited Skydome in Toronto later that July, Gaston received a call in his office, from the Orioles clubhouse. On the line was Mike Mussina, apologizing. His response?

I told him ‘you’re a little late, after all that you’ve put my family through. I told him his apology was not accepted.

I’ll say it again: not the classiest of moves.

The trials and tribulations Gaston was referring to are the death threats he received from Baltimore fans. You know, the ones that Mussina is directly responsible for, because he held meetings and told fans to threaten Cito Gaston’s life, and that of his family. Shame on him.

Baltimore fans still hate Cito Gaston. You still see Cito Sucks shirts around town. As rumors swirl about the possibility of Baltimore hosting the 2016 mid-summer classic, you can imagine the AL manager will have the Cito Sucks debacle in the back of his head.