Today in Blue Jay History: Jays Trade Barfield for Leiter
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32 Years Ago Today
April 30, 1989 (the day after my son’s birthday, happy day after your birthday, Dwight), the
Blue Jays traded right fielder
Jesse Barfield to the
Al Leiter.
Now Jesse was kind of on the downhill side of a good career. He had 40 home runs in 1986, with 27 the year before and 28 the year after. He had been a
Gold Glove winner and an
All-Star and popular with Blue Jay fans. But in 1988, Jesse hit just .244/.302/.425 and, to that point in 1989, had only been hitting.200/.256.438. It seemed like he was older than 29. Years of playing on the carpet at