Phillies Minors Managers a Major Influence
By Matt Veasey
SHORT SEASON – WILLIAMSPORT CROSSCUTTERS
New to the organization for 2015, 51-year old PAT BORDERS brings a wealth of invaluable experience in the game. The 1992 World Series MVP as the Toronto Blue Jays catcher, Borders played parts of 17 big league seasons.
Generally out of baseball for the last 9 years, Borders has the respect of Phillies club President Pat Gillick, who was the Jays’ GM during those 1992-93 World Series-winning years and knows him as a winner.
He hit 15 homers in 1990, 13 for that 1992 squad, and was the regular starting catcher for both of the Jays back-to-back World Series clubs in the 1992-93 season, including that 1993 team that beat the ‘Macho Row’ Phillies in 1993 on Joe Carter‘s dramatic homerun. From 1992-94 he led all American League catchers in Assists, and in 1988 led the league when he threw out 47.25 of attempted base stealers.
Borders was the classic field general as a backstop, and if anyone can be gone from the game that long and step right back in, it will be him.