Slow to acclimatize after his arrival, Troy Tulowitzki is feeling right at home in the Blue Jays clubhouse

By Arden Zwelling in Dunedin, Fla.
Photography by John Kealey

“I’ll tell you one thing that people don’t know about Troy Tulowitzki,” says Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Pillar, crashing into the chair in front of his Dunedin locker in late February. He drops three bats at his side, pulls off a pair of batting gloves with his teeth and wipes a curtain of sweat from his forehead. “This guy’s an endless worker. We just hit for two hours in the cage. You’d think a guy of his stature and his financial freedom wouldn’t care as much as he does. But he cares so, so much.”

He really does. Tulowitzki cares. He cares about his performance. He cares about how he treats people and how they treat him. He cares about his place in the game. And, more than anything, he cares about winning. Sometimes, all that caring can get the better of him. Like when he strikes out and slams his equipment to the ground. Or when a call doesn’t go his way and he tears strips off an umpire. Or when he gets traded from the only team he’s ever known—the one in Colorado that told him he was its franchise cornerstone, and would never give him up—to another team in another league in another country. Go look up the clip of when the Rockies lifted him from a game in the ninth inning on the night they dealt him to Toronto. Go watch him sitting anxiously on the bench, his lips curling with emotion as he stares craters into the field. He cares intensely about every aspect of this children’s game played by millionaires, and that’s what makes him so great and so fallible all at once. “When you first meet him, he’s an easy guy to get along with. He’s really quiet, really humble,” Pillar continues. “And then you get on the field with him, and he’s super fiery, super competitive. He’s honestly one of the better teammates I’ve been around.”

This is a popular opinion in the Blue Jays clubhouse. For all the talk of David Price’s influence on the team last season, both in terms of the overwhelming talent he brought to the mound and the role he played off the field, there was much less talk of Tulowitzki, who joined the Blue Jays at the same time and is essentially the David Price of shortstops. The 31-year-old has been one of the game’s best hitters for a decade at a position where prolific offence is rare. “In my opinion, he’s the best overall shortstop in the game,” says Josh Donaldson. “I think some people forget that.”

Many have, because Tulowitzki’s introduction to Blue Jays fans was less than stellar. He hit .239/.317/.380 in 41 games with his new team, missing three weeks with a cracked shoulder blade and never truly finding his feet. All players go through slumps, but Tulowitzki admits the transition to Toronto and the betrayal he felt from Colorado bled into his work. “I know I can be a way better offensive player than I was last year,” he says. “I went through some things. It wasn’t easy. But I swung the bat a lot better in the post-season. I think my swing was really starting to come together.”

There were certainly signs of that, even though Tulowitzki had just nine hits in his team’s 11 playoff games. It was the pure weight of those hits that sold it. There was the three-run homer that broke open the third game of the ALDS, the first of three consecutive win-or-go-home games in which the Blue Jays came out on top. There was another three-run homer off Johnny Cueto, this time in the wild third game of the ALCS, which ended in an 11–8 Blue Jays victory. And there was the three-run double in the must-win game five of that series, which set the Rogers Centre ablaze and sent the Blue Jays back to Kansas City to fight another day. Tulowitzki was one of his team’s best hitters in that championship series, with seven hits in the six games, three of them for extra bases. “It was just one of those things,” he says. “I had slowed things down, settled in, started to know the guys better, felt more comfortable. Things started to click.”

Finally, after two and a half months of searching in his new uniform, Tulowitzki had found his offensive stroke just in time for the season to end. That’s the kind of year it was for him. But the winter was better. He kept in close contact with many of his new teammates and invited a group of them down to his off-season home in Nevada for a weekend. Donaldson, Ryan Goins, Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez all took him up on his offer, and Tulowitzki got everyone tickets to UFC 194 at the MGM Grand, where they watched Conor McGregor knock out Jose Aldo in 13 seconds. “It was a blast. It just makes you feel like a part of the team,” Tulowitzki says. “I’ve really entered a different part of my career. In Colorado, I was the older guy, always helping the younger players. Now it’s a totally different atmosphere. But I think I’m enjoying it.”

Of course, there are still young players on the Blue Jays who grew up watching Tulowitzki and look at him as a living legend. Sanchez played shortstop throughout high school, and whenever scouts would come to see his games, they’d compare him to the Rockies all-star. “I didn’t bring it up when he first got here; I was still getting to know him. But now I joke with him all the time, telling him, ‘Hey, I got comps to you all through high school—just so you know, I’m breathing down your neck,’” Sanchez says. “It’s cool that our relationship is at that point now. Seeing him during that getaway this winter was huge for that.”

This spring, Tulowitzki’s been fostering more of those relationships. Early on in camp, when most players were finishing their work days around lunch, you could find him logging long hours in the batting cages well into the afternoon, working with younger players like Pillar and Ryan Goins on improving their swings. “That’s a big thing that a lot of us have really bonded over,” Pillar says. “The competitive aspect, the mechanics, the hitting.”

It always comes back to that for Tulowitzki—loving the game, loving the grind. He spent so much of 2015 concerned about what was happening off the field; he wants 2016 to be about what happens on it. “That’s how I got to where I’m at. It was through hard work, dedication, being one of the first ones here, one of the last ones to leave,” he says. “And these guys like Donaldson and Pillar are right along with me. They’re true baseball players. You know, gym rats. Whatever you want to call them. We get here early. We stay here late. It’s long days. But we enjoy it.” To that point, Tulowitzki’s Dunedin locker was a popular congregation point throughout spring training—circles of players sat on chairs or sprawled on the ground, sharing insights about hitting. “Tulo’s really done wonders for that.” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons says. “It’s a lot like how baseball used to be. You know, guys hanging around the clubhouse, talking about the game, drinking beer or whatever. Guys just spending time together.”

The beer may have been replaced by foam rollers, but the sentiment remains. Tulowitzki is getting back to what makes him so infatuated with the game—the challenges and the camaraderie. He had trouble focusing on it in 2015, when the realities of the business turned his life on its head. But now that he feels settled as a Blue Jay, he’s getting back to caring about what really matters. “Playing this game, you know anything can happen. And you always say you do. But then it actually happens to you, and it’s like, ‘Wow, this really is a tough business, and things really can change in a hurry,’” Tulowitzki says. “But now that I look back at it, I’m a firm believer that things really do happen for a reason. I’m definitely happy to be here. And I can’t wait to start a new year.”

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. (Additional photo credit: Getty Images)