A leader in the clubhouse. A monster at the plate. Beloved by the city. Josh Donaldson may yet prove to be the best Blue Jay ever.

By Arden Zwelling in Toronto and Kansas City, Mo.

Wearing a white T-shirt, blue shorts, grey Jordans and the bemused look he never seems to shake, Josh Donaldson emerges from the lunchroom in the visitors’ clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium, carrying his pre-game Cap’n Crunch. He sits down in the big, black massage chair the Kansas City Royals have been kind enough to provide for their guests, and turns that sucker all the way up, getting a good knead in as he dives into his cereal. “All right,” he says, southern twang dancing. “Nicer than home.”

Once the pre-game snack has been inhaled, Donaldson is up and off to his next stop, leaving the bowl behind and the massage chair running as he hovers over a heated game of cards between Russell Martin and Danny Valencia. When Martin scores a big hand, Valencia cries foul, and Donaldson can’t help but offer his analysis of the events, digging into Valencia thoroughly. “Man, don’t act like you don’t know the rules,” Donaldson chides. “Dog, we know you know the rules.”

Then he’s off again, snatching a Gatorade on the way to Devon Travis’s locker where he sits down backwards in a chair, arms over the back rest, high-school-principal-trying-to-fit-in-with-the-kids style, for a long chat with the Blue Jays’ rookie second baseman. Donaldson has taken it upon himself to mentor many of the Blue Jays’ younger players and share what he’s learned about the game and life since he first reached the majors in 2010. But Travis gets special attention. “Probably because I ask so many dang questions,” he says. “But JD, man, that’s my guy. That’s my dude. From spring training on, he’s given me such a boost, always coming to me, helping me out. I’ll be 0-for-4, in a little rut, and he’s bringing me my glove, being like, ‘You’re doing good, man—keep going. It’ll come.’ And that’s an all-star right there saying that. I don’t know where I’d be without the guy.”

It’s hard to oversell just how valuable Donaldson has been to the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, from the game-winning hits, to the next-level defence, to the 21 home runs he’d hit by the all-star break. But the 29-year-old’s work behind closed doors is the one area where he hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves. He’s a social animal, one who wants to be in the middle of the action in the clubhouse, just as he is on the field. Walk into the Blue Jays’ sprawling locker room on five straight days and you’ll find Donaldson talking to someone different each time. He knows no cliques; he cares not for any unwritten rules of rookies not talking to veterans or starting pitchers being left completely secluded on their start days. This kind of stuff can inch dangerously close to cliché, but Donaldson really is the kind of player who brings a clubhouse together, who provides the glue. “He’s a likeable guy. He’s fun-loving. Guys really respond to that,” says Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “It’s different than we’ve had here in the past. He’s always talking with someone, being good to the youngsters, taking care of his teammates. It makes a difference. It really does.”

Donaldson started to understand that difference in 2012, the same year he began turning his fledgling career as a borderline big-league catcher around and broke out as an all-star third baseman with the Oakland Athletics. Ten-year MLB veteran Jonny Gomes was on that Oakland team and took Donaldson under his wing for most of the season, showing him how to be the best teammate he could be, on the field and off. “Jonny, the guy’s a winner. He really showed me the way that winners play the game,” Donaldson says. “It’s the attitude they bring. These guys don’t change. Even if you go 0-for-4 with four punch-outs, you’re still trying to find some way to be positive about that day.”

That mindset is one of the reasons Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos worked so hard to bring Donaldson into the fold this past off-season, as well as saying goodbye to some less-than-agreeable players. The clubhouse had clear issues in 2014. As the year wore on and the possibility of reaching the post-season grew more and more remote, some players began to loaf. Others bickered. Anthopoulos mentioned it in his first-ever conversation with Donaldson shortly after he traded for him—he wanted Donaldson to be a leader in the room, a guy the rest of the team could look to as an example of professionalism and intensity every single day. “There’s no doubt—he’s a big reason our clubhouse this year is a lot different than last year,” says veteran Jose Reyes. “He’s always jumping around, happy, talking to everybody. It’s good to have players like that. I don’t know if we had that in the past.”

As the Blue Jays’ everyday shortstop, Reyes spends a lot of time operating in Donaldson’s orbit, which has been a bit of a feeling-out process as two of the most competitive players on the team vie with each other for every ball hit to the left side. “There’s been a couple times when we’ve argued about whose ball it was—we both want to make the play,” Reyes says. “I think people see it and think we don’t get along. We get each other. We’re just so competitive.”

Shortly after he was traded, Donaldson reached out to Reyes via Twitter and the two exchanged numbers. They texted daily throughout the off-season before they’d even met as teammates. Now, they hit together during batting practice and Donaldson has even found a way to give Reyes—a 13-year MLB veteran noted for being almost infuriatingly stuck in his ways—tips on his swing and his approach at the plate. Before a game in early July, Donaldson was demonstrating a swing-path adjustment to Reyes when Jose Bautista overheard and mock-protested. “Hey, how come you’re always looking after him,” Bautista said. “You never look after me!” Donaldson couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, man, you don’t hit in front of me,” he said, before pointing his bat at Reyes. “Him? I need his ass on base!”

Of course, what Donaldson has done between the lines is the most important aspect of what he brings to the Blue Jays. If he was hitting .200, we wouldn’t be talking about the value of his attitude. And fortunately for all involved, Donaldson’s oeuvre of big, timely hits and astounding moments has grown to the point where you expect him to undoubtedly be at the heart of the drama when a game is on the line. An unbelievable 14 of his 21 first-half homers either tied a game or gave the Blue Jays a lead, a trend that bucks the notion that clutch players don’t exist. There are almost too many massive, game-changing examples to choose from when thinking about Donaldson’s best moments as a Blue Jay. There’s the ridiculous diving grab into the seats in Tampa Bay to preserve Marco Estrada’s perfect-game bid, the April walk-off shot in extras against the Braves to halt a losing skid and the night in late May when Donaldson went deep twice against the White Sox, including a game-ending three-run job in the bottom of the ninth off David Robertson, one of the best closers in the game. “You can ask around the clubhouse,” says Danny Valencia. “JD is the MVP of our team.”

Only those in that clubhouse get to see the shift in tenor, the quiet calm, the way Donaldson’s magnetism changes from jovial cheer to focused anticipation as game time nears, like a boxer in the hours before a big fight. “There are definitely two different personalities with Josh—before the game and during the game,” Gibbons says. “Before the game, he’s easygoing, always screwing around with someone. But then that changes when the game starts. He locks in.” And it’s not just Donaldson’s focus, never taking an at-bat or even a pitch off, that makes him such a tough out. It’s his lack of predictability, too. In one at-bat he’ll be attacking the first pitch and in the next he’ll be working a long count. “It’s unbelievable,” Reyes says. “You know every day when he takes the field, he’s going to be all-out. Just 100 percent, every single day. He’s going to bring it. You don’t see that from too many players.”

But what’s really crazy about Donaldson is that he might be getting better. His meticulous video work and countless hours in the cages perfecting his swing are well-known, but that’s all on top of the time he spends on the phone each week talking to his personal hitting coach, Bobby Tewksbary, who lives in in Nashua, NH. This past off-season, Donaldson and Tewksbary identified a couple of inefficiencies in Donaldson’s swing and made minor tweaks that have let him take a cleaner path to the ball. It’s all in pursuit of what Donaldson calls “effortless power,” which is his ultimate dream—having a swing that looks casual but creates a very loud result. Of course, most people say Donaldson has one of the most violent, aggressive swings in the league, with his high leg kick and big load on his back foot as the pitcher delivers. His bat speed is off the charts. But to Donaldson, it isn’t really that fast at all. “People always talk about my swing and they say, ‘Oh, he swings really hard,’” he says. “And maybe my bat’s moving through the zone faster than other people’s. But, really, I’m just moving at a speed that’s comfortable to me. I know that speed. Maybe that’s fast for other guys, I don’t know. I just wouldn’t be comfortable swinging any slower.”

Which gets to another thing about Donaldson—his quiet cockiness. He knows that he’s good, one of the best hitters in baseball, and he loves nothing more than to let someone else know he’s better than them. His Clintonesque Southern accent and understated tone can be disarming, but behind his squinting eyes and coy grin is a man who doesn’t lack confidence. And why should he? It’s been three years since he met a challenge he couldn’t overcome, or a pitcher who could truly figure him out. In baseball, the hardest thing to deal with is when the league adjusts to you and starts attacking your weaknesses. But everyone in baseball has been trying to figure out Donaldson’s since he broke out at the end of 2012. And they haven’t.

This season, his entire triple-slash line is up—significantly. His advanced stats, like weighted on-base average, weighted runs created plus and wins above replacement (his 4.7 WAR was fourth in baseball at the all-star break) are all up as well. In 2015 he’s striking out more and walking less, and it doesn’t matter at all. He’s swinging at everything this season—hacking at 47.3 percent of the pitches he sees, significantly more than the past two years, when his swing rate was 43.6 percent. He’s trying to make a difference, trying to hit every pitch he can. He’s doing even more than the Blue Jays could have hoped for when they acquired the perennial MVP candidate.

And he’s captured the heart of a city as well. A groundswell of Canadian support gave him the most all-star votes of any player in history and had the Pensacola, Fla., native, who has next-to-zero interest in hockey, brushing up on his Canadiana ahead of meeting one of his most ardent supporters, Donald S. Cherry, and catching Cherry’s ceremonial first pitch on Canada Day. “It’s been totally surreal,” Donaldson says. “You don’t really think, small-town kid like myself from a town of, like, 15,000, coming to Canada, that you’re really going to be taken in as one of their own. But that’s what’s happened. It’s really special.”

The worship makes sense. Apart from being the best ballplayer to take the field in Toronto since Roberto Alomar—and maybe the best when all is said and done—Donaldson comes programmed with a laundry list of endearing quirks that fans eat up. He’s a better-than-scratch golfer who regularly shoots in the 60s and has played a number of rounds with PGA Tour professionals, out-driving them with ease (although his putting leaves something to be desired). He loves paintball, autograph collecting and classic baseball cards, which is an area of particular obsession (he owns complete Topps sets from 1972 through ’79, as well as 10 original Mickey Mantle cards). He’s a massive fan of the Spartacus television series, lifting his “Bringer of Rain” moniker directly from an episode of the show that features Spartacus decapitating the legendary giant, Theokoles, and ending a months-long drought in the city of Capua. You can’t find a more peculiar, captivating guy who also happens to be one of the greatest hitters on the planet.

And you should watch him the next time he hits one out. Whether it’s one of the towering shots that take forever to come down or the trademark line-drive homers he shoots to all fields, don’t take your eyes off Donaldson. A euphoric grin creeps across his face with each and every home run as he watches them sail into bleachers and bullpens around the American League. He can’t control it. He can’t shut off his emotions and go into frown mode after an accomplishment, like so many robotic professional athletes. When Donaldson really gets into a ball, he can’t help but smile. “I try to bring that energy. I try to have fun,” he says. “We’re all adult men here, but at the same time, we’re playing a kid’s game. And, really, I’m just a big kid.”

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.

Photo credits: Tom Szerbowski/Getty; Elsa/Getty