:(

Poor guy can’t catch a break – hopefully he catches on somewhere else – I too have become a fan of Dirk as a player and a person. Geez, the Jays seem to be getting rid of all the guys I like lately

it was great having you as a Jay

Just started reading The Bullpen Gospels today actually.

That’s a great goodbye letter by Dirk Hayhurst – would be nice if more players did one.

This was a really nice comment about the Jays as an organization:

The Jays gave me a chance after I effectively shot myself in the foot with the Padres in my big league debut. They brought me to my first big league camp. They told me I had potential in one of the toughest leagues in the game after coming from one of the (supposed) weakest. In short, they believed in me and it showed even when I was injured. Since I got hurt in the off-season, the Jays could have dumped my contract and saddled me with the medical bills and no big league pay check for a year of rehab, but they didn’t. That shows class, and in a game where human beings are turned into commodities, they treated me like a person and I’ll never forget it.

This was also a nice tip of the hat to the blogs and BlueBirdBanter surely:

I’ll miss you, Toronto, but I’m confident we’ll meet again. If not on the baseball field, then at a book signing. Or, at the very least, on the pages of one of the many great Blue Jay blog sites that routinely crank out conjecture on your birds. I owe the media in Toronto a lot, professional and amateur alike. To the crew that covers the Jays in the clubhouse, and the crew that covers them on the net, may I say I would never have been baseball’s third player/author to reach the best seller’s list without you— you were instrumental in one of my proudest achievement. Thank you.