Jose Bautista signs one-day deal with Toronto for retirement ceremony

Jose Batista (42), who hit 344 home runs in Major League Baseball (MLB), signed a one-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays for his retirement ceremony.

The Toronto club announced 스포츠토토 on the 12th (Korea Standard Time) that it has signed a one-day contract with Batista through social networking services (SNS).

This unique contract is a measure to hold a retirement ceremony.

Batista will say goodbye to Toronto fans ahead of the 2023 Major League Chicago Cubs match at Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the 13th. In addition, there will be an entrance ceremony for the club’s Hall of Fame, Level Oven Excellence.

Batista was a big gun who represented Toronto.

Becoming a big leaguer in 2004, he left the Pittsburgh Pirates in a trade in 2008 and moved to Toronto, where he remained in the Toronto uniform until 2017. In 2010 and 2011, he hit 288 home runs in Toronto alone, becoming the American League home run king with 54 and 43 arches, respectively.

He also led Toronto’s golden age in the 2010s, guiding Toronto to the American League Championship Series in 2015 and 2016.

Batista also gained fame as a ‘bat flip’. In Game 5 of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers in 2015, he hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning when he faced the Texas Rangers 3-3 and threw the bat into the air. This scene marks a page in the history of the Toronto club.

However, Batista became a “main enemy” for Texas players with this bat flip. And on May 16, 2016, a “fist fight” that will go down in Major League history came out in a game between Toronto and Texas.

Batista made a rough slide as he headed from first base to second base in the eighth inning of the attack, and collided with Texas infielder Lugned Odor, who was at second base. Odor, who was close to obscurity at the time, hit Batista in the face and became a celebrity overnight.

Batista, who left the Major League after 2018, continued his active career in his native Dominican Republic. In 2021, he represented the Dominican Republic at the Tokyo Olympics and won a bronze medal.