Ryno Report: Matt Stairs’ interesting stop in his baseball journey

With one swing of the bat, the journeyman became a legend. As the ball soared deep into the Los Angeles night, the journeyman made another trip in his well-traveled career. But this one was different. This one was special.

This trip made Matt Stairs into a folk hero. The mammoth blast won the game for the Phillies, and put the team in prime position for a World Series birth. The Phils would finish off the series and then go on to win the 2008 World Series.

Stairs’ blast was one of the great memories from that run. For him, it was one of the most memorable trips (around the bases) he would make during his career.

Fast forward to 2010 and Stairs has added another trip to his baseball journey. After spending last season basking in the glow of his rock star status in Philly, he packed his bags again. He was unsure if he would ever get to unpack them or if it was finally over.

Then, the San Diego Padres called. And the journeyman was on the road again, looking to continue his folk tale for another season in another city.

Stairs succeeded by making the Padres 25-man roster for the 2010 season. The Padres will be his 12^th team, a record for a position player. No other player in baseball history has played in as many cities or worn as many jerseys as the Canadian slugger. With two more pinch-hit home runs, no other player will have hit as many homers off the bench, either. It has been quite a journey thus far for Stairs.

It all started in Montreal in 1992. In June 1993, he was sold to the Chunichi Dragons of Japan. He returned to Montreal only to be traded to the Red Sox. It was only a pit stop in Boston before he headed to Oakland, where he enjoyed his longest stay in the bigs and the five best years of his career. When the fun by the bay came to an end, he hopped a plane to O’Hare and hailed a taxi to Wrigley for a season with the Cubbies; he was back to his journeyman ways. Stairs landed in Milwaukee long enough for a few trips down the slide with Bernie Brewer before continuing his NL Central tour with the Pirates in Pittsburgh. A season with a struggling NL team was followed by another two and a half with the perennial bottom feeders of the AL, the Kansas City Royals. The other half of 2006 was split between the Rangers and Tigers. He found his stroke in Toronto in 2007 before being traded to the Phillies for the home stretch of 2008. In that short time, Stairs captured the defining moment of his career in October. With a World Series ring wrapped around his finger, the folk hero stuck around in Philly for 2009. This year, he’ll fill the role of pinch-hit extraordinaire and old sage for the young San Diego Padres.

Whew…that’s a lot of teams. In all, Stairs has played for 12 Major League teams – a fitting number for the man who made No. 12 his primary number. He wore it for six teams during his hectic career. He wore eight different numbers ranging from No. 3 to No. 59.

One stop and one number often go unnoticed in the Matt Stairs story, though. The usually all-encompassing Wikipedia even fails to mention Stairs’ time in this city.

This city tells the story of Stairs before his Major League glory. It tells the story of the place where Matt Stairs was a hero long before he was a folk hero. For a man who has seemingly been everywhere, this stop may be the most fascinating.

Where is this unknown city, you ask?

The poor city of Navojoa, Mexico, where people struggle to get by each day. The roads are made of dirt and the children often go barefoot. Navojoa needed a hero and it found one in 1990 on the baseball diamond.

He was affectionately known as Mateo Escalera, and boy, could he hit. In 1990, Mateo hit .330 to win the Mexican Pacific League batting title. The people loved him. They loved him for many of the same reasons Americans do. Matt Stairs is real. He doesn’t act like a superstar and he doesn’t look like one either. In an age when players’ bodies transformed into muscular machines, Stairs maintained his short and round build. He’s 5-9 and was over 200 pounds for much of his career, but he could hit with the best of them. They loved his attitude at the plate. Stairs always took a big cut, trying to kill the baseball. He never got cheated. That attitude stayed with him throughout his career, and came in handy that night in L.A.

Stairs loved the Navojoans just as much. Stairs, who was in A ball in the Montreal Expos organization, didn’t act like he was too good for the community. He respected it. The people knew their baseball. How can’t a ballplayer love that? He signed countless autographs and shook even more hands. But perhaps the ultimate sign of respect was that Stairs learned Spanish. He only spent a few months of his time there each year, but he put in the time to learn their language. Learning a new language is no easy task (after about six years studying Spanish, I would still struggle to speak with a native). So, add some Spanish to the still growing legend of Matt Stairs. Or should I say, Mateo Escalera.

He would play for Los Mayos again in 1991 and 1992. Stairs then missed the next two years due to other commitments and injury. The Navojoans missed their hero. They needed him. He returned in 1995 in folktale fashion. Kevin Millar, a teammate on the club and Marlins prospect, gave this account of Opening Day that year:

"“I’d never met Matt,” Millar said. “He was supposed to hit fourth that day, but it was 20 minutes before the game and he hadn’t shown up. It got to be 10 minutes before game time, then five, and still no Matt. Finally, when the umpires were meeting at home plate, this guy walked into the dugout wearing jeans and boots and smoking a cigarette. He just pulled on his uniform, went up there and yanked a home run. I was like, Who the f—is this guy?”"

The people of Navojoa knew him all too well. Their smiles returned with Mateo back on the field. He played every position except catcher in his time there, including a few innings on the mound. Better add that to the story too. It was like the glory days of sandlot baseball. He just loved to play the game; it didn’t matter where. And Navojoa was a great place to play.

It became more than that for Stairs, though. Navojoa became a second (or third) home for the Canadian. He bought toys and food for the children, talked at schools, and became active in the community. And this was when Stairs was on the rise in the MLB. He was coming off the 1997 season, in which he hit .298 and smashed 27 home runs. His final season in Navojoa led into one of his best in the states. In 1998, he batted .294, hit 26 homers, and drove in what would be a career-high 106 runs. Surely, the magic and charm of Navojoa had a small part in his big year. It certainly played a big part in his development as a player and as a person. In all, he played six seasons for the club.

He arrived in Navojoa as an unknown minor leaguer. He left as a bonafide Major League hitter.

Stairs bounced around the league after leaving Oakland, making it hard for him to have a true impact in the community. Then, on that October night, he became a folk hero – baseball’s version of Paul Bunyan. Philadelphia would never forget Matt Stairs.

But Stairs had already been a hero for over a decade. And it wasn’t as Paul Bunyan, chopping wood and hitting baseballs. It was as Mateo Escalera, lifting a community with his big heart and fun-loving personality. The legend of Stairs in Navojoa exceeds any stop he made in the majors. It goes deeper than that blast in Los Angeles. It tells the story of Matt Stairs that few people actually know.

So, while we celebrate the journey of baseball’s ultimate journeyman, let’s add another chapter to the folktale. Let’s add another stop to the list and a few more miles to his total. Let’s remember Navojoa. Let’s watch the old slugger take his final hacks and let him know he’s been fun to watch.

Let’s join the people of Navojoa in saying, “Gracias por los recuerdos, Mateo.”

That night in Philly was certainly one to remember. Countless others were created across America and in Navojoa during the last 20 years. The next memory for Matt Stairs could be his last.

No matter what happens in San Diego this year, he has left a lasting legacy in the game of baseball. He has carved out a special place in baseball history that can never be traded or sold.

(Sources: SI.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Los Mayos Béisbol)