Jays honour Gillick

Memories of better days came flooding back to the SkyDome Thursday as the Toronto Blue Jays honoured the man responsible for their back-to-back World Series titles.

In a ceremony before their game against the Seattle Mariners, the Blue Jays unveiled former general manager Pat Gillick's name on the Level of Excellence.

Gillick, who built the Jays into perennial contenders from the mid-1980s to early 1990s, joined Dave Stieb, George Bell, Tony Fernandez and former manager Cito Gaston on the Level of Excellence, which is the Jays' version of retiring a number.

Former Jays Tom Henke, Candy Maldonado, Devon White, Juan Guzman and Jack Morris were on hand to take part in the ceremony.

"I was honoured and shocked," said Gillick, of his reaction on learning about his induction. "One thing about it is that all of those guys up there are uniformed people. I guess I'm the first one out of uniform and that's really an honour."

During Gillick's tenure with the team, which lasted from 1977 to 1995, the Jays had 11 straight winning seasons, made five playoff appearances, and won World Series titles in 1992 and 1993.

"It's a name that probably should have been the first one up there," Jays president and CEO Paul Godrey said.