Early August in a nearly empty stadium with two bad teams going head-to-head isn’t exactly the setting you’d expect for a memorable performance. But Doug Ault provided it anyway.
When the Toronto Blue Jays came to Cleveland to face the Indians for a mid-week series on August 4th, 1980, the two teams were a combined 32 games out of first place. Doug Ault was in the last year of an unremarkable career but he still had something left.
Ault Rakes by the Lake
Ault entered the series hitting .196 in limited action; In 25 games, he had amassed ten hits and ten strikeouts. The Jays were losing 11-3 in the 8th inning when he stepped in with a man aboard against Sid Monge. Ault took a pitch over the boards in left field for his first home run of the season. It made the score 11-5 and that’s how it ended. A meaningless homer to everyone but Ault.
Two days later he was the starting first baseman in the 3rd game of the series, and in the 7th inning he homered again. This shot was off Rick Waits with the Jays trailing 2-0 and Barry Bonnell on first. After a 10-52 start to the season, Ault was now two for his last three with two dingers and he wasn’t finished yet.
The next day he faced Monge again. With a man on again. In the late innings again. He smoked a two-run homer to left again. In the four game series, he was 3-4 with three homers and six RBI. He wouldn’t hit another home run in his career.
Not the First Time
Ault made home run history once before in an Jays uniform. In the first inning of Toronto’s home opener in 1977, Doug Ault hit the first home run in Blue Jays history. The shot came off Ken Brett, and as an encore he took Brett deep again in his next at-bat.
It wasn’t quite ideal baseball weather that April day in Toronto. Temps were in the 30s and there was snow falling, but Ault didn’t care. “It was like winning the World Series,” Ault told the Toronto Globe and Mail later. “I tell you, if it had been snowing all year, I might have hit 50 home runs.”
Ault retired after the 1980 season and spent time in the Jays organization as a minor league manager. Beset with personal problems, he committed suicide in 2004. He was just 54 years old.
Meteoric rise and fade, followed by a regrettably early and silent departure. That’s a lot to digest.