One of the literal last gasps of the baseball winter meetings occurred in the press conference room at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare 28 years ago. When a Toronto spokesperson stepped to the podium and announced the Blue Jays had traded two stars, Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez, to the Padres for two stars, Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar, even the most hard-bitten journalistic hounds and scribes let out a collective gasp. That is what surprise sounds like.
Imagine today a trade involving four players–all of whom would wind up on Hall of Fame ballots, with one of them elected–that nobody saw coming.