In came the calls, always from a blocked number.
Paul Spoljaric, the former Blue Jays pitcher and Olympian, could only sigh and answer his phone.
“Are you ready, kid? Are you good to go?”
It was Jack Dominico, owner of the Intercounty Baseball League’s Toronto Maple Leafs, on the line, wanting to know if Spoljaric, the lefty from Kelowna, B.C., who’d just wrapped up a six-year MLB career, was prepared for his weekly start at the field named after the team owner and his late wife, Lynne: Dominico Field at Christie Pits.
“ ‘Jack, this ain’t my first rodeo,’ ” Spoljaric remembers of his response to those ceaseless calls upon arriving on the IBL scene with the Leafs in the early 2000s.