Matt Stairs is – no, not a Lobsterman – a chunk-style, 43 year old slugger, whose unusual career had him suiting up in 13 separate cities for 12 franchises, spanning 19 years. A Canadian, affectionately nicknamed “Stairsmaster” and “Wonder Hamster’, Matt Stairs is an Everyman, and he went everywhere, playing for – ready? — the Expos, Red Sox, Athletics, Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, Royals, Rangers, Tigers, Blue Jays, Phillies, Padres and Nationals.
A late bloomer, by age 28 Stairs had toiled in the minors for eight years. As an amateur, he played at SHORTSTOP and was signed as a SECOND BASEMAN (hard to imagine Stairs at SS or 2B even on my office softball team). He had a huge season in AA in 1991, going .333/.411/.509. Usually, a 23 year old having a season like that at AA, would have a chance at the bigs, but one look at Matt Stairs – by nobody’s standard a natural physical specimen – and he was deemed “unathletic”, not “scrappy” enough, and he was sold like uni to the Chunichi Dragons in Japan.
The beat-cop looking behemoth did eventually end up in the big leagues, as a “Professional Hitter”, a moniker befitting a guy whose talents don’t lie on the field. Stairs was pure Moneyball, sent to the plate in desperation situations when only a home run would suffice. He hit. And not macho pop-ups dropping in holes or weak dribblers that sprinkled between an infielders legs, but towering blasts that soared to the moon. He was an above-the-belt, blue collar, upper-cut, grip-it-and-rip-it, swinging-for-the-fences slugger with a short, violent swing, loading up, then uncoiling with full-force upon the baseball.
Despite his lumberjack’s physique, and lacking the graceful swing of a traditional power hitter, Stairs still posted a career slash line of .262/.356/.477 
and an OPS of .823. He racked up 265 home runs, knocking in a total of in 899 runs. Had he not been pushing 30 before becoming a regular, had he ever played 162 games in a season, or if he had played on less shitty teams, he may have had a very different career trajectory. Bill James and Joe Posnanski make a bold case for Stairs’ ulterior potential: Had he been born a decade later, post statistical revolution, he would not have languished in the minors for 8 years, and he could have been a Hall of Famer. From Posananki’s 2007 HOF could’ve-beens:
What can you say? It’s all there. Stairs did not get 500 at-bats until he was 30 — he had a .370 OBP that year, hit 26 homers, drove in 106. The next year, he had the 38-homer season. His average dropped the next season, and he never got 500 at-bats in a season after that.
Bill James wrote:
Look at it. Somebody decided he was a second baseman, he tears through the minor leagues, gets to Montreal, the Expos take one look at him and say, ‘He’s no second baseman, get real.’ He bounces around, goes to Japan, doesn’t really get to play until he’s almost 30, then hits 38 homers, slips into a part-time role and hits 15-20 homers every year for 10 years in about 250 at-bats a season. You put him in the right park, right position early in his career he’s going to hit a LOT of bombs.
But, languish he did, then spent 2 decades bouncing between Pittsburgh, Montreal, Boston, Oakland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Texas, Detroit and Toronto. But, baseball is a game that you CAN be old and fat and still play professionally, and stars can align for anyone, at anytime. In August of 2008, 24 hours before the waiver deadline, the post-season bound Phillies acquired Matt Stairs, and the 41 year old journeyman found himself on a contending team. The fickle Philly fans quickly warmed to the hefty lefty – not simply by virtue of their predilction for pear-shaped bodies and bushy mustaches – but because Stairs was clutch.
A month later, in the late twilight of his career, the stars and the moon both aligned for Matt Stairs. Big time.
It was Game 4 of the National League Championship Series in Los Angeles. There were 2 outs in the 8th inning when the Dodgers brought in their ace, Jonathan Broxton, to get the final out. The score was tied at 5, Chooch was on first, and Phillies Skipper Charlie Manuel needed a pinch hitter. It was a “break glass in case of emergency” situation, so he asked Matt Stairs to come to the plate.
There is an undiminished sense of wonder about a game in which the only predictability is the certainty of unexpected moments – frozen moments when a bat sends a ball soaring into the night, and you start to wrap your head around what’s unfolding. One moment, you’re watching your team down to its final out, digging itself a season ending hole. The next, everything changes.
Broxton thought he could get Stairs with an inside fastball. Stairs bit his lip and locked in on the pitch. He swung quickly, the ball connected with the sweet spot of his bat and then seemed to be suspended in the black sky forever, a “Moonshot”, that soared 420 ft before finally landing somewhere in the back of the grandstand. At Dodger Stadium, it was as if the crack of the bat had hit a switch and the audio had been turned off. For a split second, the 56,800 Dodger fans fell silent. Not quiet, silent.
Another moment was created by the soft shuffle of Matt Stairs rounding the bases, his hefty chest puffed out, his face stoic under the gravitas of the moment. He rounded the bases as a Professional Hitter would: stalwart, disciplined, completely in himself. It was deeply moving in its beauty and profoundity.
It wasn’t until he reached the dugout that Stairs allowed the stoicism and the gravitas melt away .
Charlie Manuel – who suddenly seemed like a freaking genius – simply looked on at his last minute acquisitor with baffled, unadulterated amazement, that bordered on disbelief.
The homer put the Phillies in front for good – they went on to win the Pennant and the World Series. Matt Stairs had a World Series ring. He got to put on a suit and meet the President (the good one, who had just begun his first term).
Then, one year later, the Phillies and Dodgers squared off in the NLCS again, this time in Philadelphia. The Dodgers were up by 3 runs in the ninth inning, bases empty. Jonathan Broxton again stood on the mound, just two outs away from his most important post-season save ever. Charlie Manuel was in the “break glass in case of emergency” situation again, and opted to pinch hit for Pedro Feliz.
Jonathan “The Ox” Broxton was the foundation of the Dodgers bullpen. To call him huge is an understatement. He is MAMMOTH. At 6’4″ tall, 300 lb., he towered over Matt Stairs by 5 inches/100 lb. Broxton’s “full-tilt, full-time” approach and median 103 mph velocity fireball had him soaring off a 36 save/114 strikeout season. He was absolutely terrifying. And he was 24 years old.
Jonathan Broxton watched from the mound as a fat, bald, gray-mustached, 41 year old, beer hockey player moved to the plate.
We watched Stairs dig in, kick at the dirt, wave his bat. Then he looked straight at the man on the mound. Broxton met his stare from 60 feet away. But something was wrong. Matt Stairs’ gentle, benign visage had triggered a Vietnam-style flashback. Broxton couldn’t hit the plate. He walked Matt Stairs on 4 erratic pitches (Manuel later admitted giving Stairs the green light on 3-and-0, but ball 4 was so far outside, even Stairs couldn’t take a swat at it). Rattled beyond retrieval, Broxton’s next pitch drilled Carlos Ruiz on the elbow. Matt Stairs’ 2008 Moonshot set up his 2009 walk that set up J-Roll’s exhilarating ensuing walk-off double that led the Phillies to win the NLDS for the second year in a row, and caused the ruination of the career of a talented 24 year old closer. Jonathan Broxton was never the same, destined to join the Annals of Anxiety alongside Steve Blass and Dick Radatz.
After the game Stairs chuckled:
“I’m just glad he didn’t throw me a 3-and-0 fastball [over the plate], because I was gonna swing as hard as I can and see what happens. I’ve never turned down a fastball, and I never will. I’ll be swinging at fastballs till I’m 50”.
I was down in the dumps when Stairs wasn’t brought back to the Phillies in 2010, but the Stairsmaster prepared for retirement at his home in Maine, enjoying the leisure activities guys like Stairs live for and coaching an amateur hockey team. At the urging of unlikely diet spokesman Charlie Manuel, Stairs signed up at Nutrisystem and shed 37 pounds. Then he got an unexpected phone call. The Padres needed a lefty pinch-hitter. Stairs was called back for assignment. He showed up in San Diego as a non-roster player and a slim guy. He looked great, but his new physique disappointed legions of fat fans to whom he served as an inspiration – a regular guy, a fat guy, who was also a professional athlete, helping them suspend reality for a little bit longer. Matt Stairs embodied that perhaps better than anyone. In the words of his fat predecessor John Kruk: “I ain’t an athlete, lady, I’m a baseball player.”
Matt Stairs continued to receive delirious ovations at Citizens Bank Park and resounding boos at Dodgers Stadium. After spending 2010 with the Padres – during which he broke the all-time record for most home runs hit as a pinch-hitter – history’s greatest journeyman slugger was cut. But he was invited to spring training by the Washington Nationals, the 12th team of his career. He struggled from the onset. “Let’s face it, I sucked ” he said of his 2011. Last week, the 43 year old Stairs was unconditionally released by the Nationals. He said that he would not try to sign with another team.
“This is probably it. I’m not even going to look around or take any offers. It’s time to walk away and it’s been a good run.”
A month ago, the Sportscenter highlight was a Matt Stairs pinch-hit, walk-off single at Nationals Park, a smoking line drive that narrowly missed going over the right field fence for a home run.
When Stairs hit the ball, 22,399 Nats fans exploded. Stairs did his soft trot to first, touched the bag and turned, his arms raised, awaiting the mobbing (aka”ass-hammering”) by his teammates (many half his age). Nats skipper Davey Johsnon said: “One out, winning runner on third? He’s the guy I want up there. I don’t care if he’s hitting .080.” Watching Stairs mobbed and celebrated, I teared up. I’ll miss him so.
The reasons to miss Matt Stairs are clear, because he was a favorite player for so many reasons in so many cities. There’s that he’s a hoser to whom playing baseball was a pure gift: “I never expected to make the big leagues”. There’s his genuine lack of guile, giving the greatest post game interview in post game interview history, and that he never forgot his humble baseball beginnings or his limitations, openly admitting “Failure never bothered me”. And he is the only player I’m aware of who openly admitted to just trying to hit a home run every single time he batted.
There’s that he is decent. He worked his Swedish Meatballs off, was never a “hot prospect”, never the object of bidding wars and never had a big payday. In 2007, following a stellar .289/64 rbi season in Toronto, the Blue Jays re-signed him for peanuts. He easily could have done better with another club, but he liked playing in his mother country and for him, it was never about the money anyway. He had the distinction of going on record saying the salaries of pro athletes should be reserved for firemen and ER doctors: “I think when you’re paying players $15, $16 or $17 million it’s messed up. That should be reserved for people who save lives”.
During a benches clearing fracas with the Yankees during his stint with the Jays, A-Roid behaved so grotesquely that he actually drew the ire of the genial and magnanimous Stairs, who took it upon himself to push through the strapping, svelte, clean shaven Yankees and confront A-Rod on his own.
Lastly, there’s just the simple yet indelible image of seeing Matt Stairs step up to the plate. Because it’s like seeing your bad joke-crackin’ uncle come to the plate, or the guy who sold you nails at the hardware store or tires at Sears. He was one of the best fat guys in the game. And he did it clean, bulking up the old fashioned way (lots of ham).
And there you have it. Matt Stairs’ unconventional road towards enduring baseball adoration. At age 43, still with a mile wide grin, still swinging for the fences every time, the unlikeliest of professional athletes finally said goodbye to the game he didn’t seem to ever want to leave. An underpaid, under appreciated mercenary throughout his career, it took one swing for him to become a legend. He may not have been in Philly for long, but his brief sojourn in pinstripes earned him a spot as an important figure in Phillies history. And anyone lucky enough to see him play, in any of those 13 cities, in his prime or into his 40’s, will never forget the joy he brought to baseball.
(If he doesn’t re emerge as a left hitting coach, Matt Stairs has plenty of post baseball career options: Train Conductor, Home Depot lumber salesman, Lobsterman, etc., etc.). Full Matt Stairs career highlights
dedicated to phil lamaar