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“What an amazing experience it was to arrive in such a vibrant, cosmopolitan place where it seemed like everybody was from a different part of the world,” Bautista said in his induction speech. “As someone who came to Canada hoping for a fresh start and a clean slate and an opportunity to succeed, I felt like I had something in common with all those people.”

The 44-year-old is best known by Blue Jays fans for The Bat Flip, the dramatic three-run home run that capped off what may have been the wildest inning in baseball history, in Game 5 of the Jays’ American League division series against the Texas Rangers in 2015, giving his team the lead and, ultimately, the series victory.

“I don’t remember much after making contact,” Bautista said . “After you pull the trigger it kind of happens so it’s hard to recall details but before that, going into the at-bat, I felt pretty calm given all the hoopla going around.”

After he made contact, the real hoopla began.

That home run likely sealed the deal on his eventual entry into St. Marys, but there’s a lot more on Bautista’s Hall of Fame resum茅 than that.

The Dominican Republic native still holds the Jays’ single-season home run record, becoming the first and only Blue Jay to hit the half-century mark in round-trippers with his 54 in 2010. Bautista was an all-star every season from 2010 to 2015 and posted a .945 on-base-plus-slugging percentage with a 162-game average of 44 home runs.

He retired after the 2018 season, but came back to play for the Dominican national team at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, helping his home country to a bronze medal. Along the way, he hit the walk-off single to knock Canada out of the Olympic qualifying tournament.

Bautista still keeps an eye on the Jays, who raised his name to their Level of Excellence in 2023. He watched with interest as fellow Dominican Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed a 14-year, $500-million (U.S.) contract earlier this spring.

It was suggested that Guerrero would be joining Bautista in St. Marys immortality in about 20 years.

“He’d better,” Bautista said with a smile.

“It’s got to be the right player at the right time within the organization,” said Bautista, who signed a five-year deal with the Jays after his breakout in 2010 and sought another long-term deal after that one expired, when he was 36.

“I think Vladdy certainly was that guy and is that guy. Hopefully that continues to pay off the way that it has in the early years 鈥� kind of even out the bargain that the Jays have gotten so far with him. I think he’s got all the ingredients to be one of those players who plays their whole career with one team and becomes legendary, so I was very happy to see him get locked up.”

The centrepiece of the Jays’ last two great teams 鈥� the 2015 and 2016 clubs that reached the AL Championship Series 鈥� thinks Guerrero’s big contract adds pressure not on the player but on the front office.

“You can’t sign a guy like that for that much money for that many years and not put a good team around him, or lower the expectation to win,” Bautista said. “I think everybody saw what happened with Detroit, with Miguel Cabrera, when they did that, and that was not a good story.”

Cabrera, a slugging first baseman who is Cooperstown-bound, signed an eight-year contract extension with the Tigers going into the 2014 season. Combined with the two years remaining on his existing contract, the 10-year, $292-million commitment was the biggest in major-league history at the time. Detroit won the AL Central that season but had only one other winning season over the rest of Cabrera’s tenure, losing at least 96 games four different times.

The Tigers had three different general managers and four managers over the life of that contract.

Bautista says he would have interest in becoming a baseball executive.

“I’ve always been interested in it,” he said. “Professional sports as a business is something that I’m very interested in. Exhibit A is I bought a soccer team (Las Vegas Lights FC of the United Soccer League). Baseball is my No. 1 love, so of course I’m open to it.

“When that opportunity comes, it’ll be the right time and it’ll happen, and we’ll see. But I’m definitely interested.”

The Jays’ current front office was represented Saturday by executive vice-president of business operations Marnie Starkman, who has worked with the team for 16 years. Neither club president Mark Shapiro nor general manager Ross Atkins attended the ceremony.

Bautista has been immortalized as a player, but who knows? His baseball journey north of the border might not be done yet.