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The winning came quickly here with the Blue Jays and ended quickly, and now another of the remnants of better times — another of our memories — taken from us at a time when it should be.

The great Jose Bautista isn’t playing anymore. The MVP Josh Donaldson went to Cleveland and now Atlanta. Edwin Encarnacion went to Cleveland and now Seattle. David Price is in Boston, Troy Tulowitzki is in New York, Russell Martin in Los Angeles. Devon Travis is hurt — some things, it seems, never change.

The deal with the San Francisco Giants was almost made before opening day, but the details got bogged down and the season began without a trade being consummated. By Monday night, general manager Ross Atkins had a few teams in play, a few teams interested, when he thought the night was done. He was dozing off when his cellphone rang. It was Farhan Zaidi on the phone, the Canadian GM of the Giants calling. He was anxious to make the trade for Pillar. Atkins made the deal and then went to sleep.

On Tuesday morning, he called Pillar. It wasn’t an easy call to make. You can wonder about Pillar the big-league player, about his offensive limitations, about his diminishing defence, about him being over 30, about him being a veteran on a team mostly made up of kids, about what all the new-aged statistics say about him.

But you can’t wonder about Pillar the teammate, the person, the pro.

Atkins called him a “consummate professional.” His best friend, the normally unemotional, almost-stoic Justin Smoak, began to talk about the trade on Tuesday afternoon and had to stop more than once to catch himself. He was losing his composure. He didn’t want to cry in front of cameras and notebooks.

Smoak took it badly. His wife, Kristin, close friends with Pillar’s wife Amanda, took it worse. This is the part about trades you rarely hear about. Not only was Smoak, the sure-thing first-round pick who almost lost his career, and the long shot Pillar close friends, the wives were close. The daughters were best friends.