There will always be a dissenting chorus that considers Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons the luckiest man in baseball, given his second chance to manage in the major leagues despite a modest resume and non-aggressive approach to job-seeking. But don’t hate him because he’s dutiful.

The 50-year-old former catcher, a product of San Antonio, Texas, is managing the Jays for an unexpected second stint in 2013. Amazingly, he never once applied for that job, never inquired, never sent a curriculum vitae. Some call it luck. In truth, it’s about being in the right place, with the right people.

The first time Gibbons took over in August 2004, the then-Jays’ first-base coach was minding his business in the middle of the old Yankee Stadium clubhouse eating a sandwich, following yet another afternoon loss in the Bronx. General manager J.P. Ricciardi walked up to him and quietly advised, “Don’t go anywhere,” then brushed into Carlos Tosca’s office and fired him. The GM re-emerged, summoned Gibbons over and, voila, he was the Jays’ new manager. Easy and shocking.

In this current reprise of Gibbons as Jays’ manager, he was at home in Texas in November, looking forward to Christmas with the family when he received a phone call out of the blue from GM Alex Anthopoulos. Would he fly to Toronto to interview? Gibbons believed the opportunity was for bench coach. He flew on a Thursday and by Monday was attending his own press conference.

“What I thought was happening was he committed to a veteran manager, a guy with some experience and I thought, well you know he’s not matching up with (that) guy, whoever he’s looking at,” Gibbons recalled of his own thought process regarding the Jays interview. “It’s not working, so he might have to go back to one of the young guys, the inexperienced guys. This might be my chance to ... I wouldn’t have minded, I wouldn’t have had any problem being a (bench) coach.”

Gibbons’ story of managing without having to apply is rare — not once, but twice? There are numerous men through the years that interviewed at least a dozen times to manage in the major-leagues and were never rewarded. Maybe they are right. Maybe Gibbons is indeed baseball’s luckiest man.

Cito Gaston has a similar story in terms of Jays’ managerial career. In his own two stints managing the Jays, Gaston, also, never applied on either occasion, in 1989 replacing Jimy Williams, then, coincidentally, 19 years later, designated by Ricciardi to replace Gibbons.

But the most compelling Gibbons-Gaston connection lies in the fact both men, so important to Jays’ history, grew up in the same town, in San Antonio. What is it about that city?

San Antonio is the third most populous metropolitan area in Texas, behind Houston and Dallas, but easily ranks as the friendliest, most livable and down-to-earth of the three cities. Gibbons’ best friend, Matt Foley, a baseball teammate since they were 12 year olds, spoke about the influence that growing up in San Antonio may have had on his personality.

“To say San Antonio shaped us, yes, it’s an alignment of who we are, who we try to be,” Foley said. “Look at John, major-league status, manager, still the same guy. Regardless of how successful you are in San Antonio it’s not about what kind of car you are driving, it’s what you’ve got in your head, in your heart. He’s not a Dallas guy. He’s not a Houston guy.”

Gibbons’ baseball coach, Syl Perez, watched him bloom as a catching prospect as a senior at Douglas A. MacArthur High School. Perez has no doubts that his prized student, drafted in the first round in June 1980 by the New York Mets, is a product of his environment.

“He’s genuine,” Perez said. “John has never been full of himself. Just the fact that we still have a relationship 33 years later indicates he’s never forgotten where he came from. Far too many times once someone has, quote ‘made it’ they forget all the people that helped give them a lift to get them there.”

As a Mets’ prospect, Gibbons continued to work hard and finally in 1984, his fifth year in the system, he was given a solid shot at the starting job at spring training. He had already won the job in the eyes of first-year manager Davey Johnson, but in the final week of camp, disaster struck.

“Two days before we broke camp, I took an elbow in the cheek on a play at the plate,” Gibbons recalled, showing no anger. “It was kind of a cheap shot. (Joe Lefebvre of the Phillies) was trying to score. The ball was kind of drifting into him. He threw an elbow at me and cracked the cheekbone. It was kind of downhill from there. (When I returned) I injured my elbow, partially torn ligament. That winter they traded for (Gary) Carter. That was kind of it. I thought ‘I’m done here.’”

Gibbons has high regard for the makeup of his current Jays roster, but even the first time around as manager, there was similar optimism after the club signed A.J. Burnett and B.J. Ryan; obtained Lyle Overbay and Shea Hillenbrand. There was a sense even that year they had a contender’s chance.

“We had some very talented guys,” Gibbons admitted. “I don’t want to say something was missing, but there just wasn’t enough with us to get over the hump. Sometimes you think you’re better than you are. There were some times we achieved our level. There were times we underachieved too.”

Eventually, as a snowballing result of unmanaged expectations, problems developed on and off the field. Confrontations with Ted Lilly and Shea Hillenbrand served to damage his future reputation.

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“It was kind of just a reaction thing,” Gibbons recalled of the infamous dust-up with Lilly. “I got to the mound, Ted wouldn’t give me the ball. He was barking. We were barking a little bit back and forth. He gave the ball and then we kind of bumped on the way off.

“I was walking off the mound and I just looked into the dugout — there’s stairs going up to the clubhouse — and he’s just standing there and he was going back and forth like a shooting range with a duck, or something. That’s what I remember. I just walked there.”

Those incidents, combined with being fired mid-season in 2008, raised legitimate questions as to whether anyone would ever take a chance on Gibbons as manager again.

Gibbons career path after his retirement always seemed helter-skelter. He managed seven solid seasons in the Mets’ organization, 1995 to 2001, but became upset and frustrated when after another good year at Triple-A, Mets’ manager Bobby Valentine did not add him to his coaching staff. He quit.

What next? Oops. After all he was still a young man at 39. Gibbons had long ago made friends in the Mets’ system with two young men that signed the same year, Billy Beane, selected one pick ahead of him in the draft, and Ricciardi, an undrafted but studious infielder.

Without a job and with a new mortgage in San Antonio, Gibbons confidently knocked on the A’s door only to be told by Beane he had nothing to offer. When his other buddy Ricciardi became Jays’ GM, Gibbons called, taking the only job he had — bullpen catcher. It was not even coaching.

“I’ve spent my whole life as a bullpen catcher and now I’m going to do it again,” Gibbons smiled sheepishly at the memory. “I haven’t squatted in 10 years — the first day my knee breaks down. So now I’m the only bullpen catcher in the big leagues that can’t catch.”

On the verge of telling Ricciardi he couldn’t do it anymore, Buck Martinez was fired, Gibbons was promoted to the first-base coaching job, his career saved. That was the start of it.

Gibbons joined the Royals as Trey Hillman’s bench coach in 2009, but the club did not retain him last year. With nothing major, Gibbons recognized the real chance that he may never get back to the big leagues. He turned his sights homeward, like an elephant heading for the graveyard, applying to be skipper of the Padres’ AA-affiliate, San Antonio Missions. At least he could live at home.

“The great thing about having Gibby come in was just the credibility that he brought with the job,” Missions’ GM Burl Yarbrough said. “For somebody that’s been in the big leagues a long time, they’re coming back down and instead of getting on charters, they’re busing. It didn’t bother him one bit. That impressed me just watching him how hard he worked on the field with these kids.”

Thinking of going back to the Missions, then came the game-changing phone call from Anthopoulos. A universal question for the ages has always been, “can you ever come home, again?” Gibbons is providing a convincing argument, that even in a tale of two cities, you can.

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