The first time John Gibbons was asked about Marcus Stroman — maybe a month or two back — he rolled his eyes.

He really didn’t want to say anything at all.

So he did the Gibbons thing: He hemmed. He hawed. He mumbled a little and he left the impression there were more important things to talk about.

That was before Stroman started throwing. And before Stroman was posting videos of his training on social media. And before Stroman made his first rehab start.

Now the question is the next question. It’s real. And Gibbons isn’t rolling his eyes about an overly optimistic pitcher. He is taking Stroman’s comeback about as seriously as you can, considering he still hasn’t thrown a big league pitch.

It is not out of the question that a playoff series pitching rotation — assuming the Jays get that far — could have David Price opening up and Stroman pitching Game 2. That is possible. If Stroman throws the way Stroman can.

THIS AND THAT

It’s settled after much discussion: Connor McDavid will live at Taylor Hall’s place for his first NHL season. Funny to think of the 23-year-old Hall as a veteran, but this will be his sixth season in Edmonton. And McDavid is comfortable with him ... Almost everybody in the world named Shapiro pronounces their name Sha-peer-oh. Not Mark Shapiro, the incoming Blue Jays president. He pronounces it Sha-pie-roh. The reason: When entering the baseball business he wanted to distance himself from his father, the well-known player agent, Ron Shapiro. The only way he thought to do that: change your name ... For the record, Paul Beeston is not resigning as president of the Blue Jays. It wasn’t his choice to walk away. He’s being pushed out, primarily by Ed Rogers of the ownership group ... Phil Kessel trained hard this summer, ate right, lost 13 pounds, and did the Gary Roberts thing. The push behind the new Kessel: His personal embarrassment from last season and some words of wisdom from agent, Wade Arnott, that the singular Kessel finally listened to, changing his off-season regimin. Unrelated, on the short list of those who have no use for Kessel: Brendan Shanahan, Randy Carlyle, Ron Wilson and just about anyone who worked media relations for the Leafs over the past half decade ... William Shakespeare wrote a play about Deflategate: He called it Much Ado About Nothing. It was a comedy. Deflategate was not. Just bad long drawn-out drama.

HEAR AND THERE

Boy is this new: Of the Maple Leafs’ seven pre-season games, six are being played opposite Blue Jays games. Should the Jays make it to the American League Division Series and Championship Series, five of the Leafs first six regular-season games will be played opposite a Jays game of significance ... Lost in the dreadful season of the Detroit Tigers: Miggy Cabrera has a ridiculous on base percentage of .458 ... Roberto Osuna won’t win the rookie of the year award in the American League — Carlos Correa of Houston will — but he will get a boatload of votes ... The modern stats people keep telling me that RBIs are an overrated statistic: But how overrated can it be when four of the five leading RBI players in history are Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds ... About to be a star: Khalil Mack, pass rusher, Oakland Raiders ... The Blue Jays lost the first five starts Marco Estrada made this season. Since then, the surprising Estrada has made 17 starts and the Jays have won 12 of those games. His earned run average is 2.83 in those starts ... The Jays have a 39-19 record when Justin Smoak starts at first base — that’s .672 baseball ... If the Jays are in the post-season, Josh Donaldson will win in the MVP. He’s first in runs scored, RBI, and WAR in the AL, 2nd in doubles, and slugging, 3rd in home runs and fourth in OPS.

SCENE AND HEARD

Lou Lamoriello’s two closest associates in New Jersey, David Conte and his son, Chris, have left the Devils. There is no plan, as of now, to bring either to the Leafs ... This is Donaldson’s fourth big league season. It should be his fourth time in the playoffs. This is Russell Martin’s 10th big league season. It should be his seventh time in the playoffs. This is David Price’s eighth big league season. It should be his sixth time in the playoffs ... Does the Ricky Ray-Trevor Harris situation with the Argos remind anyone of the Drew Bledsoe-Tom Brady scenario with the New England Patriots years ago? ... Tough times for the Jones Family: Arthur Jones is out for the season in Indianapolis. Younger brother Jon, the one-time MMA star, is nowhere to be found in UFC these days ... I lost in my survivor pool in Week 1 of the NFL schedule a year ago. Having seen the schedule for Week 1 now, I’m pretty much convinced I’m losing Week 1 this year too ... James van Riemsdyk will score 30 goals for the Leafs this season. No one else will ... Still not certain if Slava Voynov will ever play in the NHL again — and it’s possible he’ll be deported. Meantime, the Los Angeles Kings made a nice signing by bringing in Christian Ehrhoff at a reasonably cheap price ... The Montreal Alouettes are smart to take their time and not rush the rookie Canadian quarterback Brandon Bridge. You can ruin a young quarterback by pushing him too quickly. Bridge is worth investing in ... It’s surprising that Duron Carter didn’t make the Indianapolis Colts, but not surprising that undrafted Canadian running back, Tyler Varga made the cut.

AND ANOTHER THING

Edwin Encarnacion has hit 142 home runs in the past four seasons. The brilliant Cabrera, with some injury time this season, has hit 130 ... You want to feel old? Were he alive today, John Ferguson would have turned 77 on Saturday. And Lennox Lewis celebrated his 50th the other day ... It’s early September and there’s no real pennant race left in the National League. All the playoff spots have been decided ... No surprise here: Mike Babcock has purchased a Yorkville condo ... The CIS football season has begun: Does anybody know? ... The emerging Andre De Grasse turned down at least $700,000 in marketing money to leave USC for the pro track world. That’s what we call not taking the money and running ... Donaldson told me in spring training: The best players rarely win in baseball. The best teams do. The latest exhibit: The Washington Nationals ... According to the Buffalo News, a grand jury will determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial against Patrick Kane. There are all kinds of nervous people around this right now ... Happy birthday to Stan Jonathan (60), Wendi Richter (54), Don Maloney (57), John Wall (25), Greg Rusedski (42), Jane Curtin (68) and Kevin Willie (53) ... And hey, whatever became of Bill Caudill?

ARBOUR WAS ONE OF A KIND

One of my favourite Al Arbour stories begins on a winter’s night when he walked out of the Nassau Coliseum, tried to drive home, missed the exit ramp off the highway, drove 15 miles out of his way, got a little lost and worse, forgot his wife who was waiting for him back at the arena.

That was Arbour: Intense, focussed, deep thinking, and in his own words, “a bit of a screwball.” And if not the best coach in hockey history, he’s on a short list of three.

I was off when he passed away last week, but couldn’t let his passing go by without some kind of comment for the man they called “Radar.”

“I got a little carried away,” he told me in one of our many conversations years ago. “I was consumed by the job.”

It became the family business at a time when technology was hardly sophisticated. Al would coach. His wife, Claire, would tape games for him on an old fashioned reel-to-reel machine. Not only would she tape them, she would break them down into categories.

One time, Arbour was woken up in the middle of the night and told by his wife that she was in labour. Forever the coach, a barely awake Arbour told her to “relax and have a good workout.”

“I must have been dreaming or something,” he later said. Quickly, he awoke and drove her to hospital. He didn’t miss an exit ramp on that drive

SEAHAWKS WILL LOVE JACKSON

Playing eight seasons in the NFL with the same team is almost an eternity, but to do it the way Fred Jackson did it with the Buffalo Bills is straight from the museum of the hard to believe.

Jackson’s story was almost better than his game. He was an undersized backup running back in high school, not considered good enough to attract a college scholarship, later not accomplished enough to get drafted into the NFL. And all he has done for the last eight seasons in Buffalo was his job. He averaged 4.4 yards a carry on his 1,279 carries as a sometime starter (the same career number as Walter Payton and better than that of Emmitt Smith) and looked to still be in form at age 34 when the Bills stunningly let him go.

Jackson wasn’t out of work long. The should have been Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks signed Jackson to backup Marshawn Lynch. If there are two things Pete Carroll loves, it’s great football players and great stories. In Fred Jackson, he gets both in the same package.