{"id":812273,"date":"2026-07-19T14:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T14:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812273\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T14:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T14:16:09","slug":"legendary-blue-jays-reliever-duane-ward-dead-at-62","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812273\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary Blue Jays reliever Duane Ward dead at 62"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Duane Ward, one of the most accomplished and beloved relievers in <a data-team=\"toronto-blue-jays\" data-league=\"mlb\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> history, has died at age 62, the team announced Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Ward passed away of natural causes in Toronto, the team said.<\/p>\n<p>He had travelled to the city on Friday alongside his teammates from the 1992 and 1993 World Series championship teams, but was absent from Saturday&#8217;s pre-game ceremony for the unveiling of the franchise&#8217;s newest statue.<\/p>\n<p>Ward spent 10 seasons with the Blue Jays from 1986 to 1995, appearing in 452 games and establishing himself as one of the most dependable late-inning relievers in franchise history. He finished his Toronto career with 121 saves, ranking among the club&#8217;s all-time leaders, while serving as both a dominant setup man and closer during one of the most successful eras in team history.<\/p>\n<p>The right-hander played a key role in helping the Blue Jays capture those back-to-back World Series titles. His best season came in 1993 when he was named an American League All-Star and led the league with 45 saves.<\/p>\n<p>Ward&#8217;s contributions to baseball were recognized with his induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duane Ward, one of the most accomplished and beloved relievers in Toronto Blue Jays history, has died at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-812273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}