Michael Samuel Wilner (born March 14, 1970) is a former Canadian baseball broadcaster for the Toronto Blue Jays. From 2014 through 2020, he called play-by-play for the Blue Jays' radio broadcasts, and aut*d a blog on Sportsnet.ca/590. He formerly hosted a postgame radio call-in show called BlueJaysTalk on the Fan 590. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1994. As of February:11, 2021, Wilner has been a baseball columnist for the Toronto Star.

Contents

• 1 Broadcasting career
• 2 Newspaper columnist
• 3 Personal life
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Broadcasting career

Wilner began his broadcasting career at the University of Toronto in 1988, and was named sports director there a year later. During his tenure at the University of Toronto, Wilner did play-by-play for various sports including hockey, basketball, and football. Wilner began his professional broadcasting career at the age of 19 with the Cl*-A Welland Pirates. He later did play-by-play for various baseball teams including the Cl*-A Watertown Indians, and the Double-A Hardware City Rock Cats. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Wilner hosted 2010 Winter Games Today in Vancouver with David Alter from Whistler, British Columbia.

On June 1, 2010, Mike Wilner got into an argument during a media scrum with the Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston about Gaston's field level decision making. Wilner detailed the confrontation on his blog. A day later his employer, the Fan 590 announced Wilner would not be covering the team for several days, presumably a suspension though the Fan 590 refused to state the reason. Because Rogers Communications, owners of the Toronto Blue Jays, also owns the Fan 590, the suspension had at least the appearance of a case of media censorship. The Toronto Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ *ociation of America issued a letter of protest suggesting the suspension was an attempt by the Blue Jays to muzzle media criticism. The controversy received coverage in all three of Toronto's daily newspapers, largely in sympathy with Wilner.

From 2014-2017, Wilner performed play-by-play duties for select innings of all Toronto Blue Jays home games. In 2018, following the retirement of longtime Blue Jays play-by-play commentator Jerry Howarth, Wilner called most Blue Jays games with Ben Wagner. He officially became the full-time radio play-by-play announcer with Wagner prior to the 2019 season. That same year, he was replaced by Scott MacArthur as host of the BlueJaysTalk radio show.

Wilner continued as the Blue Jays play-by-play announcer through the 2020 season. However, on November 27, 2020, Sportsnet announced that Wilner would not return to the position in 2021, with no reason being given. For his part, Wilner did not elaborate on any reasons behind the decision, commenting only "Dreams can come true, even though they don’t always last as long as you'd like them to."

Newspaper columnist

On February 11, 2021, Wilner announced that he had become a baseball columnist for the Toronto Star.

Personal life

Wilner is of Jewish descent.

Wilner is divorced, and together with his ex-wife from Buenos Aires, Argentina, they have two daughters and he resides in Mississauga.

References

External links

• Mike Wilner's Toronto Star page
• Mike Wilner's Sportsnet 590 Blogs
• The Official Site of the Toronto Blue Jays | Broadcasters
• Mike Wilner interview with BattersBox.ca
• Mike Wilner on Twitter

Culture

• Baseball in Canada
• Continental League
• Mascots (BJ Birdy
• Ace)
• "OK Blue Jays"
• Major League Baseball on TSN
• Toronto Blue Jays on Sportsnet

Lore

• The Drive of '85
• 1991 All-Star Game
• Touch 'em all Joe (1993)
• José Bautista's bat flip (2015)

Rivalries

• Montreal Expos (relocated)

Retired numbers

• 12
• 32
• 42

Key personnel

• Owner: Rogers Communications
• President & CEO: Mark Shapiro
• General manager: Ross Atkins
• Manager: Charlie Montoyo

World Series championships (2)

• 1992
• 1993

American League pennants (2)

• 1992
• 1993

Division *les (6)

• 1985
• 1989
• 1991
• 1992
• 1993
• 2015

Wild Card berths (2)

• 2016
• 2020

Minor league affiliates

• Triple-A
  • Buffalo Bisons
• Double-A
  • New Hampshire Fisher Cats
• High-A
  • Vancouver Canadians
• Single-A
  • Dunedin Blue Jays
• Rookie
  • FCL Blue Jays
  • DSL Blue Jays