My very own Jose Bautista

Jose Bautista plays for me. I drafted him in the first round of our 12-team fantasy baseball league last March. We meet every year amid beer and pizza in a back room at Wayne Gretzky's eatery in Toronto down by the lake.

The wonder is that Bautista was available for the third pick. No, not true — the wonder is that Bautista was available at all. Each manager in our league is entitled to keep six players from the previous season, and this year one of our illustrious managers chose not to keep Bautista. I can't remember which manager, which is a kindness. I could find out in seconds, but I choose not to as the disclosure would cause a lifetime of shame and humiliation.

I mean, he didn't trade Bautista away for some turkey — we all do things like that from time to time — but he chose not to keep him. Likewise, two managers ahead of me chose not to pick him, which is like choosing not to take a willing Jennifer Lopez for a weekend at the cottage.

For the record, the No. 1 pick in our draft was Ryan Howard, Philadelphia's fine first baseman. No. 2 was Tommy Hanson, the promising young starter for the Atlanta Braves. No. 3 was … well, let's not rub it in.

There are valid sociological reasons, I suppose. The most obvious is that Bautista was viewed as a risk in that his sudden rise to stardom at the ripe age of 30 cast suspicion that he might be juiced. Another reason was that he is a Blue Jay, after all, and most of us, being Canadian, have modest expectations of our representatives, let alone someone who now is regarded by everyone as the best baseball player in the world.

The importance of 'seeing'

I tend to believe Bautista when he says he doesn't use steroids. After all the recent scandals about performance-enhancing drugs, why would anyone take that chance today, even for $65 million US (Bautista's new five-year contract). You get caught these days, and then you're finished. No, as he told the Globe and Mail when asked about the allegations he may be getting some artificial help: "Nobody's said anything to me, and I don't see why they should. Baseball has a strict policy against those performance-enhancing whatever you want to call them."

At last count — I'm writing this before Thursday's game against the Tampa Bay Rays — the elegant man from the Dominican Republic, whose yellow shades as he peers over his left arm at the pitcher make him look like a tank commander peering out of a turret, is hitting .368 and leading professional baseball with 16 homes runs, a .368 average, 35 runs, a slugging percentage of .868, an on-base average of .520, and 35 walks. And this was on Thursday. God knows what his numbers will be on Friday.

And he's mine! My biggest concern is that something terrible will happen to him. Not being found on the juice, something worse. More opposing pitchers, when they're not intentionally walking him, are buzzing balls dangerously close to his head. It reminds of that terrible July in 2005 when I had Roy Halladay on my team and a come-backer cracked into his shin, broke a bone and ended his season. I was watching the game on TV and felt like my mother had fallen off my 14th floor balcony.

When asked about his performance this year, Bautista said, "It's ridiculous, it feels like a dream right now. Sometimes I can't really believe it myself, but I keep seeing the good pitches."

I've heard this from many top sluggers in their vintage years. They see the ball better. Even coming at them in the high-90s the ball looks like a grapefruit. Bautista remarked, "I see the ball well here because there's a nice backdrop." Blue Jays manager John Farrell, former pitching coach of the Boston Red Sox, makes the same observation, that Bautista "is seeing the ball exceptionally well."

The great hitter Rod Carew, the Hall of Famer who had a .328 batting average over 18 seasons, is another one who believed in the importance of seeing the ball. He used to wedge a thick wad of chewing tobacco into his right cheek, convinced it widened his right eye.

Bautista always had power

The thing is, Bautista had always shown power, regularly hitting homers in the double digits. Maybe not 54, as he did last year, but 14, 15 and 16, which ain't shabby. He also could field and throw and run. His latest surge in power started in the fall of 2009 when he belted 10 homers in September. This year he's on pace to surpass his 54 homers of 2010, which many — I'm sure our manager who had him last year was one of them — thought impossible if not absurd.

A curious thing is how long it has taken for Bautista to become a settled superstar. He's bounced around the major leagues since his rookie season in 2004. In fact he holds the major-league record for being on the most teams in one year. It's as if he has bad breath.

The Baltimore Orioles selected him in the Rule 5 Draft and he played his first game with Baltimore on April 4, 2004. He was sent to Pittsburgh, then Tampa Bay claimed him off waivers, then he was traded to Kansas City at the end of June. Next he was sent to New York in July to play for the Mets, but he never put on a Mets uniform before he was traded the same day back to Pittsburgh.

Five teams in one year, his rookie year at that.

I've not been the greatest success in our 12-team fantasy league. The best I ever did was finish sixth. With Bautista in a North End Greens uniform this year, however, I expect to do much better. I might finish fifth.

About the author: At least one generation of Canadians knows the line, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." Pierre Elliott Trudeau made it famous, but the line belongs to veteran Canadian journalist Martin O'Malley, who wrote it when he was with the Globe and Mail. He's written eight books, on topics such as the Canadian North, medicine, murder, media literacy and baseball. He's also a keen observer of the rituals of sport.