TORONTO – Several of the 1992-1993 Toronto Blue Jays in town for this weekend’s statue unveiling gathered for dinner Friday night and at one point that evening Tom Henke and Duane Ward broke away from the group for a private chat. The two men were very different, both then and now, but forged a bond sharing the same pressures and stresses of locking down games, their dominance as a duo in late leverage etched into franchise lore.

They were to sit together on one of the trucks driving players onto the Rogers Centre field Saturday afternoon for the celebratory ceremony, but as the time to ride arrived, Ward was missing. “Nobody knew where he was at and there was a search going out. I said a few prayers,” said Henke, who ended up riding out alone. 

Not long after, he and the rest of his former teammates, who had been immersed in the joy of seeing the Back-to-Back World Series Statue revealed and Joe Carter getting feted once more, learned the devastating news. Ward had died at 62, from natural causes, the Blue Jays said in announcement Sunday. The dinner Friday, the private conversation between Ward and Henke, turned out to be their final moments together.

“It really hasn't set it in yet,” Henke said over the phone as he drove through southern Ontario to visit friends on his way home. “I would have never guessed it. He looked a little tired, but that was it. It was a long trip for him (from his Las Vegas home to Toronto). He said he was kind of tired and was going to go to bed and get some rest for the next day. It was quite a shock.”

Ward’s big personality and gregarious nature made his sudden death more jarring, as his personality seemed as invincible as the pitcher he was on........

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