Buck Martinez has real news to celebrate before the Blue Jays honor him next week.
"I'm cancer free now, everything's good," Martinez said over the phone from his Florida home.
Toronto will make him the first person enshrined in the team's new Hall of Excellence on Aug. 29.
"I'm getting better all the time. I'm in the gym every day. I'm still not up to playing golf yet, but that's coming," he said.
That update lands after a genuinely rough stretch for Martinez, one that included cancer treatments even in the weeks right after last year's World Series ended.
He was actually in Tampa Bay this week, watching two of the Blue Jays' games in person as the excitement builds toward the ceremony.
He plans to fill a Rogers Centre suite with his wife Arlene and a large group of family and friends for the occasion.
"It will be special to be able to say thank you to the fans," Martinez said. "The fans have treated me so well, as a player, as a broadcaster, as a manager."
The Hall of Excellence weekend teammates won't miss
Martinez first arrived in Toronto in 1981 in a trade from Milwaukee that he assumed would be a short, forgettable stop before retirement.
"I thought I'd be there for a year and I'd be done," he said. "Who knew I would be there until 2025? Hard to believe."
One year turned into five as a player, then decades more as a manager and broadcaster, spanning parts of five different decades in a Blue Jays uniform.
Dave Stieb and George Bell are expected among the former teammates joining the pre-game ceremony on Aug. 29.
Bell is the same player who carried Martinez off the field the day he broke his leg in a home plate collision, decades ago.
Martinez called last year's Game 7 loss to the Dodgers a proud memory anyway, given the run Toronto's young core put together to get there.
"To watch those kids grow up the way they did, Vladdy and Bo, with so much hype around them, was pretty darn special," he said.
The cancer fight cost him his broadcast career. What it didn't cost him was the welcome waiting for him back in Toronto.
Are you planning to watch Buck Martinez get inducted into the Blue Jays' Hall of Excellence?
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