SIMMONS: Toronto’s sporting Mt. Rushmore: Roberto Alomar to Doug Gilmour to Kyle Lowry

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It is a very short list. The athletes who come to define a team, a city and a time. The athletes we never really know personally who become almost part of the family or regular conversation and stay in that place — sometimes forever.

Roberto Alomar is one of those. He spent only five seasons with the Blue Jays, although, over time, it seems like so much longer than that. And that was 26 years ago. And the franchise-changing home run he hit off Dennis Eckersley, a moment unlike any other, that was 29 years ago.

Alomar is on that short list, central to two World Series victories, possibly the greatest Toronto pro athlete we’ve ever seen up close.

The lists are personal, of course. Mine would have Doug Gilmour on it, who played at a level in his first full seasons with the Maple Leafs that seemed almost magical. He never played that way before he got to Toronto, never played that way after he left here. That makes the magic even greater as time passes.

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Gilmour was the smallest Maple Leaf in his day, the slightest yet the strongest, and his production still seems rather remarkable in any kind of comparison. In his first two full seasons in Toronto, the Leafs played 39 Stanley Cup playoff games, with Gilmour amassing 63 points in those games.

Over the past 15 seasons, the Leafs haven’t played as many playoff games as Gilmour did in 1993 and 1994.

A few years ago, I asked Kyle Lowry if he had ever heard of Gilmour or knew anything about him. He said he knew the name and had seen photos of him, but he didn’t know anything about the player or the person.

I told him then that he reminded me of Gilmour — how emotionally he attached himself to his play, how he pushed himself, how much he detested losing, how he performed beyond his own talent level. I told him that years before he played a significant role in the Raptors winning an NBA championship.

The first Toronto championship of major-league calibre — the big four — since Joe Carter’s home run won the 1993 World Series for the Jays.

Today may well be Lowry’s last day with the Raptors. Like Alomar before him, like Gilmour, he wasn’t a Toronto draft pick. But Alomar, traded to Toronto, played his greatest baseball here, and Gilmour, traded to the Leafs, played his greatest hockey. And for the past nine seasons, Lowry, traded here, has grown not only into the face of his franchise but on to that very short list of Toronto athletes we will talk about and cherish and maybe remember forever.

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He has, in a way, grown up before our very eyes. He came to Toronto not wanting to be here or to stay here. He came to the Raptors majoring in abrasiveness. He wasn’t supposed to be here long.

He was supposed to go to New York in one of Masai Ujiri’s first deals. The trade that brought him to Toronto basically got Bryan Colangelo fired as general manager. Imagine a team as bad as the Raptors trading their first draft pick away, the former CEO Tim Leiweke screamed years ago, and for Kyle Lowry of all people?

Imagine being that stupid?

That was the thought process then. Yet, in so many ways, so much of Lowry is central to everything that’s gone right with the Raptors. The Lowry deal led to the Ujiri hiring, which led to the Colangelo firing, and over time, before this uncharted season went awry, everything was on the up and up.

Lowry went to all-star game after all-star game. He won Olympic gold. The Raptors became a serious NBA contender. Lowry’s reputation for being sullen and angry, uncoachable, and sometimes singular turned instead to toughness and game intelligence. Sure, Ujiri had to sit down with him more than once over the years. To read him the riot act. To get him to be what he’s turned out to be.

But, over the years, the smallish, unusually shaped point guard has become a dad and a family man, a basketball leader and a champion, and the most important Raptor in history, if you don’t include one season of Kawhi Leonard.

He used to be a fight waiting to happen — he would give you that look, the don’t-talk-to-me face, don’t come near me, I have no time for this.

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Now, through the second season of pandemic basketball in the NBA, Lowry seems to be a changed man on Zoom interviews, at least for public consumption. The snarky, previously grouchy Lowry has been replaced by a mature, reflective, insightful Lowry.

In Toronto, he has had an opportunity to grow and grow up, an opportunity Alomar certainly regrets passing on. Maybe even Gilmour regrets not playing here longer. Nine years in one place is more than a lifetime in professional sports.

Alomar hit the famous home run in Oakland. Gilmour had the wrap-around double-overtime goal. For Lowry, if there was once such moment, it came in the first quarter of Game 6 of the NBA Finals against Golden State: He scored 15 points in the first 12 minutes of the clinching game.

He put the Raptors in position to win. The Leafs came close, but never won with Gilmour. The Jays won twice with Alomar.

Now they share space together on a very short list. Part of our own sporting Mt. Rushmore. Alomar to Gilmour to Lowry. Players we won’t soon forget.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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