Image courtesy the excellent Flip Flop Fly Ballin' (click pic for link)

The Blue Jays jumped the gun a little and celebrated this on Sunday but, 20 years ago today, Dave Stieb finally broke through. After coming so close, so many times, Stieb finally managed to get that final out and earn his first — and still Toronto’s only — no-hitter.

Most fans today, if asked who is the greatest pitcher in Jays history, would say Roy Halladay without thinking twice. But take a look at Stieb’s stats. The man had an amazing career and definitely deserves to at least be in the conversation.

I won’t drone on about this too much, since there’s some great tributes to Stieb out there already:

• Watch the Blue Jays’ Sunday tribute to Stieb
• read a great account of Stieb’s no-no and his many near-misses by Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times
• The Blue Jay Hunter was in attendance at Sunday’s tribute and sums the day up nicely

If you want to right to the source, Stieb’s no-hitter is available on iTunes for $1.99. The iTunes store’s search engine is crap, so finding it is a bit of a chore, but it’s worth the effort.

UPDATE: The reason the game is so hard to find on iTunes is that they spelled his name wrong. Search for “Steib” and it’s really easy to find.