The Story Behind John Gibbons’ and Kendrys Morales’ New Glasses

Eyewear is in for 2018 if you’re on the Toronto Blue Jays. If you’ve been watching the Jays play over the last week or so, you may have noticed two of the team’s most prominent members are sporting new spectacles.

Yes, both John Gibbons and Kendrys Morales are now wearing glasses. Forget Curtis Granderson, forget Randal Grichuk, forget Jaime Garcia; this team’s most important offseason acquisitions were pairs of lenses for Gibby and Morales.

WAIT … GIBBY HAS GLASSES? pic.twitter.com/7alghzwL4a

— Gibby GIFS (@GibbyGIFS) March 23, 2018

So, why the sudden change for the Blue Jays’ manager and designated hitter? Gibby spoke with TSN 1050’s Scott MacCarthur and had a lively discussion about how he got his new eyewear.

I got ’em this winter. I have a tough time driving with seeing distances and my wife Julie says “why don’t you wear ’em during the game. How can you see during the game?”. I said “Well, I don’t want to look too smart. If I look too smart, these people expect too much out of me.”

During the Blue Jays’ first exhibition game in Montreal on Monday, we learned their designated hitter Kendrys Morales also slipped on some specs ahead of the 2018 season.

Buck Martinez explained during the Blue Jays broadcast how the Blue Jays’ training staff set Morales up with some baseball specs:

During the examinations this Spring, it was detected he might be in need of some glasses. He has tried them out this Spring. On Saturday at Tampa, he wore them throughout batting practice, but didn’t wear them in the game. On Saturday, he had prescription sunglasses that he wore.

A few months ago, Peter Gammons famously told MLB Network that Jose Bautista had solved his vision issues and his eyes were “really bad”. Now that we’ve seen both Morales and Gibby with new glasses, perhaps the Blue Jays are looking into this vision thing a little more closely.

In the meantime, it might take a little while to get used to seeing Gibby with glasses.