SIMMONS SUNDAY: This can't be what Keith Pelley signed up for as head of MLSE

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This could not have been the plan Keith Pelley had in mind when he took over at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment — to become the face of almost everything team-wise.

In just more than a year on the job, Pelley has shown the door to Masai Ujiri, president of the Raptors; Brendan Shanahan president of the Maple Leafs; and Bill Manning, president of both the Argos and Toronto FC.

All of which combined for giant salary cuts — more than $20 million — none of which have necessarily strengthened the operations of any of the four Toronto teams involved.

Bobby Webster, general manager of the Raptors, is essentially GM and president now without portfolio. How he makes the franchise stronger, with Ujiri gone, is a question yet to be answered.

Brad Treliving is the GM of the Maple Leafs. He used to have Shanahan at his side for just about everything. Now, the somewhat inexperienced Shane Doan becomes his right hand man. Does this make the Maple Leafs front office stronger? It’s impossible for Pelley, or any of us, to know how this impacts MLSE’s signature franchise.

Manning has been gone from the Argos and TFC for a more than a year now. The Argos, through almost no one’s fault, have gone from Grey Cup champions to last in the CFL. And anyone understanding the state of TFC, with all of its money exchanges and roster manipulations — for just five wins in 26 games this year — should probably consider MIT in their future.

So, Pelley has chopped hard from the top, putting himself in a position of either praise or blame. He says the only thing he is interested in is winning and all of those moves he made were with that in mind.

Whether intentional of not, MLSE has become his show, which was not his likely thought process from the very beginning.

THIS AND THAT

Mark Shapiro, not working for MLSE, is the last of the standing Toronto pro team presidents. He’s being paid in the neighbourhood of $7 million by the Blue Jays and, based on this one season — and not the past nine — he’s almost certain to get a contract extension … If you didn’t get excited watching Shane Bieber make his return from Tommy John surgery on Friday night, check your pulse. So, here’s the question: If the Blue Jays finish first in the American League East and open up with a best-of-five series, who starts the first three games? Max Scherzer, Bieber and Kevin Gausman? That’s my call, order to be determined over the next five weeks … The pitcher the Jays traded to Cleveland for Bieber, Khal Stephen, has yet to throw a pitch for the Guardians or any of their farm teams. He has a shoulder problem … This is how bad the AL East is at the moment: The Jays have gone 12-12 in their past 24 games and have not relinquished anything to either the Yankees or Red Sox. If the Jays go 17-16 in their final 33 games, they will finish with 92 wins and that will assure them of first place in the East for just the seventh time in club history … If I’m Addison Barger, and I’m steroid-clean, I’m calling my lawyer and suing Tommy Pham and possibly the Pittsburgh Pirates for libel. Legally, the onus would be on Pham to prove what he said. And if Barger is as clean as he says he is, that’s money in the bank … For years, Paul Godfrey and J.P. Ricciardi tried to figure out how to get the Blue Jays out of the AL East and away from the Yankees and the Red Sox. And now, with so much talk about baseball realignment, there is conversation of moving the Jays to a division with Detroit, Cleveland and either Milwaukee or Minnesota. Personally, I’d hate to see the Jays out of the AL East in its present form. But I would like to see them in a division with the Tigers. That’s a rivalry gone missing … What commissioner Rob Manfred can’t do is eliminate the American and National Leagues. You can’t erase history … Hands up, both of you, who looked at the Jays schedule before the season began, saw a late-August series against the Milwaukee Brewers and thought: ‘Now here’s your World Series preview’ … How much luck or good fortune has been involved in this crazy Jays season? The opening-day lineup against Baltimore had Anthony Santander in left field, Alan Roden in right and Barger playing for the Buffalo Bisons …Jose Berrios is something of a scientific freak in these days of babying pitchers. He hasn’t missed a start during eight seasons in Toronto and Minnesota. Scherzer, for one, can understand this: He went 10 straight seasons of 30-plus starts early in his career. The past 10 years, though, Scherzer has started 30-plus games just once … What’s Bo Bichette worth in the open market? Somewhere just above the $280 to $300 million Xander Bogaerts and Trea Turner signed for in 2022. Bichette’s stats are quite similar to the numbers of fellow shortstops Bogaerts, Dansby Swanson, Turner and Carlos Correa the past three seasons.

HEAR AND THERE

The most impressive Mitch Marner statistic: The only right wingers in NHL history with more points per game than Marner are Mike Bossy, Nikita Kucherov and Guy Lafleur. And right after Marner on the list: Jari Kurri, Pavel Bure, Jaromir Jagr and Brett Hull … Did you know Shanahan is the third-highest goal-scoring left winger in NHL history, behind only Alexander Ovechkin and Luc Robitaille? And he’s fourth in career points for his position behind Ovechkin, Robitaille and Johnny Bucyk … The next words of significance Auston Matthews speaks will be his first since becoming captain of the Maple Leafs. Matthews is consistent, though. Like Floyd Smith once said as GM of the Leafs: ‘He had nothing to say and he was only going to to say it once’ …When Bill Guerin put together his preliminary list for Team USA for the upcoming Milan Olympics, he made some history of his own. He named all three Hughes brothers to his camp roster. Centre Jack Hughes and defenceman Quinn Hughes were obvious selections and will play big minutes for the Americans. But younger brother, Luke Hughes, though, is more of a long shot on defence. The dad, Jimmy Hughes, worked years ago for the Leafs in a position of player development, but the club let him go: Funny, but he’s done just fine developing his three first-round sons … There have been five NHL-on-NHL Winter Olympic hockey tournaments. Team USA has won silver medals when the Games were played in the comfort of North America. When the Games were played in less suitable locales such as Japan, Italy or Russia, the Americans came away empty-handed. Team Canada, by the way, has won three of five gold medals in best-on-best tournaments, two in North America, one in Sochi.

SCENE AND HEARD

It’s easy to forget how great Mats Sundin was as an international player because we saw him so often on mediocre lines with the Leafs. Sundin led the Olympic tournament in scoring in 2002 and, four years, later captained Sweden to a gold medal. Not sure he ever played better than in Salt Lake City, before the Tommy Salo disaster goal … Had a wonderful conversation with Cliff Fletcher, just before his 90th birthday last weekend. Hope you got a chance to read the piece. A couple of things stuck with me after the fact: First, I didn’t know or remember that Fletcher was offered the same position with the New York Rangers as he was with the Maple Leafs in 1991. He chose the Leafs. And one thing that didn’t make the piece (a lot was left out because Cliff is so interesting): Fletcher’s thoughts on being a general manager in today’s NHL: “I admire and respect today’s GMs. Back in my day, there was no salary cap, there were no cell phones, there was no social media. The whole job has changed. It’s a much more challenging job today. In our day, if you made a mistake, you could spend your way out of it if need be. You make a bad mistake now in a cap system and it’s hard to recover from that.” … Not sure anything like this has happened before, but could the brother combination of Mark Hunter and Dale Hunter — the GM and coach, respectively, of the London Knights — be considered as builders in tandem for Hockey Hall of Fame consideration? They’re certainly deserving … The Olympic hockey rosters have expanded to 25 players (three more than the 4 Nations event) and 20 skaters can dress for each game. In playing with the numbers, that means a likely combination of seven defencemen and 13 forwards for each club. And that would give Evan Bouchard a much better chance of making the Canadian team. He might be the perfect seventh, second power-play, insurance defenceman. If coach Jon Cooper can’t rely on him at even strength, he could pick and choose spots for the talented Bouchard without as much worry. A 13th forward might be a good spot for Brad Marchand if he isn’t playing at his playoff level come February.

AND ANOTHER THING

The CFL knew the World Cup of soccer was coming. It knew the rules, having to be out of stadiums in Toronto and Vancouver 30 days prior to the first World Cup games in Canada. But why did the league need to announce in mid-season that the Argos will move three home games to Winnipeg, Regina and Hamilton next season? They didn’t make similar announcements with the B.C. Lions. Why not wait until the season ends to anger all of the 17 Argos fans I know? The Boatmen have a small, aging and rabid fan base that gets kicked around too often and this is just another example of that. If there were more ticket-buying fans, more games in Ontario would have been scheduled. Maybe in Guelph. Maybe in London. But the math didn’t add up for the league, or the team, and the timing of the decision was worse than the actual decision itself … Tough draw for young Vicky Mboko at the U.S. Open. She opens against Barbora Krejcikova, a former winner of both Wimbledon and the French Open. Leylah Fernandez gets a better draw against fellow Canadian qualifier Rebecca Marino … The men did OK, draw-wise. Gabriel Diallo starts with Bosnian veteran Damir Dzumhur while Denis Shapovalov faces Marton Fucsovics of Hungary and Felix Auger-Aliassime faces a ‘lucky loser’ from the qualifying round … There seems to be money for just about everybody in the NBA these days, so why not for former Raptor Chris Boucher, who signed in Boston for just $3 million a year? … There was something special about watching Laurier’s Taylor Elgersma throwing passes for the Green Bay Packers last weekend. The previous time a Canadian university player was playing quarterback in the NFL pre-season was 43 years ago. Elgersma got a shot at winding up on the Packers’ practice squad … Can coach Sean McDermott lead the Buffalo Bills to the Super Bowl? Not sure he’s the guy. In four playoff losses to Kansas City, McDermott’s Bills gave up an average 34.75 points a game. Ironically, when the Bills lost four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990s, they gave up 34.75 points on average in each defeat … The defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder will be on national TV in the States 34 times this coming season. Our beloved Raptors, by my count, will be on twice … The Blue Jays have won two World Series. Pat Gillick was GM for both teams. The Phillies, who have been around for 142 years, have won just two World Series, one with Gillick as GM. The Seattle Mariners have been in business since 1977: The most wins they’ve had in a season was 116, the most in modern baseball history. Gillick was the GM in 2001 when that happened … And so, in a roundabout way, happy birthday to Gillick (88), Don King (94), Vince McMahon (80), Ray Ferraro (61), Cal Ripken Jr. (65), Glenn Healy (63), Reggie Miller (60), Kelsey Plum (31), Sonny Jurgensen (91), Anze Kopitar (38), Mason Miller (27) and Gerry Cooney (69) … And, hey, whatever became of Jeremy Lin?