Marcus Stroman: "Toronto is a baseball city"

TORONTO, April 8 (UPI) -- When Marcus Stroman was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012, he was "pretty upset about it."

Stroman wrote about his journey, since being selected by the team out of Duke, for the Players' Tribune.

In the article, Stroman speaks about how he originally did not want to go from New York, then Duke, to a Canadian home. But eventually he learned to love the city.

"Which I can say truthfully because when I got drafted by the Blue Jays out of Duke in 2012, I was pretty upset about it," Stroman wrote. "I didn't want to go to Canada. I didn't know anything about Toronto. All I knew was that it wasn't New York, where I'm from. It wasn't Duke. It was Canada. It was a different country."

"But like I said, to understand Toronto, you have to really experience Toronto. You have to be there."

"When I got called up in 2014, that's when I got to truly experience Toronto, and I learned that it's such a hip and trendy city — very up on the times. Perfect for a young guy like me. It's a small city in the sense that it's not overwhelming. I live right downtown, so I'm a five-minute walk from the Rogers Centre or a Raps game or a Leafs game. I'm 10 minutes from the sickest restaurants in the city. I just fell in love."

Stroman recently gained viral traction when he got into a shouting match with Tampa Bay Rays' Logan Morrison. During the game, Morrison assumed Stroman was talking smack to him. Then Morrison admitted that he forgot Stroman yelled at himself during games.

"I just heard him yell something and caught him looking at me, so I thought he was talking to me," Morrison told TampaBay.com. "He said he wasn't talking to me. It was my first time facing him and I forgot he did that whole 'yell at himself' thing, so maybe he was doing that, I don't know."

"Maybe he thought I was yelling at him, I was yelling at myself," Stroman told TampaBay.com. "'I'm a big self-motivation guy. Petty much I'm sure it was a miscommunication."

In the Players' Tribune article, Stroman sticks to self reflection in professing his love for "The 6ix." He describes a Maple Leafs game with teammates, where the organization voiced its public support for the Blue Jays' playoff run. The starting pitcher also talks about a torn ACL he suffered during spring training last year, marring an opportunity to start opening day.

Stroman, 24, was the No. 22 selection in the 2012 amateur draft. In 2014, he went 11-6 with a 3.65 ERA in 26 appearances. Stroman is 16-6, with a 3.31 ERA in 165.2 career innings pitched.