Cease has a new hobby -- and you won't be able to take your eyes off it

TORONTO -- John Schneider’s work to support the local art community has begun with an installation in his office to showcase an up-and-coming painter … Dylan Cease.

When reporters walked into Schneider’s office Tuesday afternoon, there was a new painting on the right wall that was impossible to look away from. As the Blue Jays’ manager spoke, eyes kept drifting over to the abstract eruption of colors, flowers and the word “TORONTO” sprawled out in every possible direction.

By the time microphones finally shut off, we could ask the question we’d all been waiting to ask, which is where on earth that painting came from. If you didn’t already know the answer, “Dylan Cease” wouldn’t have been in your first thousand guesses.

“Dylan did say that you can post his painting,” Schneider said when reporters walked back in on Wednesday. “It will enhance his art career, he said. If the baseball thing falls through and the $210 million falls through, he’s got art.”

Look more closely and you’ll see that Cease has signed the painting multiple times. Cease’s art, like so many of the greats, might not be fully understood in its time. Schneider has been waiting on it, though, and that right corner of his office could turn into a rotating gallery of Cease originals.

“Well, he agreed to give me a painting for [my] office when we signed him,” Schneider said. “I wish you guys had heard the conversation, because I had him and [Max] Scherzer in here two nights ago at 6:30 p.m. talking about painting and pitching. It was great. I was almost late to the game.”

This fits right into Cease’s personality; he’s an eccentric who is always a day away from completely losing himself to a new hobby. Lately, he has been fascinated by vintage tees, scoring what he called his “Aladdin grail,” a tee from the original 1992 release of Aladdin with Robin Williams’ Genie on the front. Other times, it’s disc golf, cigars, maybe fine wine.

It’s just another layer to one of the most interesting men in baseball who, in his new manager, has found a patron of the arts.