TORONTO -- From a live performance by manager Charlie Montoyo on the congas to stories of general manager Ross Atkins’ guitar lessons and a guest appearance from Ryan Borucki’s hairless cat, Dobby, the Blue Jays’ Virtual Variety Hour had a little bit of everything.

The event was held Monday evening over Zoom to support the club’s virtual food drive, From Home Plate to Your Plate, benefiting Food Banks Canada.

Connecting over Zoom or conference calls is the new normal for the Blue Jays players and front office personnel. It’s challenging, but Atkins has been encouraged by the relationships being built, even at a distance.

“What feels so powerful is that we’re bonding in very different ways,” Atkins said. “How we’re connecting, our resources are different, and we are having face-to-face interactions, they’re just via conferences, via FaceTime. We’re connecting in ways we haven’t before, and that’s been very gratifying, but there’s no doubt that we can’t wait to be in person and on baseball fields again.”

Atkins’ decision to pick up a guitar was sparked when a Blue Jays staff member set a goal: to hit a home run at Rogers Centre. They trained and eventually pulled it off, leading to a challenge for their entire baseball operations staff to learn a new skill. Atkins has been taking weekly lessons with his daughter during the shutdown.

Montoyo wasn’t buying it when Atkins downplayed his progress, though.

“He’s being humble, I’m telling you," Montoyo said. "I told him to send me a video of him playing, and I thought he was going to be slow, but when he started playing, I thought, ‘Hold on, that’s pretty cool. I’ve got to play with him.’”

Bobblehead Biggio
Players are notorious collectors of memorabilia. For Cavan Biggio, it’s bobbleheads.

“I owe the start of it to my dad,” Biggio said. “Towards the end of his career, he started grabbing two bobbleheads -- one for me, one for my brother -- at every ballpark that he could. All of the bobbleheads I have are from guys towards the early 2000s. It all started with my dad, and I’ve been trying to grow it myself.”

Fitness with J.P.
Former Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia joined the show and offered up some fitness advice for those who are looking to get off the couch after a long time spent indoors.

“Start small. If you’re not at a current level of fitness, start with just walking,” Arencibia said. “Do jumping jacks, do sit ups, do different things. What you realize is, it stinks at the beginning, but as you continue to do it, it gets you in a good frame of mind.”

Arencibia has stayed in shape since his playing days, leading to the line of the night from Borucki.

“Hey J.P., you know they sell mediums and larges, right?” Borucki said. “You don’t have to buy the small.”

Toronto tidbits
• Montoyo says that he’s the “PE teacher” for his sons' homeschooling, but he’s not a hard marker. “If you don’t get an ‘A’ in my class, you’ve got problems.”

• Borucki took some heat from his teammates for his hairless cat, but he’s also the club’s reality TV connoisseur.

• Scott Downs has been bowling competitively since retirement and has had a couple of 300 games in the past six months. Behind Downs on the Zoom call was a wall of framed jerseys, with Roy Halladay’s No. 32 centred in the top row between Derek Jeter and Tom Glavine.

• Casey Janssen’s dream golf foursome? Him, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady and Kobe Bryant.

• Danny Jansen has been staying at Rowdy Tellez’s place in Florida while Tellez is home in California.

• Jansen was voted the likeliest to set off a fire alarm with his cooking, but he ensured Tellez that his building was still standing. Biggio was voted likeliest to be invited to New York Fashion Week, while Borucki was accurately voted the likeliest to go viral with a TikTok dance.