TORONTO -- Jose Bautista has a baseball at his feet, dribbling it like a soccer ball, eventually kicking it toward the bucket of batting-practice balls that will have to serve as surrogate net. Soon, he will be blasting balls into the seats in right field in Rogers Centre, batting left-handed, crowing after each ball that clears the fence while bemused manager John Gibbons looks on. Moments later, Josh Donaldson is taking his swings left-handed, too.

“I was tempted to do the same as Baut’ and Donaldson,” said Chris Colabello, the powerful first baseman who hit the façade of the fifth deck with a ball he pulled from his natural side, “but I’m not at their level. Maybe in another five years or so.”

David Price, the left-handed pitcher, is vamping at short. Later, after Price has joined the rest of the pitching staff, Bautista and Colabello take over at short, fielding the ground balls that Donaldson is directing their way with a fungo bat. Donaldson is wearing a necklace of black beads.

“Gibby told Josh, now I know where all my wife’s jewelry goes,” Buck Martinez, the team’s broadcaster, relates to an onlooker, adding that of course Donaldson did not let Gibbons’ remark pass without a ribald riposte.

It is 24 hours before the Toronto Blue Jays will be playing the Texas Rangers for the right to advance to the American League Championship Series. They staved off elimination with back-to-back victories in Texas, and now they return home for the first win-or-go-home game they have faced since 24 years ago Tuesday, when they were beaten in the 1991 ALCS by the Minnesota Twins and series MVP Kirby Puckett.

No one needs to be reminded of what’s at stake. Asked how hyped he was on Tuesday, the day before nearly 50,000 towel-waving Blue Jays fans will fill Rogers Centre, Marcus Stroman, the 24-year-old right-hander who is starting against been-there, done-that Cole Hamels, the Texas left-hander, acknowledged some excitement.

“Probably say around a ‘10’ right now,” Stroman said. “And I can only imagine tomorrow. It’s going to be a lot of deep breaths on the mound.”

But at this optional Blue Jays workout Tuesday, high anxiety was denied admittance. This wasn’t quite as loose as the annual company picnic, but close.

“That’s the beauty of this team,” Colabello says. “The All-Star right fielder taking ground balls at short, guys taking left-handed swings, playing soccer. Every guy is just himself. They accept you who you are. You razz each other, but the guy standing next to you believes you’re the guy who can get it done. They never make you feel insecure or inferior.”

It’s an easy assumption to make, that Colabello, whose only postseason experience came during his seven years of playing independent league baseball for Worcester and Nashua, two old New England mill towns, might find his current circumstances a bit daunting. And you would be so wrong.

“The greatest thing to me about postseason baseball,” he said while sitting in the home dugout Tuesday afternoon, “is it takes just one moment to be a hero. You can go out and have the worst series of your life for four, five, six games, and do something in the decisive game that stands out for the rest of time. That’s a beautiful thing.

“That’s why you’re seeing baseball at its purest form. This is what baseball is like on the sandlot, because all you’re worried about is figuring out a way to beat the other guy. What you did your last at-bat doesn’t matter. What you’re going to do your next at-bat doesn’t matter. How many home runs you’ve hit in the past doesn’t matter. You can create one moment in time that can stand out, at least in your own mind, for a long time. Whenever I played in postseason in indy ball, I was so relaxed, because this is awesome. To not enjoy what you’re doing would be foolish.”

Colabello homered in Game 4 at Globe Life Park in Arlington, which trumped the unassisted double play he pulled off in Game 2 because the home run came in a winning cause. But the 31-year-old has long ago gotten past the “pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming” spin on what he admits is a highly unlikely odyssey to the big leagues, but one that shouldn’t by itself define him.

“I’ve been looking at it like that probably since my first week in the big leagues,” said Colabello, whose initial big-league exposure came two years ago with the Minnesota Twins, the team that subsequently released him after last season. “Somebody said to me, ‘Do you believe this fairy tale, this and that?’ I expected this since I was 3 years old, and it’s never wavered.

“I think belief in yourself is something that ends up making you who you are as a player more than anything else. I don’t think I’m special because of my story. Everybody here has got a story, whether it’s R.A. [Dickey] or Josh. We all have a path we carved out to get to the big leagues. I don’t want to be thought of as anything different. When everything is said and done, I want to be thought of as Chris Colabello, major league baseball player, not Chris Colabello, the guy who came from indy ball.”

Granted, Colabello will admit his story had more than its share of potential dead ends. He remembers how excited he was in the days before the draft when he was summoned, a local college star from Division II Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Fenway Park to try out for the Boston Red Sox, the team that filled his childhood dreams.

“I remember being pretty happy with my workout,” he said. “I remember when I left, I talked to my mom and dad and one of my best friends who had come along. I said, ‘I think we did it. If that wasn’t good enough to get drafted, I don’t know what is.’”

On draft day, the phone never rang. It would not be the only time the Red Sox would disappoint. A year later, they invited him to try out again, this time during spring training in Florida. They told him they were going to sign him. A few days passed, and when the Detroit Tigers offered to sign him instead, the Red Sox wished him luck. At the end of that spring, he was released by the Tigers.

“I didn’t know how things worked at the time,” he said. “I was like a deer in headlights. ‘Man, I’m going to get to play for an affiliate, great.’ I’m a 22-year-old kid, I don’t know anything. Here comes the end of camp, I get released. I’m like, ‘I haven’t even played yet, what do you mean I’m getting released?’

“It was kind of a rude awakening to the way things worked in the business of baseball. A lot of times it’s a numbers game, things like that. If you’re not a prospect, it’s very easy to get pushed aside. Little did I realize it wouldn’t be till seven years later I’d get another shot at it.”

But what might have been the end game for some was just the beginning for Colabello. Rich Gedman, the former Red Sox catcher, was the manager of the Worcester Tornadoes, no more than a 30-minute drive from Colabello’s home. Gedman, a Worcester kid who had gone undrafted but wound up in the big leagues by the age of 20, offered Colabello a chance to play. He gained so much more.

“I was fortunate in so many ways,” he said. “Call it stubbornness, call it naiveté, call it whatever you want, but I was fortunate in the sense that I played close to home. That first year in Worcester, that was the cream of the crop in terms of indy ball. Rich made it a point to make it more about player development and guys getting an opportunity to get back to an affiliate or to an affiliate for the first time. They treated us like gold, and I loved it.

“We ended up winning the championship that year, and it was magical. Barring this season with this team, that’s the most fun I ever had playing baseball. Just a band of brothers who played the game hard. You couldn’t find five guys in that clubhouse who cared more about what they did than what the team did.”

It wasn’t all magic. No sooner had he signed than the Tornadoes had to drop him, temporarily. The team had to sign another catcher because one of their rostered players didn’t have his visa in order and couldn’t make a road trip to Canada. For a couple of weeks, Colabello played on the Lunenburg Phillies, a semipro team, before being reinstated. Deeper into his time in Worcester, he was shocked to learn he had been traded, to Nashua, New Hampshire, which wound up being a plus, since Colabello got to play for another ex-big leaguer, Butch Hobson, while leading Nashua to a championship. And the money? All you need to know is that Colabello worked as a substitute teacher to make ends meet until he started pulling in enough cash from the hitting clinics he would give.

Gedman was playing golf Monday, so he missed Colabello’s home run. But the two have remained close.

“You hit .300 every year, you have some ability, wherever you’re playing," Gedman said by phone Tuesday. “He had a great desire to learn the game, and had great support from his family. They encouraged him to pursue his dream, to keep doing what he loved to do.”

As much as you can acquire a following in indy ball, Colabello had it with the Tornadoes. He was in demand as a speaker, at clinics, a fan favorite in and out of season. And he set his compass by Gedman.

“He’s like a surrogate father, big brother, mentor, idol,” Colabello said. “People ask you who are the five people dead or alive you’d like to have dinner with. They say Mike Trout, Lincoln, whatever. Rich Gedman is one of my five. Every time he speaks -- I used this word with him this winter -- I told him, you mesmerize me. I’m so in awe of him as a person, player, coach because he gets it. I was very fortunate to be around him. I clung to him, I guess like a tick.

“I always thought it would be so stupid for me to not pay attention to everything this guy has to say, because he’s been where I want to be. He’s been at the highest levels. He’s been an All-Star, been to the World Series. Rich will always say, ‘I wasn’t that good,’ but that’s the whole point. He’s a guy who was overlooked in the draft, wasn’t supposed to get there. That’s my hero. I was the same guy. Granted, our paths went two different ways, but I guarantee you at 18 nobody would have given you a dime for Rich Gedman.”

While in Worcester, Colabello also developed a tight friendship with a teammate, Bobby Tewksbary, who was as passionate in his study of hitting as Colabello was. You might have seen Tewksbary at this year’s All-Star Game. He was the guy pitching to Donaldson, another Tewksbary disciple, in the Home Run Derby.

“You figure yourself out, you figure out your identity, how to do things within the swing," Colabello said. “With Bobby, I learned how to become accountable for how I swung the bat. I started understanding the way I move is dictated by me and only me, and the way I move has a huge impact on my performance as a hitter. That’s some stuff we talk about, being aware of how your body moves in space, things like that. Having the best way to swing, the most efficient way to swing that allows you to make adjustments within the swing, barrel path, things like that.”

Such discussions for a layman, of course, are like listening to any masters discussing their art. But beyond technique, there is this, something Colabello believes is fundamental to the success he has had. It’s why Monday’s home run was not a “pinch-me” moment.

“I say this with full conviction,” Colabello said. “If you don’t believe that a moment can happen, it can’t. My biggest concern these last four days has been to help this team win baseball games, whatever way that is. Regardless of whether you’re playing in front of 50,000 in the ALDS or 3,000 at Fitton Field in Worcester, the goal is still the same.

“Obviously, talent’s important. I don’t want to sell myself short and say I’m not a talented baseball player. I’ve worked to make the adjustments my whole life to figure out how to be successful wherever I was. Once I realized that the major leagues was kind of the same thing, I think it gave me a peace of mind. Josh and I had a conversation this winter. He told me: ‘Expect to be in those moments. That way they don’t overwhelm you when they happen.’ That’s what I think I’ve done all year.

“Call me crazy, but this game will forever be a part of me. My mind is never going stop developing. People are going to say how happy I was with the year I had. I can go back to the drawing board and tell you 100 things I want to do differently, that I want to adjust next year and be better at. I’m not content. The day I feel content in this game is the day I’m ready to retire, and I don’t see that happening for a long time.”

He might never have had a single at-bat, Colabello said, that he hasn’t visualized in advance. Game 5 of the ALDS on Wednesday will be no different.

“I’m so excited, just thinking about how the crowd sounded the first two games here," he said. “We owed it to this place after we lost the first two to get it to Game 5. We owed it to the fans, we owed it to ourselves, we owed it to everybody in this organization. To get to see this place tomorrow, I can’t wait.

“Even just thinking about it gives me goosebumps. These are the moments you live for, the things you dream about when you’re at a Little League field and you say, ‘Hey, I’m so and so.’”

And maybe, depending on how the rest of October unfolds, there will someday be a kid who says, “Hey, I’m Chris Colabello.” Imagine that.