Canada’s fall love affair with the Blue Jays makes them the country’s sports story of the year

Like all revolutions no one saw coming, there was a high-water mark of the Toronto Blue Jays once-in-a-generation run through October.

Around 6 p.m. PT, Oct. 28, the third inning of Game 4. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. waiting to turn on an off-speed pitch by Shohei Ohtani, pushing it up and just over the left-field wall. Ohtani whipping around so quickly to see it fly that he could have slipped a disc.

The picture of the two men watching that ball go over the wall was the Sliding Doors moment of that World Series.

One guy had a look that said, ‘Wait. I think we’re going to win this thing.’

The other guy: ’Wait. We could lose this.’

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With apologies to Team Canada at February’s 4 Nations Face-Off, the Blue Jays were the Canadian sports story of the year. Maybe the sports story of the year, full-stop. Even Americans seemed to get that there was something special about the team, its moment and a country’s reaction to it. Lots of teams win when they shouldn’t, and most of them do it in style. But few have ever done it with such a sense of timing.

Cast your mind back to the hours before the Jays played the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the American League Division Series. What were you doing? I’m going to guess it wasn’t getting ready to devote yourself monastically to an entire month of baseball.

At that moment, the Jays were getting ready to blow it again. They’d staggered into the post-season, turning an uncatchable five-game lead with two weeks to go into a head-first-dive-across-the-line tie for first.

Game 1 was the first wake-up slap across the nation’s face. The Jays didn’t just beat the Yankees. They humiliated them, 10-1. Game 2 was the backhander coming the other way. 13-7.

Now the Jays had everyone’s attention.

Going into the ALCS against Seattle, same routine. Toronto baseball fans went out of their way to explain to themselves how getting beaten by Seattle wouldn’t be so bad, what with the Mariners all-round game and long history of disappointment. Losing to them would be an act of charity.

The Jays dropped the first two games, and were wiped out in the second one. Oh well. Time to check in on hockey.

Then the Jays went to Seattle and Obi-Wan-Kenobi’d the Mariners into believing they were meant to pooch the series. They didn’t run them over, as they had the Yankees. They just waited for Seattle to pop under the pressure.

Coming back to Canada, Toronto was down 3-2. How do you explain to someone who wasn’t there that you just knew the Jays were winning that series? Even now, you couldn’t say how. It didn’t make any sense. But you knew it to an absolute certainty.

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It was something about the clubhouse. At this point, the Jays had become internationally famous for forming a platonic love cult in downtown Toronto. Ernie Clement was their emoting guru.

Asked about why the Jays were so good, Clement said, “We’ve got the power of friendship.”

It was this, even more so than the winning, that people responded to. That this bunch of random jocks had all looked across a diamond at some point and found each other.

You take a $500-million rock star, a couple of worn-out veteran pitchers, a guy who’s been in the big leagues for a week who lives in his truck (though he didn’t), a catcher shaped like a donut, a shortstop who can’t run, then you throw in a few no-hopers that nobody else wanted, even for free, and voila – you haven’t just built the perfect baseball team. You’ve written a love story.

By the time George Springer put the ball over the wall in Game 7, all of Canada was in on a secret. Yes, the Jays should lose to the Dodgers. But no, they wouldn’t. Because they had that thing. That spark. That magic. The whole team and all of Canada together.

We were going to ride that wave of friendship all the way to baseball’s promised land.

They got so close. Technically, that Guerrero home run off Ohtani wasn’t the closest – that would be two outs left in the ninth in Game 7. But it was the moment the power shifted and all the new fans – at this point, it felt like every single soul in Canada was in on the action – knew they had it. It was theirs to take.

With the benefit of mental rewind, my other indelible image of the series is the moment before Miguel Rojas came to bat against Jeff Hoffman. They were literally dancing in the aisles at the Rogers Centre. The whole building was undulating, making a noise so loud and so steady that it hurt.

Then Rojas put it over the bullpen in left and all that human movement stopped. The only thing still moving was a little commotion all the way across the field, inside the Dodgers dugout.

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It wasn’t the fun way everyone had hoped it would end, I’ll grant you that. I still meet people who talk about it like a death in the family. Not someone close, but someone they really liked.

I think what people are actually saying is not that they regret the loss. It’s that they regret that the run is over. That the 2025 Major League post-season has ended.

For a month there, you had your purpose, and you shared it with all of your neighbours. You went to work and you came home and you turned on the baseball game and you pulled as hard for the Jays as you felt they were pulling for you.

Other Canadian sports teams will win, maybe even in hockey. The Jays are well tooled to try again next year.

But I wonder if any of those winners will create the same pan-national feeling of renewal and pride that the Jays managed this year. I kind of hope not. That way, all those who were along for that ride get to keep the feeling of it to themselves.

Camellia Mcnaught
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