Going to the Toronto Blue Jays home opener is about more than just watching a baseball game for many fans. For Graham Holmes, it is about keeping up with tradition, one that he had maintained for the last 37 years but won’t be able to keep this season amid higher ticket costs and increased demand following the team’s improbable run to Game 7 of the World Series.
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“It crushes me,” Holmes said with a strained voice during an interview CTV News Toronto. “Traditions are meant to be kept and it’s just like they’re pricing you out.”
Holmes said his son attempted to get seats for the home opener when they first went on sale in January but tickets vanished within 15 minutes with the cheapest seats priced at $147.
Holmes said he typically looks for more affordable seats in the 500-level but was effectively priced out this year, bringing a sudden end to his decades-long streak of consecutive home openers that dates back to 1988.
“Two years ago, they (tickets) were $35, last year they went up to $50, and this year the went up to $150, $170,” Holmes said. “I understand we did well in the World Series last year and everything, but, come on, that’s just unaffordable for a lot of people.”
While there are still some seats available on resale sites like StubHub—with the cheapest available for approximately $100 as of publication—Holmes said this year’s tickets are just out of his price point.
Holmes had been attending the first home game of the Blue Jays season before the franchise even moved to SkyDome (now Rogers Centre). His first two home openers were at Exhibition Stadium – in 1988 and 1989. The Jays ultimately held their first game in the SkyDome a few months into the season and Holmes has attended every home opener held in the building.
Graham Holmes Graham Holmes (centre) at a Toronto Blue Jays home game at Rogers Centre.
“Exhibition Stadium was, I mean, we can all admit it was a bit of a dump,” the 61-year-old recounted. “I think I had outfield seats for that one, and they weren’t even lined up with the diamond because it was the old grandstand there.”
Holmes didn’t think he started a tradition back then, but the years would pass, and each year he would find himself returning to the stadium to watch the Jays kick off their season. So, he thought: “I’m gonna keep doing this.”
Holmes can still remember the very first time he took his eldest son to his first home game, when he was barely a year old.
“I remember having him on a leash in (the) SkyDome,” Holmes said, with a chuckle. “I bought four tickets just so that he wouldn’t interrupt anybody else.”
Holmes was one of dozens of people who reached out to CTV News after a callout seeking Blue Jays fans who have attended nearly every home opener last month.
Their explanation of why they have kept the tradition up year in and year out was nearly the same: they would go with each passing year to maintain a tradition with their loved ones, bonding in blue and white in the stands of the stadium.
Nick Colantonio, 49, would bring his nephew, sitting a row above the bullpen, so they could have a chance to mingle with the starting players. Colantonio says they would plan to get to the dugout early to try to get an autograph.
“Back then, like when I started going in ’99, I was living at home, so money was more available,” Colantonio told CTV News Toronto. “I would go to more games and take my nephew, he’s 25 now.”
For Quoc Truong, 40, attending the first home game of the season isn’t just for the love of baseball—it’s for commemorating a memory and holding onto a tradition that means everything.
For nearly two decades, Truong said he and his brother would go to the home opener together. Even after his brother’s death about a decade ago, Truong kept going as a way to quietly honour the bond they had built while sitting together at the arena.
Quoc Truong A photograph of Quoc Truong attending a Toronto Blue Jays game with his late brother Quy Truong.
“For the last 10 years, I’ve been going without him,” Truong said in an interview with CTV News Toronto.
As a tribute to his brother, Truong says he puts on his Alex Anthopoulos jersey for the season opener game—a piece of memorabilia his brother once gave him after confidently predicting Anthopoulos would one day lead the franchise as general manager.
Now, the tradition is evolving once again for Truong. While he is often joined by his relatives, Truong soon hopes to pass it down to his son, who is expected to be born this April.
“Hopefully he falls in love with the Jays as much as I do, too,” Truong said. “It’s a very special moment.”
For Truong, the Blue Jays have been more than just a baseball team. They are a thread connecting his past to his future; a reminder of childhood, family, and what it means to belong.
Quoc Truong Quoc Truong wearing a Toronto Blue Jays bomber jacket with his late brother Quy Truong inside of Rogers Centre.
Truong said he first moved to Canada from Vietnam in 1990, and the energy seen and felt in the city when the Jays clinched their first World Series win was “eye-opening.”
“People are jumping on my dad’s car, and then the excitement, my mom, my dad, screaming … like ‘What the hell (are) these people doing, there’s lunatics jumping on the car,’” Truong said. “Then me, I’m just like, ‘Wow, this, I want to be part of this.’”
It was a moment that not only ignited his love of baseball, but one that shaped his sense of what it means to be a Canadian. Truong called it his “Canadian initiation.”
“It’s kind of my identity as a Canadian,” Truong said. “Last year, when Springer hit the home run, I was at the game, tears running down my eyes. For me, that’s like my true Canadian moment. The Blue Jays allow me to have that moment.”
Tonight’s home opener is set for 7 p.m. at the Rogers Centre with a special pre-game ceremony to celebrate the Jays American League championship season.
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Jermaine Wilson