{"id":356920,"date":"2025-12-20T04:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T04:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356920\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T04:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T04:11:07","slug":"canadas-fall-love-affair-with-the-blue-jays-makes-them-the-countrys-sports-story-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356920\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s fall love affair with the Blue Jays makes them the country\u2019s sports story of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. celebrates their Game 5 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers.Mark J. Terrill\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The picture of the two men watching that ball go over the wall was the Sliding Doors moment of that World Series. <\/p>\n

One guy had a look that said, \u2018Wait. I think we\u2019re going to win this thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

The other guy: \u2019Wait. We could lose this.\u2019<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Congrats on the loss, Toronto. It was a masterpiece<\/a><\/p>\n

With apologies to Team Canada at February\u2019s 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\u2019s reaction to it. Lots of teams win when they shouldn\u2019t, and most of them do it in style. But few have ever done it with such a sense of timing. <\/p>\n

Cast your mind back to the hours before the Jays played the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the American League Division Series<\/a>. What were you doing? I\u2019m going to guess it wasn\u2019t getting ready to devote yourself monastically to an entire month of baseball. <\/p>\n

At that moment, the Jays were getting ready to blow it again. They\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n

Game 1 was the first wake-up slap across the nation\u2019s face. The Jays didn\u2019t just beat the Yankees. They humiliated them, 10-1. Game 2 was the backhander coming the other way. 13-7.<\/p>\n

Now the Jays had everyone\u2019s attention. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

This moment, of Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani watching the Toronto player’s ball take flight, is the Sliding Doors moment of the 2025 World Series, Cathal Kelly writes.David J. Phillip\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

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\u2019t be so bad, what with the Mariners all-round game and long history of disappointment. Losing to them would be an act of charity. <\/p>\n

The Jays dropped the first two games, and were wiped out in the second one. Oh well. Time to check in on hockey. <\/p>\n

Then the Jays went to Seattle and Obi-Wan-Kenobi\u2019d the Mariners into believing they were meant to pooch the series. They didn\u2019t run them over, as they had the Yankees. They just waited for Seattle to pop under the pressure. <\/p>\n

Coming back to Canada, Toronto was down 3-2. How do you explain to someone who wasn\u2019t there that you just knew the Jays were winning that series? Even now, you couldn\u2019t say how. It didn\u2019t make any sense. But you knew it to an absolute certainty. <\/p>\n

‘Totally, utterly obsessed’: Blue Jays spark a surge of interest in baseball from a new generation<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Asked about why the Jays were so good, Clement said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got the power of friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

You take a $500-million rock star, a couple of worn-out veteran pitchers, a guy who\u2019s been in the big leagues for a week who lives in his truck (though he didn\u2019t), a catcher shaped like a donut, a shortstop who can\u2019t run, then you throw in a few no-hopers that nobody else wanted, even for free, and voila \u2013 you haven\u2019t just built the perfect baseball team. You\u2019ve written a love story. <\/p>\n

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\u2019t. Because they had that thing. That spark. That magic. The whole team and all of Canada together. <\/p>\n

We were going to ride that wave of friendship all the way to baseball\u2019s promised land. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto rookie Trey Yesavage celebrates after a double play against Los Angeles in Oct., 2025. His first game with the team was in Sept., 2025, after rising through the organization’s minors.Luke Hales\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

They got so close. Technically, that Guerrero home run off Ohtani wasn\u2019t the closest \u2013 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 \u2013 at this point, it felt like every single soul in Canada was in on the action \u2013 knew they had it. It was theirs to take. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Signing Dylan Cease is a 2026 statement of intent for ambitious Blue Jays<\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the fun way everyone had hoped it would end, I\u2019ll 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. <\/p>\n

I think what people are actually saying is not that they regret the loss. It\u2019s that they regret that the run is over. That the 2025 Major League post-season has ended. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Other Canadian sports teams will win, maybe even in hockey. The Jays are well tooled to try again next year. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto Blue Jays celebrate after winning the AL East Division in Sept., 2025.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. celebrates their Game 5 win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,2922,82,8023],"class_list":{"0":"post-356920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-noastack","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-topstory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}