{"id":823064,"date":"2026-07-24T12:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823064\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T12:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:50:08","slug":"jays-alumni-hope-history-doesnt-repeat-itself-as-labour-strife-looms-in-off-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823064\/","title":{"rendered":"Jays alumni hope history doesn’t repeat itself as labour strife looms in off-season"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 One of the biggest names in Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> history is hoping that history doesn\u2019t repeat itself.<\/p>\n

After winning the 1992 and 1993 World Series, the Blue Jays had set their sights on a three-peat as Major League Baseball champions. Toronto was already muddling through the 1994 season with a return to the playoffs likely out of reach when the players\u2019 association went on strike, making a late-season comeback impossible.<\/p>\n

After 32 years of labour peace, the possibility of another disruption looms this December, and those Blue Jays alumni are hoping that cooler heads prevail.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball is a very expensive sport. Guys are making a lot of money, and it\u2019s costing the fans who deserve to come out and watch everyone play,\u201d said Joe Carter on Saturday after a statue honouring Toronto\u2019s back-to-back championships was unveiled outside Rogers Centre. \u201cBut it\u2019s getting very expensive for the fans to come out so something has to happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully there will not be a stoppage because baseball right now is going at as high as it\u2019s ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baseball\u2019s current five-year labour contract expires Dec. 1 and a management lockout is expected that would halt off-season trades and signings, and threaten the start of spring training workouts on Feb. 9 and opening day on March 24.<\/p>\n

In May, MLB proposed a salary cap for the first time since players fought off a similar proposal during the 7 1\/2-month strike in 1994-95 that led to the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years. Players vow never to accept a cap.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays could have become the fourth team to win three or more World Series in a row, joining the New York Yankees<\/a> (1936-39, 1949-53) and Oakland Athletics<\/a> (1972-74). When the 1994 season ended on Aug. 11 of that year, Toronto was third in the East Division, with a 55-60 record, 16 games back of first-place New York.<\/p>\n

Even with the Blue Jays well back of the Yankees there was still a good chance the World Series would stay north of the border as the 74-40 Montreal Expos had the best record in baseball when play was stopped.<\/p>\n

Instead, the 1994 season was lost and the Yankees (1998-2000) became the fourth and most recent team to win three consecutive World Series.<\/p>\n

Catcher Pat Borders, who was the 1992 World Series MVP, said that he was exhausted after Toronto\u2019s back-to-back championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so wore out, or at least I was. I can say that I was,\u201d he said on Saturday. \u201cI think mentally more so than even physically. When you stretch it from spring training all through that extra month of playing through the World Series, and then ending with the tremendous concentration you have from pitch to pitch, getting little sleep in between games because you\u2019re thinking about the next game, how to attack the different pitchers, different hitters, whatever it may be. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know personally, I was completely exhausted in \u201994, and I think it was reflected in our record at the time the strike happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2026.<\/p>\n

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 One of the biggest names in Toronto Blue Jays history is hoping that history doesn\u2019t repeat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-823064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823064","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=823064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}