Toronto To Run To

I’ve since resolved at least one of them by reading up on the history of the Blue Jays and the mysterious geometry of baseball rules.

But that’s not today’s story.
Today is about fever.

A cross-border fever that has filled every seat since Game 3 of the World Series.
The fever of Team Canada.
The fever that resurfaces every few decades — every time the Blue Jays make us believe that the impossible is just an inning away.

Yesterday, on the first of November 2025, the whole country held its breath — for eleven innings.
The Jays haven’t won a World Series since 1993.
Back then, Joe Carter’s home run made a nation dance.
Yesterday, the dream almost replayed itself — in the same city, under a different roof.

Saturday Night Live

Toronto. Saturday night.
The Rogers Centre refuses to empty.
Four small digits on the scoreboard: 5–4.
After eleven innings, every hopeful inkling has left the building.
A solo home run by Will Smith, one last breath from Yoshinobu Yamamoto —
and the Dodgers carry away the trophy.
We carry the silence.

But it wasn’t truly a loss.
It was a final moment that replayed every heartbeat of the weeks before.
Bo Bichette nearly lifted the roof in the third — his three-run blast chased Shohei Ohtani off the mound.
For one shining inning, 1993 wasn’t history. It was happening again.
Then came the ninth: Miguel Rojas tied it.
And in the eleventh, Will Smith (of course!) sent Toronto’s blue hopes over the fence and out of reach.

As a near-complete novice, I wanted to understand why this ending hurt so much.
So I went back — to Game 3, to Los Angeles, to that 18-inning marathon so long that hope and disbelief changed sides four times.
Dodger Freddie Freeman ended it with a walk-off — his second in World Series history, and Toronto’s second heartbreak.
And yet, that absurd 18-inning drama proved one thing:
The Blue Jays are neither boastful nor broken.

Game 6 – Toronto

A moment burned into the city’s memory.
Addison Barger’s line drive into the gap — the ball wedged itself in the padding.
No tie, no rally, just the tidy disposal of expectation.
Baseball isn’t cruel.
It’s correct.
And in that precision lies its cruelty.

That the Jays made it this far was no fluke.
It felt more like a grand renovation of an entire franchise.
After 1993 came the long quiet decades.
2015 and 2016 were brief flares of noise.
But 2025 — that was a statement.
Toronto decided to finish the story properly this time —
with a well-earned, imperfect, beautiful ending.

What Remains

Baseball, in the end, isn’t decided by justice — but by margins:
the edge of the strike zone,
the edge of the wall,
the edge of the nerves in inning eleven.
On that edge, Toronto balanced with grace.

Max Scherzer opened the door; Shane Bieber tried to close it;
and then Will Smith swung just wide enough for Yamamoto to walk through.
Call it bad luck.
Call it timing.
Call it the mathematics of a game where 27 outs per team feel like forever — and still aren’t enough.

There are losses that shrink achievement.
This one enlarges it.
It magnifies Bo Bichette’s swing,
Guerrero Jr.’s quiet authority,
and the understanding in that clubhouse that victory and heartbreak are never separate stories.

It magnifies a city that has learned that baseball — this strange, slow, exacting game — mirrors its soul:
loud when it matters,
silent when it hurts.

Will it heal?
Yes.
Slowly.
It heals when April smells like cut grass again.
When a rookie in May hits the ball so cleanly that we forget, for one second, what November felt like.
It heals when Toronto adds to its strong core,
and when we remember that this team has already given us something a parade could never replace:
meaning.

Yesterday, the Blue Jays lost.
Today, they still have our faith.
Tomorrow, we’ll count strikes and balls again —
and someday, another team will sit in the visitor’s dugout and feel what the Dodgers felt last night:

That you never, ever have Toronto safely beaten.
Not in the third.
Not after eighteen.
Not after ten.
And not when the city glows blue.