In 1993, I left Canada’s eastern coast and moved to Toronto for graduate school. I immediately fell in love. It can be hard for someone who is not from here to understand the vast distance, more than physical or geographic, separating Toronto from the Canadian Atlantic coastal communities where I grew up. Toronto was a place of endless possibility, and I know how cliche that sounds, but that makes it no less true for the twenty-something who disembarked straight into the euphoria of the Toronto Blue Jays winning their second straight World Series. I leapt to my feet when Joe Carter’s walk-off home run cleared the left field wall and ran to join the throngs on Yonge Street.
It took 32 years for Toronto to make it back. No celebration this time.
The Blue Jays playoff 2025 playoff run inspired a nationwide explosion of love and devotion that was almost unprecedented. They became Canada’s team not simply by default - they are the only major league based in Canada since the departure of my beloved Montreal Expos twenty years ago—but by adoption; a full-hearted embrace unseen in recent years.
It is important to note that the Blue Jays are owned by Rogers Communications, owners of the largest Canadian sports television network, as well as of a controlling interest in Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment (MLSE) (owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Football Club, and the Toronto Argonauts). Rogers also owns the cable TV and cellphone accounts of millions of Canadians. If you are into sports, Rogers controls both media and message. With all the corporate bandwagon jumping, there’s a faint whiff of astroturf, a manufactured national rally. It’s easy to be cynical about the enthusiasm of this past fall.
I am not a cynic. Certainly not about baseball.
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