Blue Jays tap into transformative connection of 2025 one last time

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The last time Toronto got together at the Rogers Centre for a big night out, a dream died. Perhaps you are like me and don’t remember it in details. That’s how it usually works with disasters.

My only vivid memories of Game 7 are the moments just before and just after L.A.’s Will Smith hit what would turn out to be the winning home run.

In the seconds before the ball came off Smith’s bat, the room was throbbing. I remember being struck by how well the audience had recovered from the shock of the ninth inning.

These optimists still thought the Jays were going to win this thing. Here they were, lining the deck of the Titanic, telling each other they’d heard there were plenty of lifeboats left. They were literally dancing in the aisles.

Then Smith hit the ball.

Everything in the room stopped. Stopped dead, like we were all in a science-fiction movie. It was uncanny.

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And as you swivelled, taking it in, your eye settled on the visitors’ dugout. That one, small rectangle was alive with motion. You knew then that it was over.

I thought it was a Thelma and Louise way to go out, maybe the most interesting thing the Jays had ever done and was pretty excited about it, but I’m told I’m in the minority. Most people took it like a death in the non-immediate family. Friday night’s pregame was ostensibly for them.

This wasn’t a celebration. No matter how glorious they might have been, no healthy culture celebrates its defeats. Instead, this started off with the feel of a funeral. The old gang was getting back together to watch the Jays bury the 2025 season.

First, they did that thing you do with friends who are always late. First pitch was at 7:42 p.m., but they lied and told everybody to be there by 7:07 p.m. So the stands were full for the prelims.

Everybody’s tolerance for a sports video montage differs. If you are for them, Friday was your Citizen Kane.

For the better part of 10 minutes, the Jays went through every major face and moment in the franchise’s five decades. I believe I saw every starter on the 1985 club, my ur-Jays team.

Eventually, they worked their way up to last year. There was a long reminder of how the team got to to the playoffs, and then how they got through the playoffs. It ended at the win over Seattle.

At that point, the perspective shifted to videos taken by the fans in the stands during that run, laid on top of messages from random supporters. What a brilliant idea. It was electric to watch.

When George Springer hit the home run that beat the Mariners in replay, shown from a series of shaky phone cameras through thickets of raised arms, Friday’s crowd reacted as if they were seeing it for the first time.

The lights went up and the focus shifted to the players on the field. Many looked rattled, in a good way.

Springer and Vlad Guerrero addressed the crowd. You couldn’t hear them over the din. Something about finishing the job. Then a banner dropped. And that was it.

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No mention was made, nor visual reminder displayed, of how the World Series ended. I guess the idea is, ‘Remember the good times.’

What a mistake. The beauty of that run was, at least in part, that just when you thought you couldn’t take any more, you were forced to. Game 7 wasn’t a game at all. It was a life lesson.

Those who saw it will never forget it. Those who were actually there will never get over it. That was as close as this city is ever getting to Woodstock. That depth of history was not improved by reshooting it with a happy ending.

However, it is very Canadian to bowdlerize our own epic adventure in the retelling so that it doesn’t upset any one. On a cultural sensitivity scale, the Jays get an 11 out of 10.

Maybe I’m projecting, but it seemed to play poorly in the room as well. When the ceremony moved to new business, the energy dipped. Even the most reliable cheer-getter – O Canada with the big flag – drew a muted response.

The team wanted to move on, but it didn’t seem like the crowd did. They were having too much fun thinking about the game as seen from the perspective they understand best – their own.

That’s what the fan-shot montage achieved so well. It reminded everyone that what made October great wasn’t the wins, or the play, or, really, even the team. Instead, it was the chance for regular people, many of them not sports fans, to focus on one fun thing together. There are fewer and fewer of those connective moments in our ostensibly connected world. We’re deep enough into the internet era to understand that when they happen, you had better grab them as hard as you can and hang on for dear life. You might be waiting a while for the next one.

So what now?

Baseball. Lots of it. As Kevin Gausman threw the first pitch, the season past faded into the one just arrived.

There is so much baseball to baseball that it is difficult to remember any particular moment of it. That’s one of the beauties of the game. It has a soothing sameness. In time, all you will remember about 2025 is how intensely it made you feel, and who you were with when you felt it.

Jays manager John Schneider said that he still has Game 7 nightmares – waking up suddenly, thinking about things he did that he would do differently now – but less so. You could probably say the same.

“It’s back to work,” Schneider said before Friday night’s first pitch. “This game does not wait for anyone.”

Nor does life. Isn’t it great to be alive?