Fans and players watch a pregame ceremony prior to the season-opening game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Athletics in Toronto on Friday.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
John Schneider remembers his first opening day as a professional baseball player. It was 2002 and he was a Blue Jays farmhand with the Class-A Auburn Doubledays in the New York-Pennsylvania League.
“I was a little surprised that our uniforms were hung on the outfield fence to dry,” Toronto’s manager said Friday before his club commenced its 50th-anniversary season. “We got peanut-butter sandwiches in a paper bag and I thought it was great.”
Things have changed a bit since then as Schneider begins his fourth full season as the Blue Jays bench boss.
A sellout crowd welcomed the club back. A banner was raised to celebrate Toronto’s unexpected 2025 American League pennant, its first in more than three decades. The Los Angeles Dodgers (boo, hiss) spoiled a fantastic run to the World Series by beating the Jays in extra innings in Game 7.
The Toronto Blue Jays unveiled a new banner before Friday's game against the Athletics.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
But there is always something special about the season opener.
“They are so magnified. Today it means a little more. We’ve been here before, been through good and bad and it feels like we fit,” Schneider said.
“When you tie in the 50th anniversary, the excitement around the team and some of things that are going to be unveiled today, it will be special.”
Toronto went from last in the American League East Division in 2024 to first a year later. It leapfrogged the New York Yankees after sweeping them in the Bronx in four games in July, held on to beat them by a nose at the wire and then eliminated them during the playoffs.
Kevin Gausman was on the hill for Game 1 of 162. Dylan Cease will take the mound for Saturday’s afternoon contest against the Athletics. They are the only team in the league without a city attached to their nickname because they used to play in Oakland and are now temporarily posted out of West Sacramento, Calif., while waiting for a new stadium to be built in Las Vegas.
No multiple World Series-winning team wants to brag about its West Sacramento environs.
Cease will be in the spotlight all season after Toronto handed him a seven-year, US$210-million-dollar contract, the most it has ever paid a free agent.
The music was thumping and the crowd was abuzz and joyous at Rogers Centre. That’s the way it is supposed to be on opening day, even if you root for the Colorado Rockies.
It would be special for Kazuma Okamoto, the long-time Nippon Professional Baseball star who jumped to the major leagues in January to sign with the Blue Jays.
Kazuma Okamoto gets ready to make his major-league debut on Friday against the Athletics.Cole Burston/Getty Images
He took in his first Toronto Maple Leafs game with teammates this week and on Thursday received his first Topps big-league card.
For others, opening day was special for other reasons.
The club’s other Schneider – infielder/outfielder Davis – was just happy to be there. On Wednesday he was the last player to learn that he made the roster.
“I was on pins and needles a little bit,” he said in the clubhouse several hours before the first pitch. “I know it’s part of the game and that I could be sent to the minors two weeks from now.
“It feels like we just left, and that’s what you want as a ball player. You want to be one of the last teams playing.”