Winning at America’s Game, the Toronto Blue Jays Bear Hug a Nation
The Dodgers are reserved, polished to a Hollywood gloss with the biggest payroll in baseball. The Blue Jays are nervy and cheeky and play with exuberance. Some of their best postseason performers other teams gave up on. The Jays, in a nod to Canada’s pastime, use a hockey goal horn to mark home runs.
The Blue Jays are the right team at the right time for a country that has spent much of this year rallying around the flag, asserting its identity and independence from its longtime ally and pushing back against an American president threatening Canada’s sovereignty.
The Blue Jays play the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Rogers Centre in Toronto in Game 1 of the World Series, with the first pitch scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern time. The Dodgers, with the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, are the defending champions. The Blue Jays haven’t been here since 1993, when they won their second consecutive title.
Image: Paul Chiasson/Associated Press