This wasn’t supposed to happen!
On Wednesday after Game 5 Toronto victory I was doing my research and gathering data on all the ways the underdog Blue Jays were returning home to a raucous home crowd to win the World Series. Well, here it is Sunday and it just shows how predicting the outcome of a major league baseball game is – well – next to impossible.
I was all set to describe how the Dodgers, with their record-breaking payroll, and as talented as they are — with players like Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Max Muncy, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and a couple other All-Stars — was simply not enough win it for the second straight season. And, how the underdog Blue Jays were the gutsier team, a more cohesive unit that simply wanted it more, and how teamwork and chemistry is a better ingredient and far superior on the Blue Jays side of the ball.
Ken Rosenwald was a bit more fatalistic in this piece in The Athletic. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6762468/2025/10/30/los-angeles-dodgers-world-series-elimination/
I even had a title for my summary called – “Here is why the Blue Jays Triumphed — a Great Achievement.” Well, I cannot write about how the Jays won the World Series this year but I can discuss how this Canadian team is more compelling and was a “better story” than the Dodgers.
The series results and all the action was what will be remembered above everything else but the performance and the “story of the Blue Jays season” will not be forgotten. I am born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and a San Francisco Giants fan through and through so I do have that bias when teams play the Dodgers but it is more than that.
The Blue Jays entered this series being serious underdogs to a loaded Dodger team that appeared to be unstoppable. It is a team that I am learning had an incredible connection to one another.
Hearing Shane Bieber (acquired late in the season) talk about his teammates was inspiring and told me playing for this team was infectious. His decision to exercise a player option and not become a free agent and forego millions of dollars was a sign of his desire to stay in Toronto for more than the money. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/shane-bieber-contract-blue-jays-16-million-player-option/Get a quote here.
It was like about players George Springer playing injured most of the final series, would hobble to the plate and get big hit after big hit. He revived his career this year in Toronto and it continued into the playoffs. Nobody will forget his 3-run homer in the Game 5 victory and dancing around the bases in Los Angeles.
And it was Bo Bichette’s contributions. He had missed the last 3 months of the season and not able to take the field until the start of the World Series. He was also able to perform at the plate (and in the field).
His 3-run homer in the first inning off Shoehi Othani in Game 7 appeared to be the winning blow going into the in the eight inning with the Blue Jays holding onto a 4-2 lead. It looked like the “icing on the cake” of an unlikely series victory. He was poised to celebrate with Vlad Guerrero his close friend since they played together in the minor leagues and in the Blue Jays system.
The team played for each other and there are stories up and down the line-up worth noting – going from Bieber, Scherzer, Guerrero, Springer, Lukes, Schneider, Straw, Kiner-Falefa, Barger, Kirk, Varsho, Clement, Gimenez, Varland, Bassitt, Yesavage, Hoffman, Dominguez, Gusman, Fluharty, to France. You can look at contributions — however small but nonetheless significant — starting with Vladdys performance to players like Straw and France. Every player on the list had an impact in this series.
Mitch Bannon the Staff Writer for the Blue Jays has followed the team the entire season. He has seen the team develop and jell over the course of the season and how he describes the aftermath in the clubhouse was very emotional. Like me, I expect he was getting prepared to write about this incredible World Series victory – the first one since 1994 and the Joe Carter walk off. He was also getting ready cite the unity of the team and how this was all possible to conquer the mighty Dodgers.
Again, it did not happen, but Bannon was able to capture nonetheless the aftermath and the sense of loss and remembrance. The game ended at 12:17 and I find it amazing he would publish this for The Athletic by 6:45 am.
“I’ve been crying for probably an hour,” Ernie Clement said. “I thought I was done with the tears, but I love these guys so much.” I was the only quote in Mitch’s piece, but it captured the mood in the clubhouse how united and connected this team was.
The sorrow was not so much the loss and the chance for the fanbase and Canada to celebrate an unlikely accomplishment for the heavy underdog Blue Jays who had finished in last place in their division in 2024. They also had an amazing 49 comeback.
It was more. It was a chance for Vlad Guerrero and Bo Bichette who grew up together in the minor leagues into major leaguers to celebrate Bo’s Game 7 home run that appeared to be enough to take them to a title.
The hugs and tears in the clubhouse will linger as will all the exciting and thrilling moments of each series victory or loss. We will not forget Hall of Famer Max Sherzer’s effort that evening or Bichette’s blast, or Vladdy’s performance throughout the series or the emergence of Trey Yesavage, George Springer’s key hits among many others, Manager John Schneider’s management skills strategically and emotionally, and this is just a partial list.
Bichette said it best – “I wished we could have won it together. I wish we could’ve shared that moment together.” That was the biggest loss.