Editor’s Note: Our deadline for this issue meant this article had to be completed prior to the start of the World Series, and by the time it is published, the World Series will likely be over. Please enjoy my thoughts on the Jays’ season, even though this article does not include the final outcome.
Happy (belated) Halloween readers! I originally hoped we would get this print out in time for Halloween, but midterm season had other plans…to all the first years who recently experienced their first Hell Week, you have my sympathies. If you ask any upper year about the first time they got humbled by an exam, there’s a good chance it came from their first Hell Week, so don’t get too down on yourself if one of them didn’t go the way you hoped; you’re not the only one.
This issue is packed with our club interview series! Special thanks to EngSoc, With Respect to Time, and EngPlay for requesting interviews with us.
I’m writing this during the MLB playoffs, coinciding with the start of the NBA and NHL (and, slightly before, the NFL), but I think we need to talk about baseball. This year I actually watched some of the regular season, which is way more than I normally watch. This was the first summer I’ve paid attention to the Blue Jays in years; I remember watching the 2015 ALDS during school in Grade 7, and 2016 was probably the last time I really watched them until this summer, where they won their division for the first time in ten years. Does that make me a bandwagoner? Maybe a little, but it’s a long summer waiting for the NHL to start back up again, and it’s actually been kind of fun following it.
The way everyone rallies around the Jays, especially people who don’t normally watch baseball and more casual fans, is why I think they might be the most exciting Toronto sports team when they’re doing well. For example, I remember when the Raptors won in 2019, but I’m not a basketball fan, so I only remember the Kawhi shot from their playoff run. And the Leafs are…well, the Leafs. But the Rogers Centre, Toronto, and a lot of Canada (given that they’re our only MLB team), get extremely fired up for the Jays when they do well. I remember it in 2015 and 2016, and it feels the same way now. I’m sure the Raptors experience it to some extent, but the Jays have been around longer, and I think it also helps that the bulk of their season is during the summer when the other three of the big four leagues aren’t on.
Through the TV, you can feel the atmosphere in the dome, and I can only imagine how loud it is actually being there. It must be electric (as Kevin Gausman says in every interview clip I’ve seen online this postseason). We even had a bat flip moment, ten years after José Bautista’s, while they were destroying the New York Yankees in Toronto during Game 2 of the ALDS enroute to winning their first playoff series in nine years in four games.
It was also a fun coincidence that on October 8, the day of the ALDS-winning Game 4, the Leafs and Raptors also won their games. The Jays advancing to the ALCS was such a big deal that before we even knew who their opponent would be, the NHL was moving up the time of the Leafs’ Thanksgiving Day game so that it wouldn’t conflict with ALCS Game 2, complete with showing the game on the Scotiabank Arena jumbotron afterwards for any fans that wanted to stay and watch. They showed ALDS Game 4 on the jumbotron during intermissions and following the end of the Leaf game too, yet another example of how hyped people are for the Jays.
While the ALCS certainly didn’t start off the way the Jays hoped, losing the first two games in Toronto, they responded by stomping on the Mariners 13-4 in the first game in Seattle, followed by a vintage Max Scherzer performance in Game 4 to win 8-2, guaranteeing a Game 6 back in Toronto. I will not be talking about Game 5. While it may have been stressful at times, the Jays put in a great effort to win Game 6, and I had to go back and rewrite this entire paragraph after Game 7 because after a Game 7 comeback, the Blue Jays are going to the World Series for the first time in 32 years!!!!!!
By the time this comes out, the World Series will probably be done. So this article doesn’t become outdated or end up jinxing anyone (and because I don’t know enough about baseball), I’m not going to make any predictions. Regardless of what happens next, I have a feeling that in time this Jays team will be looked at in a similar way to the 2015 and 2016 teams, which everyone still looks back on fondly even though they didn’t make it all the way. Not to mention, they’ve already made it farther than both of those teams, and they should be an exciting team for years to come.
October is the only month where all of the big four sports league seasons (and the MLS) overlap, so there really hasn’t been a shortage of action. Enjoy watching all your teams this season, sports fans! And if you’re not a sports fan, sorry that I bored you with this one, but hopefully you enjoy reading all our other articles in this issue!
~ Julia (Editor-In-Chief)
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