2025 World Series10.24.25 / 10.31.25
Toronto, ON
So there was lots of excitement with the ALCS here in Toronto, where I was able to attend both games six and seven at the SkyDome in person. And I live in Toronto now, so what's to stop me from attending the World Series in person too?
Obviously the Jays came out on top in the ALCS, with the Los Angeles Dodgers coming out of the National League. The Jays finished with a better regular season record than the Dodgers, giving them home field advantage for games one and two. And six and seven, if necessary.
I tried valiantly with the public onsale to get tickets for all the home games, but came up short for each one. The queue on TicketMaster clocked in at 200,000 people for game one. No shot there, in a stadium that maxes out around 44,000, plus with many seats already accounted for by season ticket holders. I tried the day after for general admission tickets, and got beat out there too.
Prices were steep on the secondary market, but I was adamant on attending either game one or two. The Raptors were playing their home opener the same night of game one, and announced that they were moving up the start time of their game, and would be playing game one on the jumbotron after their game. I figured that would be a cool way to experience the World Series with a crowd, and I was able to get a "selfie seat" in the upper bowl for about $50, with the idea being that I would be at the dome for game two.
I literally had a Raptors jersey on — my blue Toronto Huskies DeMar DeRozan jersey, to match the Jays colours — and I was ready to leave for the game, but I checked SeatGeek one last time. Something changed inside me right then and there, and I decided I had to be at the dome for game one. It just didn't feel right to be heading to a Raptors game when the World Series was about to start, for the first time in Toronto during my lifetime, for crying out loud. I caved and got a ticket. Similar location to my seat for game six of the ALCS, in the 100 level center-left field. It worked once before, why not again?
When I walked into the building, you could immediately just tell this was a colossally large event. Different from the ALCS. They were giving out World Series towels and scarves to everyone in attendance. The field was adorned with World Series branding. American TV networks had a visible presence on the field. And a palpable buzz was hanging in the air. I mean, the fan sitting next to me was a Scottish Jays fan who came all the way from California for this. Toronto has been waiting 32 years to get back to this level. Who wouldn't want to be there?
And the baseball, at least in game one, was absolutely electric. The Dodgers had gotten lots of runners on base, and scrapped together single runs in both the second and third innings to take a 2-0 lead. The Jays got the party started in the bottom of the fourth, with Alejandro Kirk singling before Daulton Varsho launched a homer into center field. Tie game.
Trey Yesavage did not have his best stuff, and was out of the game by the fifth inning. But it was the bottom of the sixth that saw the Jays blow the game absolutely wide open. It's honestly too much to detail each run, but they put up a total of nine runs in the inning, highlighted by a pinch hit grand slam off the bat of Addison Barger. It was the first pinch hit grand slam in World Series history. And from a guy who wasn't even on the Jays' opening day roster. Kirk also hit a homer in the inning, well after Barger's grand slam. It was incredible to witness live — the runs just kept coming, the crowd going all the more nuts as each one was cashed in. The Jays were up 11-2 after the inning.
With the game effectively over, Shohei Ohtani put up his first ever world series home run in the seventh, with Tommy Edman on first, to make it 11-4, which would hold up as the final score. But let's talk about Ohtani for a minute — a lot of us Jays fans were collectively disappointed early last year when we learned that he would be signing with the Dodgers, despite the Blue Jays reportedly hanging in there throughout the whole courtship process. So the chants of "we don't need him" from the crowd in this one were well deserved.
Fast forward a week later, the series was coming back to Toronto for games six and seven. The teams had split the first two games in Toronto, and the Jays took two out of three in Los Angeles. Those games had their own otherworldly storylines, which I won't dwell on here — an eighteen inning marathon and a first pitch homer from Davis Schneider being the highlights. So at this point, this was already a classic of a World Series, and the Jays were coming home with a chance to clinch it. I got myself a seat in the nosebleeds, because if you have a chance to be in the building when one of your teams clinches a championship, you have to take it.
Alas, I am writing this after game seven, so we know all too well how it turned out. Absolute heartbreak. The Jays were in tough in game six against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who had stonewalled the Jays back in game two, pitching a complete game. The Dodgers' three runs in the third inning here in game six were the only runs they put up all game, but that was all they needed. Addison Barger doubled and was brought to home on a George Springer single in the bottom of the third to keep spirits high.
The offenses went dormant the rest of the game, save for a ray of hope in the bottom of the ninth. Roki Sasaki was in for the Dodgers, and hit Kirk with a pitch. Myles Straw was brought in as a pinch runner. Barger then hit what appeared to be a game-tying double. At least that's how it looked from the nosebleeds. We were all going nuts, until they announced that the play was under review. The ball actually got lodged between the ground and the wall padding in the outfield, so it was called a ground-rule double. No doubt it was the right call, but you can't help but feel so unlucky in that situation. It didn't help that the Jays completely fumbled the next two at-bats, with Ernie Clement popping out, and Andrés Giménez hitting into a double play, due to some poor baserunning by Barger. Just like that, the game was over. We were going to a winner-take-all game seven.
Obviously, the Jays had already played a game seven in the ALCS, so it wasn't totally unfamiliar territory. The Dodgers came in having swept the ALCS, but that's a roster full of veterans that have seen it all. And I do believe that experience came through in game seven. I'm not going to detail the game, since I wasn't there in person, having travelled to Ottawa on the morning of game seven game day for my company's hackathon starting on Monday. I felt personally I had left it all on the line as a fan, attending four of the six home games I could have attended after landing in Toronto. I was oddly at peace with watching game seven from afar, despite a looming sense of FOMO if they did win it all, even if just to celebrate in the streets of Toronto afterwards, or partake in a parade.
But those were hypotheticals, and they proved be just that. Heartbreak to a degree I have not experienced since the Sens lost in game seven of the 2017 Eastern Conference Final to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Different sport, different circumstances, but the same sting of coming so close only to fall short. Lots to ponder and process coming off of this loss, but we just have to remember that if we were told in the spring that the Jays would be participating in this years' World Series, we would have taken that ten times out of ten. There's a lot to be proud of, and personally, it was unreal to be dropped into the city in the midst of this madness. Whatever happens next, I'm happy to say I will be there every step of the way.
