As much as I love sports, I’m pretty cynical about my favourite teams. This is largely a consequence of having grown up a Buffalo Bills fan. After four straight Super Bowl losses followed by two decades of ritualistic incompetence, it’s hard to muster much more than a resigned certainty of impending doom.
But the Blue Jays! Watching this team, I find myself experiencing so many unfamiliar feelings: Pride. Excitement. Optimism. Sometimes I’m even confident the team I’m cheering for is going to win. It’s weird.
It’s also addictive: There is no part of this team I’m not wild about. I love that Russell Martin is currently 40 percent beard. I have initiated the process of formally adopting Ryan Goins. I’ve even started to imitate Edwin Encarnacion’s “walk the parrot” celebratory gesture after every important life milestone, such as successfully ordering lunch.
Things may be getting out of hand. In conversation the other day, I referred to the Jays’ right fielder as “Joey Bats”—as though we were pals. When TV cameras first revealed Josh Donaldson’s tiny ponytail, my first thought wasn’t, “That looks stupid on a grown man.” It was, “Curse my naturally wavy hair—it’s going to take me forever to grow one of those.” My God, I even know how to spell Tulowitzki.
When your team is winning, the thing that’s most punishing about baseball (another game??) becomes the best thing about baseball (another game!!). It’s been a long while since Jays fans felt this way.
You may not know this about me, but I was there for the glory days. In fact—and this is true—I was the guy on the mound at SkyDome when Joe Carter caught the ball at first base to seal the 1992 World Series.
Granted, the players themselves were in Atlanta at the time. I was among tens of thousands who went to the stadium to watch game six on the Jumbotron. As a reporter, I got to hang out on the field—and in the dugout, once people in the stands started flinging stuff at us, like the can of corn that whizzed by my head.
When the final out was recorded, fans cascaded onto the field like zombies in World War Z. It was chaos. People were trying to tear up pieces of the turf and knock down the outfield wall. At one point, half a dozen security guards locked arms to protect home plate from a bunch of yahoos who were trying to dig it up. Even today, almost a quarter of a century later, I make no apologies for being one of those yahoos.
(I would get my comeuppance during the parade, when the car carrying Juan Guzman and Roberto Alomar ran over my foot. You can see me in old TV footage, limping behind their convertible, nursing revenge-based fantasies.)
During the 1993 Series, I finagled a spot in the temporary left-field press box. Joe Carter’s home run ball landed just below us. What followed was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been to a Foo Fighters concert and flushed a toilet at the airport. On Yonge Street that night, I lost my voice and all feeling in my high-fivin’ hand. It was glorious.
This summer, for the first time in more than two decades, such a night seems possible again. That magical blend of potential and excitement is percolating at Rogers Centre. The other night, I watched an entire baseball game without once glancing at my phone—a feat previously thought humanly impossible.
Am I now a bandwagon fan? Well, it’s been a dozen years since I followed the team closely, so call me what you want. But think of it this way: It’s more fun with bandwagon fans around, isn’t it?
We only show up when we know it’s going to be a good party.
