I’m not a sports watching person, generally, but from the moment the Jays clawed their way into the playoffs, I was on board. I held off paying for Sportsnet for a few games, following live blogs and reddit and googling the replays. But two games into the series with the Yankees, I was all in. And then every moment of October, I had a constant faint buzz — when was the next game? Yesavage is a ROOKIE? Why is Vladdy so darned likable? Will Bo recover? MAD MAX wtf! Oh Ernie, you are the best.
I like a good bandwagon as much as the next person, but usually, I orbit it on the outside, enjoying the buzz in the air, occasionally high fiving someone as I pass a pub with an open patio and a big screen. But this time, I was out in front, watching every game in tandem and constant text with at least two friends. Within two weeks, I was making pronouncements about every player’s readiness, grace, incredible teamwork in chip chip chipping away at other teams’ surges. I developed rituals, nicknaming opposing players and taking myself out for a nervous walk around the neighbourhood if the Jays were behind at the top of the 7th. I started to love these boys. And to like the person I was as a fan.
Partway through this ride, I realized I understood baseball for the first time in my six decades of life. I had a lightbulb moment when I was following the intricacies of a double play, admiring the arc of a throw and quick reflexes. Six months ago, I started medicating my lifelong, late-diagnosed female-brand ADHD. Thanks to Vyvanse, I could focus long enough to see the ballet of it all, the logic behind each pitch, the mastery of my baseball boyfriend Kirky’s catching. I could keep the players straight in my head, admire the loping golden retriever energy of Barger, the grit of Springer who kept getting back up there after he was pummelled with pitches over and over. Agonize as I watched the muscle in Trey’s jaw work as the 22 year old glistened with sweat but otherwise, showed no sign of the crazy pressure of this moment. And when I didn’t get it, I had google and my friend Alistair, who could explain everything.
It all ended on Saturday night, of course, with an unexpected game 7. I watched game 6 at Susan’s with friends, our Halloween costumes gradually peeling off as the game got more intense. But game 7, I was home alone, with the cats and a couple of group chats for company.
Well, friends, I lost my mind. I had so much nervous energy that at one point, I found myself watching the game, decanting turkey stock, and then having to mop the floor. Naked, for some reason I can’t explain. I guess I was hot. When Bo hit his three run homer, I screamed so loudly the cats didn’t come back for an hour.
I tried hiding under the cushions from the outdoor patio that were drying before I could put them away for the winter, and I tried dancing out my yayas in the between innings. Finally, in the tied up 8th, I took myself outside, to one of the pubs with the big screen and the people on the street. (I put clothes on).
Somehow, among this crowd of hosers, I found myself with a Molson Canadian in one hand and a Player’s Light in the other. I don’t think I’ve drunk a molson since 1985, and I know the last time I had a cigarette was pride in 2006. But there I was, full on fan, agonizing as the game slip slip slipped away.
When the tragedy of errors that was the 9th inning ground to an end, I realized I’d gotten what I needed. I loved the team. I loved everyone I was watching with. I loved the cars honking as they went by. I loved the sense of community and shared hope and fucking Canadianness of it all.
Being a Canadian in the era of Trump has been uneasy at best. Pierre Trudeau once said that to the US that “living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Never has that beast outright snarled at us as much as it has in 2025.
Elbows up is one thing. But elbows linked, around these Jays? That was everything I needed. Everything we needed to remind ourselves who we are.
After I left the pub, I was scooting home to witness what felt inevitable at that point. The streets of my neighbourhood were dark, and away from the pub, quiet. A streetcar rumbled by. I passed a older guy leaning against a wall who asked me the location. He was very drunk. “Queen and Coady,” I said, briskly, continuing on.
A few seconds later, I paused and went back. “Do you need some help?”
“Please,” he said.
I saw that he was talking to someone on the speaker for his phone. I took it from him and asked the person on the other end what the guy needed. The other person was at a shelter and asked me to get the guy a cab, gave me the address.
A cab? Like phoning a taxi? I was clearly time traveling.
I phoned Beck taxi and navigated the phone tree. I asked the guy if he wanted me to wait while the cab came. He nodded. “I just want to go home. You are an angel.” His name was Ralph.
The cab came, and there was a lot of kerfuffle about if the driver could take someone to a shelter without a guarantee of payment. He told me how to phone Beck and talk to a person and I kept messing it up. I had no cash on me. “Oh!” Ralph said, suddenly. “I have money!” He handed me his wallet. “Can I get in now?” He had $25 in his wallet, in fives. I gave four of them to the driver.
The cab driver took over, handing Ralph a bag in case he needed it. “I kinda think he’s used to being this drunk,” I said. The heroic cab driver nodded. I left.
I checked the score on my phone as I walked the rest of the way, but I didn’t care. Winning didn’t matter. It was the community of it all that mattered. Being honest with myself, if I hadn’t felt so connected to the community around me in that moment, I probably would have keep walking after I’d tossed “Queen and Coady” at Ralph.
The Jays lost. But I didn’t. And I don’t think we lost as a community, or as a country. We found each other.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who keeps remembering the time her dad got fired for one day for skipping out on his teaching job to go to a Detroit Tigers World Series game in 1968.
Thank you for this Cate!