Diehard Toronto Blue Jays fan Natashia Moodie has been reflecting on her favourite baseball team’s journey to this season’s World Series — a first in 32 years.
The last time the Jays made it to Major League Baseball’s championship series, she was eight.
She remembers popping in and out to watch the final games between the Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies on TV in 1993.
The excitement stuck with her.
“When the Blue Jays won, it was like, oh my God, like this is so amazing! Just that feeling as a kid, I could remember it feeling so vibrant,” Moodie, who lives in Gods Lake First Nation in northern Manitoba, said in a phone interview.
It was the second of back-to-back championship wins for the Jays, who also won in 1992.
They’re now looking to lift the trophy for the third time. In Monday’s nail-biter Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, Toronto defeated the Seattle Mariners 4-3.
The comeback win, which saw George Springer slam a three-run shot in the seventh inning, had Jays fans jump on social media to share their World Series memories, including Joe Carter’s walk-off homer in 1993.
“I just remember Joe Carter basically hit the home run, and that was it,” said Moodie.
Now 40, she said she has spent her life surrounded by baseball. Her family played the sport when she was growing up.
And in 1999, Moodie and her sister Alexandria performed the national anthem in Cree ahead of a Jays game in Toronto. It was the first time O Canada was sung at a Jays game in a language other than English or French, said Moodie.
“It was like a dream come true. Watching them my whole life, basically, and being a singer and then getting to sing for my favourite baseball team. It’s still a surreal moment to me today.
“What I would give to be there to sing again for them,” she said.
Lisa Pateman doesn’t call herself a baseball fan. But she was in 1992.
When the Jays took on the Atlanta Braves in the World Series that year, Pateman sidelined her post-secondary studies in Moose Jaw, Sask., to watch the games at a local bar.
“It was crowded. Every time when Toronto won, there was just massive camaraderie … it was one of those things that even if you weren’t a fan, you loved the feeling that you had there watching it,” Pateman said from Lethbridge, Alta.
“It was epic. Like, you can’t really even describe it.”
Pateman, 51, admitted she hasn’t watched a game since. But she still proudly wears a Jays championship sweatshirt — a piece of memorabilia she has to share with her husband and their 19-year-old son.
“All three of us are kind fighting over it,” she said with a laugh.
Who will wear the coveted shirt on Friday is up in the air. Pateman said the family will be tuning in to watch the Jays square off against the defending 2024 champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in Game 1 at Rogers Centre in Toronto.
“There’s just something about (the Jays) being the only Canadian baseball team in the league.The U.S. has been getting the hockey (Stanley Cup). We should get their sport,” said Pateman.
Toronto superfan Curtis Halliday said a headache didn’t stop him from tuning into the final game of the 1993 series while he was in a hotel room in Halifax.
His now-wife had to tell him to quiet down so he wouldn’t wake other guests.
“I said there’s no worries of that. We opened the door and there was just people running up and down the hallways and the corridor. Everybody was just alive,” said Halliday said.
Heading into Friday’s game, Halliday said the hype is the same — the difference is he’s “not that young anymore.”
Halliday, 52, has been collecting Jays memorabilia since he was 12 and has some items from the previous World Series wins.
He created a “man cave” in his home in Barrington Passage, N.S., and it’s filled with everything from a bar displaying his Jays baseball cards to hanging Jays jerseys and a Jays peanut dispenser.
It’s where he plans on watch Friday’s game.
“It’s been 32 years since we’ve been here, and it might be 32 more. So you know, enjoy every moment of it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2025.
Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press
