When the Toronto Blue Jays clinched a ticket to the World Series on Monday for the first time in 32 years, fans erupted in a celebration that spread throughout the city — and all the way across the Atlantic.
In locations outside of Toronto, particularly in the U.K., devoted Jays fans have been setting alarms and fighting off sleep to watch their team make history.
As the Jays now prepare to face off against Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight, fans abroad are making it clear that support for Canada’s team isn’t confined by borders.
For Ryan Graham Hinds, an actor and director from Toronto who has been living in London, England, since the summer, the late nights have been worth it, even with “some groggy days the morning after.”
The Jays have been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. Despite growing up in an artistic family, Hinds said his late mother, who was a big baseball fan, introduced him to the sport.
“We love music, we love theatre, we love culture — but that also included [the] Blue Jays,” Hinds said.
“Baseball can be dramatic, it can be romantic, it can be funny. It has all of the same qualities that theatre has, and my mom instilled that in me [from] an early age.”
During the 2015 American League Division Series (ALDS), Hinds said he temporarily lost hearing in one ear from how loudly his mom screamed after the iconic bat flip from José Bautista, who was her favourite player.
Hinds’ mother died in 2020, but when George Springer hit the game-winning home run in Game 7 against the Seattle Mariners on Monday, he said he felt like he was partying with his mom again. In reality though, Hinds said he had to celebrate silently in his London flat because it was the middle of the night.
“I know exactly how joyful she would have been. I know exactly how hyped she would have been for her Blue Jays,” he said.
Losing sleep, winning games
Hinds is just one of countless international fans losing sleep to watch the historic playoff run.
Jamie Tucker, another Torontonian living in Birmingham, England, has been staying up late to listen to the games on the radio.
Tucker said a subscription to access live games while living in the U.K. is expensive, so he can’t watch the matches year-round. Often he’ll resort to listening to the games on a local Toronto radio broadcast, which he said he has enjoyed.
As a lifelong Jays fan, Tucker was about 10 years old during the 1993 World Series, when Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run to win the Jays’ last championship.
Amid the team’s success this year, Tucker said he has been sporting Jays gear during the playoff run, even while living an ocean away.
The team’s apparel has caught the eye of some Birmingham locals, with a few stopping to chat with Tucker about the Jays. Even his students at Birmingham City University, where Tucker is an instructor, have prodded the Torontonian about the Jays’ upcoming games against superstar Ohtani.
In arguably one of the greatest sports performances of all time, Ohtani threw 10 strikeouts and hit three home runs on Oct. 17 to close out the National League Championship Series and sweep the Milwaukee Brewers, sending the Dodgers to the World Series.
And yet, as a lifelong Jays fan, Tucker still feels the Jays can pull off a World Series win despite the Dodgers’ dominance in the league.
He predicts the series will last six games, and would be surprised if it ended up being one-sided.
Keeping ‘delusional’ faith in the Jays
Victoria Stewart, a Jays fan from Dundee, Scotland, said she also feels hopeful of the Jays’ odds to win the World Series. She said beating the Dodgers will be difficult because there “isn’t a tougher opponent,” but she still believes the Jays can do it.
“I am an eternal optimist and always have faith in my own team. If you don’t have full belief in your team, even if it's slightly delusional, what are you doing?” Stewart said with a chuckle.
In the summer of 2022, Stewart was looking for sports to watch and decided to throw on a baseball game. She said that while all the statistics and rules were initially confusing, she found watching the game fun.
Though she is not Canadian, Stewart was already a Maple Leafs fan at the time, and said the Jays felt like the right MLB team to root for.
Since 2022, she has traveled to Toronto to watch at least a few games every year at the Rogers Centre.
Baseball isn’t very popular in Scotland, Stewart said, but fans of the sport are very passionate because of the amount of effort they have to put in to watch MLB games.
Stewart said she tunes in to Jays games at home because she doesn’t know anywhere in Scotland that would show them. This means she is often awake into the early hours of the morning.
“There's definitely points where you're like, ‘I am struggling to stay awake right now,’” Stewart said. “There's a lot of baseball games in a season.”
However, Stewart said falling asleep hasn’t been an issue during the playoffs because of the adrenaline she feels.
As the World Series starts tonight at 8 p.m. in Toronto — and 1 a.m. in the U.K. — Hinds, Tucker and Stewart won’t be the only international fans who are preparing themselves for a late night in front of their TV — or radio.