November 8, 2024 • 20 mins
It iiiiiisssssssssss Sportsfeld Storytime as we finish off our look back at the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays' World Series victory over the hated Philadelphia Phillies. This week, we're looking at the aftermath of the Jays' victory and what would be a swift, and consistent, fall from grace that was interrupted by the 1994 MLB Strike. We also look back at the Jays' struggles throughout the 90s and 2000s, all the way up to regaining their place at the top of the American League East with our beloved 2015 team. Curl up someplace comfy, it's Storytime.
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And as always, thank you for listening to another episode of Sportsfeld.
Sick of hearing all the ads? Subscribe to Soda Premium on Apple Podcasts to get rid of them!
Follow @Sportsfeld on X! While you're there say hello to @theZubes and @JGoldsbie or reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@sportsfeld.ca
If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store: http://bit.ly/merchfeldIf you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Sportsfeld 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
And as always, thank you for listening to another episode of Sportsfeld.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ah, Joe has had his moments. Two balls and two
strikes on it. Here's the pitch on the way of
swinging a belt.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hold feel way back Blue Jays for that the Blue
Chayes are World Series champions. A Shoe Curter picks a
three run home run in the ninth sunning, and the
Blue Jays have repeat it has World Series champions. Touch
them all, Joe, You'll never hit a bigger home run
in your life.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Did nothing he listen Service sena series with everything that
(01:11):
post came always made.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Of, sake, the coup, the World War in the same
away in the monacy Saday gain a couple Si Tuesday ship.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
What it is sports felt story time. We are looking
back and completing I look back at the nineteen ninety
three tron on Blue Jays. In the last episode we
touched them All. We finally saw the Blue Jays when
they're back to back World Series championships. A defining moment
in our childhoods, A defining moment that cements you as
a Blue Jays fan forever and ever. Joe Carter going
(02:20):
Yachtzi off Mitch Williams to secure the World Series at home,
just a great moment and immediately followed by listen, we
both I see for both of us, but I'm pretty
sure we thought the Jays were also going to be
good the next year. There's no reason to believe they
wouldn't be.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
I we were talking last episode about sort of how
things get put into our brains. I was pretty sure
until recently, not today, but like recently that the Blue
Jays were good until the season went on.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Strike, thinking of the expos as, that's exactly it though
I had did my I have this memory that apparently
must be a false memory and must not have happened.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
But I have this memory of thinking, I can't believe
the strike happened. We were going to get a Toronto
Montreal World Series and the Blue Jays were gonna three peat,
and very clearly, looking at the standings, that is absolutely
not what happened.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Well, Blue Jay has played one hundred and fifteen games
in am I gonna do the math right?
Speaker 7 (03:24):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I am. In At ninety four, they finished fifty five
and sixty. They were third in the American League East,
the first year of three divisions in each league. They
were sixteen games behind the New York Yankees, a sub
five hundred team with a lot of familiar faces still
sticking around. John Olrud, who's twenty five years old by
the way at this time, continued to absolutely rake of
(03:46):
one twenty four ohps plus two ninety seven three h three,
four to seventy seven. Paul Mawitter was still on the
team at thirty seven. He was unbelievable again thinking three
forty one, four, ten, five, eighteen. Joe Carter another very
good year. Power will I had hit twenty seven home runs,
riving in one hundred and three on his way. Really
you could say to a forty ish home run year,
(04:08):
but there was there was some it wasn't quite the
same sort of stacked all the way through. Pat Hankin,
Won Guzman, Todds, Stottlemeyer, Dave Stewart, Lighter remains your starters.
Stewart and Lighter and Guzman all not very good eras
well above five. And then it was the pieces other
than the guys we mentioned. Dick Dick Schofield was the shortstop,
(04:30):
Ed Spragg not really a star player, a guy named
Mike Huffield who I have no memory of. Mike huff
You remember, Mike Young.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Carlos Stelgatto played some games and left Alex Gonzalez such short.
A lot of guys wh would become like part of
the mediocre late nineties teams. Obviously Carl Stogdo was amazing
and I'm not slacking, but guys who were like I
identify with those like mid to late nineties Blue Jays.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
It's a very interesting team because when you look at it,
sort of the top line view that I just did
there is you know, alamar Ol Rude, Carter Molitor. They
all played pretty well. They all continued to be above average.
Even Mike Huff, who I again never heard of before today,
had a good year. But they really didn't put it together.
(05:19):
That the pitching sort of betrayed them. And the Yankees
and the Orioles were very good teams. Yankees, you're looking
at your Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, you know, Bernie Williams,
Paul O'Neil, Danny Tartole sort of.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
And they start they started great too. They were fourteen
and nine, after fourteen ten, after April, and then May hit,
but they into they were five hundred well into June,
and then at thirty, at thirty and thirty. They go
from thirty and thirty to thirty two and forty four
by the end of the month, and that was kind
(05:53):
of all. She wrote.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
Well, it is now official, no more regular season, no
extended version of the playoffs, and for the first time
since nineteen.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Oh four, no World Series.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
Brenner so pretty Yogi Berra said it ain't over till
it's over.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
He was talking about the seventy three Mets.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Now Yoga could say.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
This one's definitely over. The World Series has been played
on in the midst of two World Wars, in the
midst of the depression era, but now in nineteen ninety four,
in the midst of the greed era. In Major League Baseball,
no World Series. No more Baseball this year. Tsm's Rod
Smith's reports incredible.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
And then the league stops. You talked about. We talked
about last episode. We talked about how crazy it would
have been and how poorly we would have handled them.
You know, the dramatics of that World Series and the
ups and downs of those games and thinking they were
going to lose and then winning in dramatic fashion. I
am curious, and I know we just went through, of course,
(06:44):
you know, the seasons being halted and interrupted by coronavirus.
But I don't know how it would strike me as
an adult to have this team I love suddenly stop
playing one hundred and fifteen games into the season and
have that hanging over the whole year. I know that
as a kid, I was staunchly I mean, obviously, look
at me now, always going to love baseball, and it
(07:06):
didn't bother me a lot. But I don't know about you.
I knew a lot of people that would say in
the following years that that really turned them off of baseball.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
Yeah. I agree, obviously likewise did not turn me off baseball,
but I also completely understand it doing that, and I
don't think understood it then, Like I remember hearing the
argument as a kid and be like, why wouldn't you
just go back and watch baseball? I don't get it.
But then we've seen just like by the popularity of
the sport over the last twenty years, it must have
turned a lot of people off baseball. And obviously baseball
(07:37):
does everything they can to push people away as much
as possible. But it's one of those moments. I remember
when it when they went on strike because in the
summer I was still in baseball camp, so I was
playing baseball, so like I didn't feel like I was.
I remember being disappointed the season had stopped, but it
wasn't like a devastating thing because baseball was still around
(07:59):
in my life. I was like, and it was August,
like they made it almost through the whole season anyway,
which is also kind of nuts. And then you're like, okay,
basically back in the fall, in the spring whatever, like always,
But having now been an adult living through the NHL
works stoppages and NBA works stoppages and constant threat of
(08:19):
baseball work stoppages, I kind of get the attitude of like, no,
fuck this sport.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, no, I do too, especially as you know
they would come out of this if you were a
huge Jays fan, right they were the years prior they were,
you know, eighty nine wins, eighty six wins, ninety one,
ninety six, ninety five, you know, the finishing first in
the division, second, the division first, first, first, and then
suddenly they go on a run where they're third in
(08:48):
the division. Then they win fifty six games and their last,
then they win seventy four games and their fourth of five.
Then they win seventy six games and they're five of five.
They don't go back above five hundred again until nineteen
ninety eight when they have Roger Clemens as there as
their guy. Like they really go through a spell where
they're not just mediocre, they're bad, and then they come
back up and they don't go And I remember this
(09:10):
quite well. I'm for you do too. They didn't finish
higher than third in the division again until two thousand
and six, Like it's it's it's thirteen years again for
them to be even decent. Like they're not even close,
they're not even they're not even single digits back. They
single digits back of the of the lead once in
two thousand and then don't do it again until they
win the East in twenty fifteen. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Yeah, it really was, I guess, especially in retrospect, just
the like how quickly it went from literally winning two
World Series to just like bad bait like bad teams.
Not even I think there were a few just mediocre
teams there, but there were some like real dogshit Jays
(09:53):
teams that period, and there was there would always be
like vague flickers of hope occasionally. I remember one year,
I camember what season was it? Must have been late
nineties or to two thousands. Remember they went on like
a fourteen game win streak in May or June, which
they did, and they would do this a lot over
those few years, and you'd be like, Okay, holiday's here,
(10:14):
he's pitching great, Delgado's raking, and then it was just like,
oh they're bad again. Like it was, it's crazy how
ninety four kicked off literally twenty years of just being shit.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
It's you know, it's amazing. It's amazing looking back at
it and sort of having that bird's eye view of
like how lucky we got in terms of when we
became fans, because totally, you know, if you were if
you were five years younger, you would not have the
Carter connection, you would not have any of that, and
you would you would spend the whole time being like,
(10:58):
why does anybody care about this team?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
If we were doing if we're doing like the how
old were you when kind of thing? If I was
the same age, if I was born five years later,
as you said, so, I was the same age as
I would have been for the nineteen ninety nine Blue Jays.
Back nine nine Blue Jays were six games. We have
five hundred, so not bad, but still fourteen games of
(11:21):
the division lead. I would it was guys like Pat
Hankin was back. I think Clemens might have been on
that team, Shannon Stewart, you know, like an okay team,
not a great team, young Chris Carpenter, no Clemens. No
Clemens there, young Doc. But it was like you wouldn't
like they were okay, but you don't make lifelong fans
(11:43):
by being okay. They would be basically how we pay
attention to the map leafs for twenty years.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
In a way, yeah, it's a good comparison.
Speaker 6 (11:53):
Like just like, fine, they're okay, and maybe next year
they'll be better. But I feel like for people of
our not soily our generation, but like of our age bracket,
our specific age bracket, the nineteen ninety three teams meant
that like baseball wasn't only a thing we liked, it
was like the biggest thing in the world, because like
(12:14):
when you're seven and your team wins, it's the beast
and goes on a ride. It's investing the world. Like
what do you care more about than being a seven
years old and your sports team wunning?
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Absolutely, And we talked about this, we can have to
go on the Springer episode just about how and I
think this all sort of ties together nicely about how
because of this, like I the Jays making big moves,
the Jay's being a good team, it ignites me in
a way that no other team does. And it's just
(12:48):
a product to that. And I think I hope, I
guess I think in hope is sort of the difference here.
I hope that two things. As I hope that there
are kids that nineteen two, twenty fifteen did that for
that they really like crystallized. You know how fun it
was to watch Donaldson and how fun it was to
watch Price and how fun it was to make that
(13:08):
run and how much the city galvanized around that. I
hope that happens. And I hope there are kids and
I'm sure of this one. I know this one, that
there are kids that that Raptors run in twenty nineteen
is going to do that for them. And they are
a generation of kids that are just like, it's basketball
for me, It's the Raptors for me, one hundred percent.
And we saw that. I think we see that a
little bit right now with kids in their twenties. Vince
(13:32):
Carter did that for a lot of kids, where like
making basketball cool in the year two thousand. If you
were born in nineteen eighty five and you're just turning thirty, like,
you're probably a your Actress fan. If you're twenty nine
thirty years old right now, you're probably a Raptors fan. No,
that my age is way off, not twenty nine thirty.
If you're twenty five right now, you're probably your Actress
(13:52):
fan right because you'd been five six seven. So if
you're twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, Ractors are probably
your team. And if the Jays are good, that's probably
nice to you. But you'll never replace that galvanization to
the same as a kid that is currently seven eight
nine years old that watch Kawai come through and grew
up with the Raptors being a fifty win team every
single year, I think it would be really easy that
(14:14):
twenty years fro now. If they were bad for twenty
years and then suddenly you're thirty and the Raptors are
good again, it'd be the greatest thing you ever saw
in your life, just like it was for us in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
Yeah, And I think that's why sort of the blue
Jays crowds in twenty fifteen, for better and for worse,
were so loud and active and how like Toronto loud
because it was like the phrase some broadcaster used when
you're in I foregar of those fifteen or sixteen when
the playoff years, it's Toronto loud in here, because there
was this end, like the bat flip was I think
(14:44):
twenty years of frustration, it's and disappointment being released at once,
and it was like, I don't know if that's how
it felt for you, that's so it fell for me
of like I just wanted to just be good again
so badly throughout my twenties and teen years, and then
finally they were and then like literally like the coolest
(15:04):
home run possible happened and in the coolest way by
the coolest guy. And it was I think the reason
that those crowds were so insane, and you and I
went to a lot of those games together. Those crowds
were nuts and they were so loud because I'm sure
there was young people there because it's Toronto, and I'm
sure there were people who weren't galvanized by the ninety
(15:25):
three team there and involved in BEHINDIX the whole city
got behind it. But it does kind of feel like
we like if you were of that age or older,
those two and fifteen teams were really like you, like,
I've never got behind a team so hard as I
did the twenty fifteen team.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, we went through it. When we talked about sort
of the wildcard game, when we talked about that team
anytime on the show. Is like it was the only
thing we talked about or did for like two and
a half months.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Yeah, we were, we were going to bars to watch
other teams that we're near us in the standings, Like
it's that will even if even if the Ja's are
good again this year or you know, non pandemic version,
Like I don't know if I'll ever be like, let's
go to the bar to watch Cleveland Yankees because the
(16:17):
Jays are chasing the eight, Like, oh, watch the game,
but to actually go out and do, I don't know.
It's just it was it was something else.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Let's rerun walk off Volbon May six against the white
side of the ninth.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
No, I agree with you, I think, and you know,
I'd love to be wrong about this, but I think
if this twenty twenty team is a twenty twenty one.
Pardon me, team is really good. It'll be exciting and
it'll be fun. It won't be the like rocket ship
that was twenty fifteen, because it was twenty years of
finally getting let out and it was you know, it
(17:28):
was really a reconnecting with going back to the beginning
of this we even though you know, twenty sixteen was
fun but not as fun it was. Yeah, there's a
difference between it sort of coming out of nowhere and
it suddenly being the second half of the year versus like,
even if they're good this year, it's like, yeah, they
were a good team, probably wire to wire, unless you know,
they make a crazy move at the deadline. But yeah, No,
(17:49):
I think the topic it's interesting.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
I think with this a lot, this question of like,
how do you top twenty fifteen as a Jays fan,
and I think obviously, I think you literally they have
to win the World Series to top twenty fifteen, and
even then, like obviously when the World Series would be
better than twenty fifteen. I'm not saying that's not better.
Winning is always better, but I think it would be different.
(18:11):
I don't know if it would be quite as wild.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yeah, it'll I think to try to find the word.
It'll be satisfying, but not as exciting, how about that?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Yeah, and like it'll be and also like if the
Blue Jays are in the World Series, I'm sure my
tone of and this will change immediately.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
It's still gonna be fucking madness. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
But twenty fifteen, because of the experiences of nineteen ninety
four to twenty fourteen, I think was something that will
will never and can never be replicated again unless the
don't make the playoffs in their twenty.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Years yeah, which I mean, god, ope not anyway, that
is our look back at the nineteen ninety three Toronto
Blue Jays and a little bit of the afterwards. I
hope there are kids. I hope there's kids that are
able to get on board with the twenty twenty one
team and identify with Vlad and Bo and George Springer,
(19:06):
and I hope there are kids, you know, that are
looking back one day just like we are now and
just sort of like rediscovering how crazy Paul Molitor was
and rediscovering how great you know, John Olroud was and
being like, wow, they really had you know, Jun Jin Reyu,
and they really had bobashett I was really incredible that
they had all those guys at the same time. I
genuinely hope that we have that same experience here. And
(19:30):
maybe I feel like I'm turning into an old softy here,
but I almost hope for it for the next generation
more than I even hope for it for our own excitement,
for our own celebration. I hope that it is able
to grow a new generation of Blue Jays fans because
I love this team, and I love the way that
they mean something to our generation and to me and
my friends, and I just hope that that's able to
(19:52):
continue on because I like baseball a lot.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
You know, Yeah, I'm right there with you anyway.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
That'll do it for another episode of sports fel storytime,
tons of fun, love looking back at night ninety three
and learning things I maybe didn't know the first time around.
We will have a brand new look back next month,
a different team, a different time, a different group, a
different fun And in the meantime, if you have suggestions,
drop it in there into the discord, and of course
(20:20):
you are going to be getting your monthly mailbang coming
up in just a matter of days. We thank you
so much for your patroons. You guys are the absolute best,
my favorite folks on the Internet. In the meantime, we
thank you so much for listening to sports felt storytime
Ah, Joe has had his moments. Two balls and two
strikes on it. Here's the pitch on the way of
swinging a belt.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hold feel way back Blue Jays for that the Blue
Chayes are World Series champions. A Shoe Curter picks a
three run home run in the ninth sunning, and the
Blue Jays have repeat it has World Series champions. Touch
them all, Joe, You'll never hit a bigger home run
in your life.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Did nothing he listen Service sena series with everything that
(01:11):
post came always made.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Of, sake, the coup, the World War in the same
away in the monacy Saday gain a couple Si Tuesday ship.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
What it is sports felt story time. We are looking
back and completing I look back at the nineteen ninety
three tron on Blue Jays. In the last episode we
touched them All. We finally saw the Blue Jays when
they're back to back World Series championships. A defining moment
in our childhoods, A defining moment that cements you as
a Blue Jays fan forever and ever. Joe Carter going
(02:20):
Yachtzi off Mitch Williams to secure the World Series at home,
just a great moment and immediately followed by listen, we
both I see for both of us, but I'm pretty
sure we thought the Jays were also going to be
good the next year. There's no reason to believe they
wouldn't be.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
I we were talking last episode about sort of how
things get put into our brains. I was pretty sure
until recently, not today, but like recently that the Blue
Jays were good until the season went on.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Strike, thinking of the expos as, that's exactly it though
I had did my I have this memory that apparently
must be a false memory and must not have happened.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
But I have this memory of thinking, I can't believe
the strike happened. We were going to get a Toronto
Montreal World Series and the Blue Jays were gonna three peat,
and very clearly, looking at the standings, that is absolutely
not what happened.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Well, Blue Jay has played one hundred and fifteen games
in am I gonna do the math right?
Speaker 7 (03:24):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I am. In At ninety four, they finished fifty five
and sixty. They were third in the American League East,
the first year of three divisions in each league. They
were sixteen games behind the New York Yankees, a sub
five hundred team with a lot of familiar faces still
sticking around. John Olrud, who's twenty five years old by
the way at this time, continued to absolutely rake of
(03:46):
one twenty four ohps plus two ninety seven three h three,
four to seventy seven. Paul Mawitter was still on the
team at thirty seven. He was unbelievable again thinking three
forty one, four, ten, five, eighteen. Joe Carter another very
good year. Power will I had hit twenty seven home runs,
riving in one hundred and three on his way. Really
you could say to a forty ish home run year,
(04:08):
but there was there was some it wasn't quite the
same sort of stacked all the way through. Pat Hankin,
Won Guzman, Todds, Stottlemeyer, Dave Stewart, Lighter remains your starters.
Stewart and Lighter and Guzman all not very good eras
well above five. And then it was the pieces other
than the guys we mentioned. Dick Dick Schofield was the shortstop,
(04:30):
Ed Spragg not really a star player, a guy named
Mike Huffield who I have no memory of. Mike huff
You remember, Mike Young.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Carlos Stelgatto played some games and left Alex Gonzalez such short.
A lot of guys wh would become like part of
the mediocre late nineties teams. Obviously Carl Stogdo was amazing
and I'm not slacking, but guys who were like I
identify with those like mid to late nineties Blue Jays.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
It's a very interesting team because when you look at it,
sort of the top line view that I just did
there is you know, alamar Ol Rude, Carter Molitor. They
all played pretty well. They all continued to be above average.
Even Mike Huff, who I again never heard of before today,
had a good year. But they really didn't put it together.
(05:19):
That the pitching sort of betrayed them. And the Yankees
and the Orioles were very good teams. Yankees, you're looking
at your Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, you know, Bernie Williams,
Paul O'Neil, Danny Tartole sort of.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
And they start they started great too. They were fourteen
and nine, after fourteen ten, after April, and then May hit,
but they into they were five hundred well into June,
and then at thirty, at thirty and thirty. They go
from thirty and thirty to thirty two and forty four
by the end of the month, and that was kind
(05:53):
of all. She wrote.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
Well, it is now official, no more regular season, no
extended version of the playoffs, and for the first time
since nineteen.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Oh four, no World Series.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
Brenner so pretty Yogi Berra said it ain't over till
it's over.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
He was talking about the seventy three Mets.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Now Yoga could say.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
This one's definitely over. The World Series has been played
on in the midst of two World Wars, in the
midst of the depression era, but now in nineteen ninety four,
in the midst of the greed era. In Major League Baseball,
no World Series. No more Baseball this year. Tsm's Rod
Smith's reports incredible.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
And then the league stops. You talked about. We talked
about last episode. We talked about how crazy it would
have been and how poorly we would have handled them.
You know, the dramatics of that World Series and the
ups and downs of those games and thinking they were
going to lose and then winning in dramatic fashion. I
am curious, and I know we just went through, of course,
(06:44):
you know, the seasons being halted and interrupted by coronavirus.
But I don't know how it would strike me as
an adult to have this team I love suddenly stop
playing one hundred and fifteen games into the season and
have that hanging over the whole year. I know that
as a kid, I was staunchly I mean, obviously, look
at me now, always going to love baseball, and it
(07:06):
didn't bother me a lot. But I don't know about you.
I knew a lot of people that would say in
the following years that that really turned them off of baseball.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
Yeah. I agree, obviously likewise did not turn me off baseball,
but I also completely understand it doing that, and I
don't think understood it then, Like I remember hearing the
argument as a kid and be like, why wouldn't you
just go back and watch baseball? I don't get it.
But then we've seen just like by the popularity of
the sport over the last twenty years, it must have
turned a lot of people off baseball. And obviously baseball
(07:37):
does everything they can to push people away as much
as possible. But it's one of those moments. I remember
when it when they went on strike because in the
summer I was still in baseball camp, so I was
playing baseball, so like I didn't feel like I was.
I remember being disappointed the season had stopped, but it
wasn't like a devastating thing because baseball was still around
(07:59):
in my life. I was like, and it was August,
like they made it almost through the whole season anyway,
which is also kind of nuts. And then you're like, okay,
basically back in the fall, in the spring whatever, like always,
But having now been an adult living through the NHL
works stoppages and NBA works stoppages and constant threat of
(08:19):
baseball work stoppages, I kind of get the attitude of like, no,
fuck this sport.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, no, I do too, especially as you know
they would come out of this if you were a
huge Jays fan, right they were the years prior they were,
you know, eighty nine wins, eighty six wins, ninety one,
ninety six, ninety five, you know, the finishing first in
the division, second, the division first, first, first, and then
suddenly they go on a run where they're third in
(08:48):
the division. Then they win fifty six games and their last,
then they win seventy four games and their fourth of five.
Then they win seventy six games and they're five of five.
They don't go back above five hundred again until nineteen
ninety eight when they have Roger Clemens as there as
their guy. Like they really go through a spell where
they're not just mediocre, they're bad, and then they come
back up and they don't go And I remember this
(09:10):
quite well. I'm for you do too. They didn't finish
higher than third in the division again until two thousand
and six, Like it's it's it's thirteen years again for
them to be even decent. Like they're not even close,
they're not even they're not even single digits back. They
single digits back of the of the lead once in
two thousand and then don't do it again until they
win the East in twenty fifteen. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Yeah, it really was, I guess, especially in retrospect, just
the like how quickly it went from literally winning two
World Series to just like bad bait like bad teams.
Not even I think there were a few just mediocre
teams there, but there were some like real dogshit Jays
(09:53):
teams that period, and there was there would always be
like vague flickers of hope occasionally. I remember one year,
I camember what season was it? Must have been late
nineties or to two thousands. Remember they went on like
a fourteen game win streak in May or June, which
they did, and they would do this a lot over
those few years, and you'd be like, Okay, holiday's here,
(10:14):
he's pitching great, Delgado's raking, and then it was just like,
oh they're bad again. Like it was, it's crazy how
ninety four kicked off literally twenty years of just being shit.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
It's you know, it's amazing. It's amazing looking back at
it and sort of having that bird's eye view of
like how lucky we got in terms of when we
became fans, because totally, you know, if you were if
you were five years younger, you would not have the
Carter connection, you would not have any of that, and
you would you would spend the whole time being like,
(10:58):
why does anybody care about this team?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
If we were doing if we're doing like the how
old were you when kind of thing? If I was
the same age, if I was born five years later,
as you said, so, I was the same age as
I would have been for the nineteen ninety nine Blue Jays.
Back nine nine Blue Jays were six games. We have
five hundred, so not bad, but still fourteen games of
(11:21):
the division lead. I would it was guys like Pat
Hankin was back. I think Clemens might have been on
that team, Shannon Stewart, you know, like an okay team,
not a great team, young Chris Carpenter, no Clemens. No
Clemens there, young Doc. But it was like you wouldn't
like they were okay, but you don't make lifelong fans
(11:43):
by being okay. They would be basically how we pay
attention to the map leafs for twenty years.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
In a way, yeah, it's a good comparison.
Speaker 6 (11:53):
Like just like, fine, they're okay, and maybe next year
they'll be better. But I feel like for people of
our not soily our generation, but like of our age bracket,
our specific age bracket, the nineteen ninety three teams meant
that like baseball wasn't only a thing we liked, it
was like the biggest thing in the world, because like
(12:14):
when you're seven and your team wins, it's the beast
and goes on a ride. It's investing the world. Like
what do you care more about than being a seven
years old and your sports team wunning?
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Absolutely, And we talked about this, we can have to
go on the Springer episode just about how and I
think this all sort of ties together nicely about how
because of this, like I the Jays making big moves,
the Jay's being a good team, it ignites me in
a way that no other team does. And it's just
(12:48):
a product to that. And I think I hope, I
guess I think in hope is sort of the difference here.
I hope that two things. As I hope that there
are kids that nineteen two, twenty fifteen did that for
that they really like crystallized. You know how fun it
was to watch Donaldson and how fun it was to
watch Price and how fun it was to make that
(13:08):
run and how much the city galvanized around that. I
hope that happens. And I hope there are kids and
I'm sure of this one. I know this one, that
there are kids that that Raptors run in twenty nineteen
is going to do that for them. And they are
a generation of kids that are just like, it's basketball
for me, It's the Raptors for me, one hundred percent.
And we saw that. I think we see that a
little bit right now with kids in their twenties. Vince
(13:32):
Carter did that for a lot of kids, where like
making basketball cool in the year two thousand. If you
were born in nineteen eighty five and you're just turning thirty, like,
you're probably a your Actress fan. If you're twenty nine
thirty years old right now, you're probably a Raptors fan. No,
that my age is way off, not twenty nine thirty.
If you're twenty five right now, you're probably your Actress
(13:52):
fan right because you'd been five six seven. So if
you're twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, Ractors are probably
your team. And if the Jays are good, that's probably
nice to you. But you'll never replace that galvanization to
the same as a kid that is currently seven eight
nine years old that watch Kawai come through and grew
up with the Raptors being a fifty win team every
single year, I think it would be really easy that
(14:14):
twenty years fro now. If they were bad for twenty
years and then suddenly you're thirty and the Raptors are
good again, it'd be the greatest thing you ever saw
in your life, just like it was for us in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
Yeah, And I think that's why sort of the blue
Jays crowds in twenty fifteen, for better and for worse,
were so loud and active and how like Toronto loud
because it was like the phrase some broadcaster used when
you're in I foregar of those fifteen or sixteen when
the playoff years, it's Toronto loud in here, because there
was this end, like the bat flip was I think
(14:44):
twenty years of frustration, it's and disappointment being released at once,
and it was like, I don't know if that's how
it felt for you, that's so it fell for me
of like I just wanted to just be good again
so badly throughout my twenties and teen years, and then
finally they were and then like literally like the coolest
(15:04):
home run possible happened and in the coolest way by
the coolest guy. And it was I think the reason
that those crowds were so insane, and you and I
went to a lot of those games together. Those crowds
were nuts and they were so loud because I'm sure
there was young people there because it's Toronto, and I'm
sure there were people who weren't galvanized by the ninety
(15:25):
three team there and involved in BEHINDIX the whole city
got behind it. But it does kind of feel like
we like if you were of that age or older,
those two and fifteen teams were really like you, like,
I've never got behind a team so hard as I
did the twenty fifteen team.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, we went through it. When we talked about sort
of the wildcard game, when we talked about that team
anytime on the show. Is like it was the only
thing we talked about or did for like two and
a half months.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Yeah, we were, we were going to bars to watch
other teams that we're near us in the standings, Like
it's that will even if even if the Ja's are
good again this year or you know, non pandemic version,
Like I don't know if I'll ever be like, let's
go to the bar to watch Cleveland Yankees because the
(16:17):
Jays are chasing the eight, Like, oh, watch the game,
but to actually go out and do, I don't know.
It's just it was it was something else.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Let's rerun walk off Volbon May six against the white
side of the ninth.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
No, I agree with you, I think, and you know,
I'd love to be wrong about this, but I think
if this twenty twenty team is a twenty twenty one.
Pardon me, team is really good. It'll be exciting and
it'll be fun. It won't be the like rocket ship
that was twenty fifteen, because it was twenty years of
finally getting let out and it was you know, it
(17:28):
was really a reconnecting with going back to the beginning
of this we even though you know, twenty sixteen was
fun but not as fun it was. Yeah, there's a
difference between it sort of coming out of nowhere and
it suddenly being the second half of the year versus like,
even if they're good this year, it's like, yeah, they
were a good team, probably wire to wire, unless you know,
they make a crazy move at the deadline. But yeah, No,
(17:49):
I think the topic it's interesting.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
I think with this a lot, this question of like,
how do you top twenty fifteen as a Jays fan,
and I think obviously, I think you literally they have
to win the World Series to top twenty fifteen, and
even then, like obviously when the World Series would be
better than twenty fifteen. I'm not saying that's not better.
Winning is always better, but I think it would be different.
(18:11):
I don't know if it would be quite as wild.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yeah, it'll I think to try to find the word.
It'll be satisfying, but not as exciting, how about that?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Yeah, and like it'll be and also like if the
Blue Jays are in the World Series, I'm sure my
tone of and this will change immediately.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
It's still gonna be fucking madness. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
But twenty fifteen, because of the experiences of nineteen ninety
four to twenty fourteen, I think was something that will
will never and can never be replicated again unless the
don't make the playoffs in their twenty.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Years yeah, which I mean, god, ope not anyway, that
is our look back at the nineteen ninety three Toronto
Blue Jays and a little bit of the afterwards. I
hope there are kids. I hope there's kids that are
able to get on board with the twenty twenty one
team and identify with Vlad and Bo and George Springer,
(19:06):
and I hope there are kids, you know, that are
looking back one day just like we are now and
just sort of like rediscovering how crazy Paul Molitor was
and rediscovering how great you know, John Olroud was and
being like, wow, they really had you know, Jun Jin Reyu,
and they really had bobashett I was really incredible that
they had all those guys at the same time. I
genuinely hope that we have that same experience here. And
(19:30):
maybe I feel like I'm turning into an old softy here,
but I almost hope for it for the next generation
more than I even hope for it for our own excitement,
for our own celebration. I hope that it is able
to grow a new generation of Blue Jays fans because
I love this team, and I love the way that
they mean something to our generation and to me and
my friends, and I just hope that that's able to
(19:52):
continue on because I like baseball a lot.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
You know, Yeah, I'm right there with you anyway.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
That'll do it for another episode of sports fel storytime,
tons of fun, love looking back at night ninety three
and learning things I maybe didn't know the first time around.
We will have a brand new look back next month,
a different team, a different time, a different group, a
different fun And in the meantime, if you have suggestions,
drop it in there into the discord, and of course
(20:20):
you are going to be getting your monthly mailbang coming
up in just a matter of days. We thank you
so much for your patroons. You guys are the absolute best,
my favorite folks on the Internet. In the meantime, we
thank you so much for listening to sports felt storytime
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