Supendra Chandrakumar was in his mother’s womb when the call of the Toronto Blue Jays’ victory in the 1992 World Series, the first championship by a non-American team, crackled through his family’s one-bedroom apartment.
And he was born in 1993, the year the Canadian team won it again with one of the most iconic moments in baseball history: Joe Carter’s walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6. Mr. Chandrakumar’s parents, who had fled civil war in Sri Lanka for Toronto a few years earlier, dressed their son in a Blue Jays onesie for the occasion.
The team hasn’t won a championship since.
Why We Wrote This
This World Series holds extra meaning for Toronto and Canada, after a 32-year baseball championship drought for the city and nearly a year of diplomatic loggerheads with the U.S. for the country. But it’s also just a game.
And, so, as the Blue Jays return to their home city this weekend to try and best the Los Angeles Dodgers for the World Series title, Mr. Chandrakumar, like other fans born in 1993 or after, says he has waited his entire life for another chance.
Courtesy of Supendra Chandrakumar
“I was part of that atmosphere then, and it must have rubbed off on me,” he says.
This year’s World Series offers a compelling underdog narrative. The Blue Jays finished last in their division in 2024, and few – except perhaps Mr. Chandrakumar – expected them to make it this far this season. They are facing the reigning world champion Dodgers, who, with their deep pockets, have essentially overtaken the New York Yankees to be what Major League Baseball fans refer to as the “Evil Empire.”
It’s not the only reason fans are rooting for the Blue Jays, even south of the border. This series comes as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to taunt Canada: slapping impromptu tariffs on the country (most recently for airing an ad during Game 1 of the World Series game played in Toronto, with Ronald Reagan lauding free trade), and claiming it should become America’s “51st state.”
The World Series, in many ways, shows the folly of this North American feud. The only member of the Blue Jays who was actually born in Canada is star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was born in Montreal and grew up in the Dominican Republic. His father played for the Expos, which later moved from Montreal to D.C. to become the Washington Nationals after the 2004 season.
Currently the only MLB team in Canada, and at a time when Canadians are rallying around their flag in the face of U.S. hostility, the Blue Jays are being touted as a team for the whole of Canada to cheer on.
Norah Spades, a lifelong Jays fan and a washboard player with her blues-ragtime duo The Vaudevillian, travels all over Canada for gigs. She says she sees Canadians cheering wildly for the Toronto team. And, for her, as far as baseball is concerned, the U.S.-Canada rivalry is in good fun.
Courtesy of Supendra Chandrakumar
“I feel like even though we’re in this competition, it feels like the camaraderie is actually quite strong right now because the game is the priority,” she says. “It almost feels like we’ve gone back to that neighborly fun.”
Ms. Spades was also born in 1993. She was wrapped in her mother’s arms when Joe Carter hit that iconic home run – but that changed when both Mr. Carter and her mom started cheering ecstatically.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I fell over on the couch cushion, because when my mom cheers, there’s arms and legs in the air at the same time,” she says. “I’m glad I made it, really.”
She spent her childhood tossing a ball with her mom, a softball player. She grew up playing T-ball and hardball, and watched every Blue Jays game she possibly could, often with her face painted Jays blue.
“I’ve been hearing forever, ‘Oh, it’s just the Jays, they’re never gonna make the Series again because it’s been 32 years.’ But I’ve always been holding out. I always knew they’d be back, and they’re finally back and they’re killing it.”
But those reveling in the idea that Canada could win at “America’s game” don’t know the real history, says William Humber, a Canadian baseball historian.
“So many people purport that baseball is an American invention,” he says. “Obviously, we have a surfeit of American media and culture up here. … So, there’s nothing that would better somehow symbolize cultural imperialism than the national game of the United States, foisted on a novice and naive public.”
Courtesy of Supendra Chandrakumar
Except it’s not true. Mr. Humber tried to set the record straight in his book “Old Ontario at Bat: Baseball’s Unheralded Ancestry.”
He says baseball was being played as a folk game in Ontario in the 19th century and evolved into a modern game concurrently in Canada and the U.S. The first professional game between the two countries was played in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in 1860.
American cultural imperialism has indeed grown since the Blue Jays won their last World Series in 1993. A few months later, the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. While Canadians overwhelmingly support the free trade that Mr. Trump is contesting today, at that time, they worried about their much larger neighbor subsuming their identity. And in some ways, the U.S. has, as the two countries have become more intertwined since the 1990s.
When Mr. Chandrakumar was growing up in the 1990s, Toronto very much felt like a hockey town. That has changed. The Raptors winning the NBA title in 2019 is one reason. A World Series title this weekend could offer another.
When Mr. Chandrakumar’s parents arrived in Toronto, like so many newcomers, they wanted to immerse themselves in the culture of their new homeland. Baseball was all the buzz then, so they joined in the collective joy. But his father left him at home, still an infant, to go downtown and celebrate that World Series-clinching home run in 1993.
Mr. Chandrakumar has been determined to make it to a Blue Jays parade downtown ever since, riding with them “through thick and thin,” he says. “And that’s what I’ll do for as long as I live.”
