Penton: So close, but no Series’ title, for Blue Jays
By Bruce Penton
If this year's World Series could be narrowed down to a simple ‘Who killed the Toronto Blue Jays?’, let’s get right to the point and play a sports version of Clue. Open the little envelope and here’s what’s inside:
It was Hoffman.
In the ninth.
With a slider.
Poor Jeff Hoffman. The Blue Jays much maligned ninth-inning closer was two outs away from turning Canada into a state of sports delirium when he delivered a fateful slider to the weakest hitter in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup, Miguel Rojas, who hadn’t had a base hit since Oct. 2, thanks mainly to sitting on the bench..
Rojas swung and the ball sailed over the left-field wall, tying the game 4-4, sending it into extra innings and the pessimists among Canada’s 41 million people had a bad feeling that the Jays’ spectacular season was not going to end well.
Said Hoffman after the game: “That (pitch) cost everybody in here a World Series ring, so it’s pretty (expletive). Got to execute better in that spot.”
In the 11th inning, Will Smith duplicated Rojas’s heroics, slamming a solo homer off Shane Bieber but with the Jays showing life with a rally in the bottom of the 11th, Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk, who performed hitting and defensive heroics all year, grounded into a season-ending, dream-ending double play.
That’s baseball. No sense in beating up Hoffman, or Bieber, or anyone on the Blue Jays, for that matter. The team overachieved all summer, starting off 16-19 through 35 games and then dominating the American League from June through the end of September. For a team that most experts pegged for a fifth-place finish in the five-team American League East to come within two outs of a World Series title is almost unimaginable.
Most of Game 7 went the Jays’ way. There was an early 3-0 lead and it was 4-2 Toronto in the eighth before Max Muncy of the Dodgers hit a solo shot that made it 4-3. Jays’ manager John Schneider then called on Hoffman to get four outs and automatic hero worship status across the country before Rojas spoiled that narrative in the ninth.
It was 32 years ago when Joe Carter’s home run beat Philadelphia Phillies and gave Toronto its second straight World Series title. Fans all across Canada were giddy for most of the game with the thought that that three-decade drought was going to end.
It didn’t, but there’s always next year, although one of the team’s best hitters, Bo Bichette, is a free agent and may depart. Management will try in the off-season to fill a few holes in the team’s lineup, one of which is a dependable closer. Hoffman had 33 saves this year in 40 opportunities but his 4.37 earned-run average told a more accurate story of his effectiveness.
Still, it was a great year. And the Jays’ near-perfect run to the World Series helped bring Canada together, so all was not lost.
Montreal Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher, with an on-ice chirp to Florida’s Brad Marchand: “Oh, my God, your nose is even bigger in person than it is on TV.”
Super 70s Sports, on X: “John Hadl enjoyed a banner day in 1975 when he passed for 275 yards and two touchdowns against the Giants and performed a poignant a cappella version of Scarborough Fair in the huddle that brought two offensive linemen to tears.”
Headline in the New York Times: “Texas Cheat ’Em? U.S. Details How Mob Lured High Rollers Into Poker Trap.”
Columnist Norman Chad, on X, on cries that gambling should be banned. “That’s like legislating that the sun could not rise. Trust me, the sun will still rise.”
Cathal Kelly in the Globe and Mail, on the Dodgers’ reliance on superstar Shohei Ohtani: “When Ohtani’s not performing magic, the rest of his team has trouble remembering where they put their rabbits.”
Vancouver comedy guy Torben Rolfsen, as the Dodgers-Jays Game 3 dragged on toward the 18th inning: “Rams vs. Argonauts to settle it?”
Comedy writer Brad Dickson of Omaha: “I just had a trick or treater who was wearing his undershorts on top of his head, acting stupid, bumping into stuff, a real doofus who kept mumbling ‘I hate Nebraska, I hate Nebraska.’ I said, ‘Kid, who're you supposed to be?’ He goes, ‘A Big Ten referee.’”
Columnist Norman Chad on X: “True story: I was watching Trey Yesavage as an 18-year-old freshman at East Carolina in 2022. He had a 4.50 ERA and a 1.731 WHIP, with 13 wild pitches and 15 walks in 26 innings. I told my bar buddy, ‘He's working at Best Buy by year's end.’ So once in a while I'm wrong.”
RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com: “Halloween guidelines in many elementary schools call for outfits that don’t scare anybody. So my niece dressed her kids as New York Jets.”
Headline at fark.com: “Giannis Antetokounmpo walks from midcourse to the rim on one dribble, refs are like ‘hey, that’s cool.’”
Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca