Just call it Manager County.
Lawrence native John Schneider has guided the Toronto Blue Jays to the World Series for the first time since 1993 after defeating the Seattle Mariners, 4-3, in an epic Game 7 on Monday night at Rogers Centre.
George Springer hit a three-run go-ahead homer in the seventh inning and Jeff Hoffman struck out the side in the ninth inning.
GEORGE SPRINGER
THREE-RUN SHOT
BLUE JAYS LEAD 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Qh7qwqYpRx
— MLB (@MLB) October 21, 2025
Jeff Hoffman was drafted by the @BlueJays in 2014 and traded away in 2015.
He returned to the organization 10 years later and just sent Toronto to the World Series! pic.twitter.com/cEzirpvXcQ
— MLB (@MLB) October 21, 2025
Schneider, 45, was a star pitcher and catcher at Lawrence High before going on to the University of Delaware. The Blue Jays selected him in the 13th round of the 2002 draft, but he never reached the majors after his career was shortened by a series of concussions.
In the spring of 2008, he began discussing a transition from playing to coaching with the Blue Jays. He got his first managerial gig in charge of the rookie ball team in the Gulf Coast League. He rose up the organizational ladder with stops in Low-A, High-A and Double-AA before he was named the major league club’s bench coach in 2019.
Schneider took over on an interim basis in 2022 when the club fired Charlie Montoyo midseason and was named permanent skipper at the end of the season. He guided the Blue Jays to the playoffs in 2023, but then bottomed out with a last-place finish in 2024.
But this season he engineered a worst-to-first turnaround as Toronto finished with a 94-68 record and the top seed in the American League. The Blue Jays defeated the division rival Yankees in the Division Series and then rallied after dropping the first two games at home against Seattle to clinch the AL pennant in a dramatic Game 7 in front of a delirious Canadian crowd.
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider, right, stands back as the umpires confer on a call during the first inning in Game 7 of baseball’s American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The 2025 baseball season has been one for the ages for managers from Mercer County.
First Kevin Schnall, a Hamilton native and former star catcher at Notre Dame High, took Coastal Carolina all the way to the College World Series final in Omaha.
Now Schneider and his Blue Jays will tangle with Shohei Ohtani and the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.