Dunedin’s TD Ballpark, home of the Toronto Blue Jays’ Class A minor league team of the same name, may as well have been the Rogers Center of Canada’s Queen City for all of the anxious enthusiasm of the 1,000 or so fans who covered the playing field for a free watch party of Game 7 of the World Series on Nov. 1.

It was a chance for local fans to enjoy and share in the communal experience of watching their beloved team’s shot at becoming baseball’s Champions of the Whole Wide World, or the U.S. and Canada anyway.

The temperature for the 8 p.m. game hovered around 60 degrees, or an even colder-sounding 15 degrees Celsius in Canadian meteorology. But for Floridians more accustomed to 90-degree (F) heat, it was cool, maybe a little too chilly for these parts. Fans covered themselves with blankets or donned puffy winter jackets and team sweatshirts for what could be a long night.

After all, these two teams scuffled for 18 innings earlier in the week, with the Dodgers winning 6-5, so it was anybody’s guess whether the game’s denouement would be greeted by the first rays of dawn.

Indeed, at around 11 p.m. the game was tied and with the ninth inning having been completed, it was extra innings once again. At that point TD Ballpark began to empty, leaving only a few hundred hardy Blue Jays partisans to celebrate what they dearly, no, desperately, hoped would be a Toronto victory and the team’s first World Series title in 32 years.

The watch party, sponsored by the city of Dunedin and no doubt blessed by the local Blue Jays team, was one of the seven held around the city in parks and the stadium during the week. But this was Game 7, and even people who would normally spend the summer ignoring Dunedin’s boys turned out for the shindig. If Toronto pulled this off, everybody wanted to be part of what promised to be a raucous scene.

As the game started, rapt attention focused on the scoreboard, where the contest was displayed. The tension was enough to keep the Blue Jays fans on the edge of their lawn chairs. When the Blue Jays’ bigger-than-life slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. struck out on an elusive pitch from all-world pitcher Shohei Ohtani, the air momentarily was sucked out of the stadium. It seemed a portent of things to come. If Vladdy wasn’t hitting, the Blue Jays would be doomed.

Somebody get the Xanax! Or maybe another beer! Stat!

But there were eight innings left, and the Toronto lineup was loaded with guys who were accomplished hitters. They’d be OK? Right? No, really!

Meanwhile, kids with no apparent knowledge of the magnitude of the game and its effect on world affairs, happily kicked soccer balls, played catch or simply darted around the field like dogs just released from the kennel.

When Blue Jays right fielder Addison Barger, himself a Dunedin alum, hit a long fly that looked like a homer but was ultimately caught at the wall, the Dunedin gang let out an exuberant cheer along with their Toronto counterparts, but let out a collective “aww” when the ball was apprehended in the outfield. Heads rested in hands and necks craned backwards as the thought of a dinger was only to be a bitter disappointment.

By the seventh inning, Toronto was ahead by a 4-2 score and the stadium warmed with the anticipation of victory.

But baseball has nine innings. The Dodgers tied the game and sent it to extra innings late in the game. When the Bad Guys took the lead in the 11th and won in the bottom of the inning when catcher Alejandro Kirk grounded into a game-ending double play, it was “wait till next year” for the Jays.

That’s baseball.

“I’ve been crying for an hour,” said Toronto’s star Swiss Army Knife Ernie Clement told The Athletic after the game as he wiped away tears.

Dunedin was more sanguine. No cars were overturned. No dumpsters were set ablaze

This is Dunedin, after all.

But a great sadness settled on the TD Ballpark playing field.

Opening Day in Toronto is March 26, 2026.

Jays fans will have a long, cold winter to wonder about what might have been.