A long time coming
In a moment that has been coming for a long, long time, franchise icon Joe Carter threw out the first pitch at Game 2 of the World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Passing the torch
After the pitch, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. greeted Carter to adorn him with the Blue Jays’ home run jacket. Carter obliged by wearing it and then making his way through the dugout for high fives. How great it would have been if that jacket was around back in 1993.
Echoes of ’92 and ’93
While the home run jacket wasn’t in existence back then, Carter sees plenty of similarities between the current Blue Jays team and the 1992 and 1993 teams that won it all. He highlighted team chemistry and fact that anyone could come through on any given day.
“When you have nine guys — and not just nine guys, but you got the bench players too, for them it’s a lot of fun to come to the ballpark,” Carter said. “It’s a lot of fun for them to cheer for one another, and those are things that’s going to propel you to a championship.”
A Hero watching for heroes
Carter’s World Series clinching home run in ‘93 has made him one of the most revered sports figures in Toronto and Canada. The man who has come closest since to recreating that kind of joy and ecstasy across the country is George Springer after a three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh to wipe out a 3-1 deficit in Game 7 of the ALCS.
That moment provided Carter the opportunity to be on the fan side of a clutch playoff home run. Carter was at home watching in his theater all by himself. He did have company, though, texting pitching legend John Smoltz as his heart beat at about 10,000 beats a second. With Springer at the dish with two on, his message to Smoltz was simple,”‘Looking for a hero.”
“And then Springer hits the home run and it’s just me,” Springer said. “My wife is upstairs because she can’t take it. I’m in the theater, and I’m jumping up and down, I’m hitting the wall. It was as if I had relived the whole thing because it was just that big because it’s been 32 years and now it’s like, they can stop talking about the ’92 and ’93 Jays getting to the World Series and now they have something to put their hats on now because this is their time and their moment.”
Toronto Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr.. puts the post season celebration jacket on former Blue Jay Joe Carter prior to Game 2 of baseball’s World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Still Beloved, coast-to-coast
Now 65-years-old, he has maintained ties to the city through a golf charity event that has been running for 17 years. He has forever engraved his place in the hearts of many fans across the country with a championship winning moment and you’d be hard pressed to find a place in the city that he’s paid for a meal.
“It means that if you close your eyes and swing hard and hit a home run, they will love you for the rest of your life,” Carter said, laughing, reflecting on the love he receives to this day. “I mean, not just here in Toronto. What has really made my life complete was you can go as far east as Nova Scotia and as far west as Vancouver and it’s all – it was all about the Blue Jays, and it was all about Canada, and that has a warm place in my heart.”