Not a Dry Eye in the House
Blog vol 6.17. Not a Dry Eye in the House
Last Saturday night, a very sad event happened in our house and all over Canada. We had been following the 2025 version of the Blue Jays to Game 7 of the World Series.
Usually, I do not get too involved in sports or sporting events, usually a casual observer. This edition of the Jays, however, had me hooked. Here was a baseball team that played together, a cohesive unit that seemed to truly enjoy the game, and they had a shot at the Championship, a good shot.
Getting all sentimental, the team reminded me of the days as a kid growing up in Northern Ontario and how we used to show up at the outdoor rink and play hockey all day long with our buddies. My kids do that now, taking their skates and gear over to Jim’s pond in the depths of winter and staying there all afternoon.
Ken Dryden in his book, The Game, states, “Nothing is as good as it used to be and it never was. The ‘golden age of sports,’ the golden age of anything, is the age of everyone’s childhood.”
Over the years, I have become jaded somewhat by professional sport, especially baseball. With players’ strikes, the demise of my beloved Montreal Expos, and the escalation of salaries, the swing and miss of 100 mph fastballs, and the overemphasis on the longball, I have had little room for that version of baseball. By contrast, the Jays were making contact, staying away from the strikeout, moving runners, playing incredible defense and playing together, nice to see.
This is where the wet eyes come in. Our eyes produce tears, in the form of water or aqueous as well as lipids and mucous. The lacrimal glands worked overtime in their production of watery tears when Captain Kirk shattered his bat as it made contact with a Yamamoto fastball and served up to Mookie Betts a game and World Series ending double play. Very sad.
My family and I and many friends went on this incredible ride together and would like to thank the Jays for a wonderful year. Hopefully, this brand of baseball can reverse a lot of the recent trends in the sport. Some teams, like the Dodgers, who have spent a boatload to buy pitchers, or who have spent so much on players that they have the luxury of resting players during a long season and yet remain competitive enough to reach the post season, and who use teams like the Pirates as farm teams to stock their cupboards.
Okay, the Blue Jays spent money, but they had a number of homegrown players and even perennial minor leaguers who rode the team bus for years and finally got a chance to play in the big leagues.
The sadness comes from seeing a team that reminds you of why you love the game, who should have won, lose in extra innings in game 7. And as we say every spring, this is our year and in the spring of 2026, it is my hope that the Jays stay the course and play their game and next fall, there will be tears again, but this time tears of celebration.
Go Jays! ‘til next week (year),
The good doctor
