TORONTO – As the Rogers Center grew stronger during the final innings against the Boston Red Sox earlier this week, Charlie Montoyo paused to soak up all the noise.
During the fanless pandemic summer of 2020 and the commute days in Dunedin and Buffalo last year, the Toronto Blue Jays could only wish for such stupid and encouraging crowds. The long absence of this type of support has given the manager a new appreciation of the support that a domestic audience can offer.
“Oh, yes. More than ever,” Montoyo said. “The (Tampa Bay) Rays appreciated Dunedin.”
Nearly a year away from an emotional return to Toronto, the turmoil of his wandering years lingers for the Blue Jays, who played their first Canadian Day game at the top since 2019, a 9-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, even more so. emotional friday.
Large crowds gathered around the stadium hours before the gates opened and the building filled up quickly once they did. The 300-by-150-foot flag once again covered the field after an exciting pre-match tribute to the recently retired Russell Martin, which featured a tribute narrated by Jose Bautista. John Gibbons, Devon Travis, Jason Grilli, Kevin Pillar and Ryan Goins delivered video messages. Baseball Canada changed the name of its national youth team MVP award after receiving stars. Hits from iconic Canadian acts like Rush and The Tragically Hip were the soundtrack.
It felt so good, underlining how the last two years have been.
“I think about it every time the fans are strong and there’s a lot of excitement here,” Montoyo said. “I think about how different it was to play Buffalo and Dunedin.”
On Canada Day in 2020, you may recall, the Blue Jays were still trying to get permission from the federal government to organize their summer camp at Rogers Center. Last year, they went July 1 losing 7-2 to Yusei Kikuchi and the Seattle Mariners at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field, which was a strange introduction to the holidays for George Springer.
“Oh, it was extremely weird to celebrate something that’s supposed to be celebrated here in the United States. I really don’t think it had the same meaning for a lot of people,” he said. “Obviously, it’s still special. But now we’re here in front of our fans, our home country. That’s exciting.”
Like Montoyo, Springer often reflects on last year’s interruptions, discussing with his wife all the moves they made with a newborn in a new organization to which they were still acclimatizing.
“And then there’s the game side,” he said. “You’re not in your home stadium. You’re in a place where you’re not normally used to playing and all that stuff. It was definitely a weird time. Obviously, everything was out of our control. I try not to stop, though. like man, that was wild. “
Wild is that Bo Bichette, called up in late July 2019, played his first Canada Day game in Toronto or that Trent Thornton vividly remembers the 2019 game, but remembers little of last year’s in Buffalo.
Wild is also a fitting term for the most memorable experience of Martin’s Canada Day, when Cleveland won 2-1 in 19 innings in 2016 with a home run by Carlos Santana against Darwin Barney, the second-ranked player in the United States. Blue Jays he released that day.
That’s not what stands out, though.
“What was kicked out of me? I probably called the referee because it was terrible,” said Martin, who joined Edwin Encarnación for being kicked out that day. “And then the crowd grabbed my back, yelling at me. Yeah, it was a crazy game. It was a great experience.”
The same applies every July 1st.
“You feel the energy of the crowd and then the crowd gets angry for Canada Day,” Martin said. “It’s a bit special because you have the red shirts, but the audience feels like you’re in the playoffs. You know it’s not the playoffs, but you have that feeling of energy that you don’t have like in a regular season game. “
This was the atmosphere of a Friday that began with the roof closed and ended with an open sky under a partly cloudy sky, the Blue Jays back home and homeland, a crowd of 44,445 people at the Rogers Center during the trip.
Between the red touches on the blue stands from the fans wearing his No. 4 gift shirt to his place as a finalist in the All-Star voting along with five of his teammates, it was all a reminder to Springer of the national fan base behind them.
“You’re so used to playing for a market, for a city; well, you’re playing for an entire country and a country that’s bigger than the United States from a terrestrial perspective,” Springer said. “It stretches from the east coast to the west coast and as far north as you can get and there’s only one team. Don’t forget that, but you don’t realize it until you go to Detroit and the whole town of Windsor. “On the other side of the river, it’s at stake. We know what to expect in Seattle. You learn that you’re playing for a country, not just a market, and it’s pretty special.”
Like a Canada Day game at home in Toronto, where he belongs.