What are you up to for the next year or so?
If you answer is anything but “celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Blue Jays’ most recent World Series championship,” you’re doing it wrong. Or, perhaps, very, very right. But either way, our good friend Matt English — aka @matttomic — has apparently got all kinds of minutiae from that incredible season ready to be stuffed straight into your darkest, most depressing hole of unrepentant filth… your Twitter feed!
If I made a Twitter bot that tweeted as-it-happened updates from the 1993 Jays season all next year (25th anniversary) would you be into it?
— ℳatt (@matttomic) September 30, 2017
Quick update: this is happening. Bot will begin tweeting news at end of 1992 WS, with updates throughout offseason into 1993. Stay tuned.
— ℳatt (@matttomic) October 17, 2017
Spending my weekend poring over 25-year-old sports sections in the Toronto Star archives really took me back to my academia days
— ℳatt (@matttomic) October 17, 2017
Awesomeness. And with the anniversary of the end of the 1992 World Series fast approaching (it’s tomorrow), Matt’s apparently ready to go:
The account is @RealTime93Jays.
Tweets will start the moment the '92 WS ends, will carry through offseason news in real time, right into '93 https://t.co/DQlpHmJUGV— ℳatt (@matttomic) October 22, 2017
This right here is pretty great. So get following! I mean, we all know that it’s not just going to be a happy ending, but a deliriously happy one. In fact, today just happens to be the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Joe Carter home run that ended the 1993 season and made the Blue Jays back-to-back World Series champions. And, hoo boy, do people have some great stories about that incredible moment in Toronto (and Canadian) sports history — several of which I was told today because I mistakenly thought it was the 25th anniversary — which was especially dumb of me, seeing as I was already contemplating this piece about Matt’s project — and got a bunch of great responses about it on Twitter:
at home and I almost put a hole through the ceiling from jumping up so high when that ball went over the wall. What a great moment
— Allan Chow (@chow_allan) October 23, 2017
watching it in a hockey arena in northern Alberta during my brothers hockey game on a 10 inch black and white TV in the lobby.
— Mark Wheeler (@Leafsfanwheel) October 23, 2017
At the dome! Losing my hearing!
— Leezer (@LeezerShort) October 23, 2017
At friends house in Cambridge. We all piled in a car and the first impromptu baseball parade in downtown Galt happened. Lots of people!
— JMoco (@Jmoco11) October 23, 2017
Perhaps the greatest part of my story of that night even though I was at the game was parading up Yonge with my friend ... 1/
— James G (@james_in_to) October 23, 2017
we spot some dude puking in a garbage can next to the subway entrance and lo! it's our good friend and neighbour, so we helped him home too.
— James G (@james_in_to) October 23, 2017
My parents went without me. High fived after the homer. Mom's ring sliced my dad's forehead. Spent the celebration in first aid. #karma
— Matt MacLellan (@mattymaclellan) October 23, 2017
I was alone in the basement watching (my parents were at a bar and the babysitter didn't care), jumping right along with Joe.
— Joshua (@JoshuaHowsam) October 23, 2017
Funny story from my Mom at the bar. Off the bat she thought it was another yanked foul ball and looked away. Missed it clearing the fence.
— Joshua (@JoshuaHowsam) October 23, 2017
I had tickets for Game 7. I was probably one of the only people in Toronto who had mixed emotions about the home run.
— Andrew Benjamin (@ThisEnragesMe) October 23, 2017
@AndrewStoeten watched at home w/ fam + Aunt/Uncle who recently had 1st child. Had to be quiet to not wake the sleeping baby.
— Jon Wicks (@jonwicks) October 23, 2017
I was 13 and my parents took me to the wedding of a 3rd cousin who divorced after 6 months.
— Mike (@mikedesanto7) October 23, 2017
I was at home in Port Hope. 13 years old. I had a ticket. My Mom took it away because she saw me riding a bike sans helmet. True story
— Marc MacDonald (@PHDMAC) October 23, 2017
Parents told the sitter I could stay up for the end. Sitter didn't listen, watched on tape the next day. Yes I'm still angry at that sitter.
— Simon Sharkey-Gotlieb (@simon_shargot) October 23, 2017
All my friends in grade 3 had to sleep, my dad let me stay up. I was the only one on my class who saw it. Greatest.
— Vishal Hussain (@Vishal_Hussain) October 23, 2017
I was at a bar with friends!'
— liz (@biggles14) October 23, 2017
a Bowling Alley. I was 8 and this kid in my class had a birthday party and no one went, but my mother made me go to be nice.
— Blarf! Of the Cave Goblins (@AdrianCrisostim) October 23, 2017
Sitting in section 113. 14 years old. Tore my braces off front bottom teeth trying to tear away some of the bunting for a souvenir.
— Scott MacArthur⚒ (@ScottyMacThinks) October 23, 2017
Some guy with a Swiss Army knife was cutting pieces for everyone around us and I got one. Was at ortho for a fix two days later.
— Scott MacArthur⚒ (@ScottyMacThinks) October 23, 2017
I was at a fundraiser dinner hiding a crazy big portable tv & rabbit ears under the table..many people I didn't know came over to say hi..
— Catherine Stem 📎 (@CathQCT) October 23, 2017
My friend's dad was with Jack Layton that night and apparently Layton walked up and down Yonge playing his saxophone all night 😂
— Victoria 🥕 (@biaginger) October 23, 2017
Also it was 1993, wouldn’t that make it the 24th anniversary?
— Tiger Sammy (@tigersammy) October 23, 2017
It’s all good, it’s worth celebrating regardless pic.twitter.com/YS0zeY1EsP
— Tiger Sammy (@tigersammy) October 23, 2017
The 1992 series was incredible in its own right, of course, and I’m sure we’ll talk about its anniversary tomorrow (because it’s not like there’s going to be some kind of avalanche of Jays news in the next 24 hours). But the way it ended — in the 11th inning with a great exhale of relief, as the Jays barely managed to avoid allowing the Braves, down to their final out for a second time (the first having been in the 9th), to again tie it up and live on to try and force a Game Seven — just doesn’t quite measure up to the instantaneous visceral joy of a walk-off World Series winning home run.
And with that kind of ending, how could you not want to follow along for the next year? Give it a go: @RealTime93Jays.
I’d love to tell a tale of shared euphoria with a group of fans, but I was ten, so I watched it at home. Still, would have held onto that moment a lot tighter if I knew what was to come.
Love this so much. I was almost 7, but got to stay up watching it. Distinctly remember jumping up and down on the couch in nothing but my underwear. I intend to repeat my celebratory ritual for the next Jays WS win.
So listen. I was 6 when we last went to the dance. And no my foot is bleeding and i have no pancreas.
I was watching the game at the University of Toronto with about 15 buddies. I remember when Molitor hit his home run in the 5th (to go along with his electric RBI triple in the first), it looked like a done deal – after all, Stewart was on the mound and glaring his way to glory. One of my friends said (no joke): “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the Phillies came back and took the lead, and we won it on a home run in the bottom of the ninth?” To which he was loudly told to shut his pie hole. He was, of course, a hero and a prophet after Joe touched ’em all. If Yonge Street was a party in 1992, it was a freakin’ Mardi Gras in 1993.
For what it’s worth, in 1992 I was watching game 6 at the Dome. When the last out was made, I leapt on to the field and ran straight for centre, hoping to “make a catch” like Devon against the fence. By the time I actually made it out there, I was bloody exhausted, but still crashed into it as fast as I could, which is when I discovered that the wall really doesn’t have a lot of give to it. I must have laid on the ground for 5-10 minutes afterwards. Totally worth it.
I look forward to the internet outrage when we trade prospect Steve Karsay for Rickey Henderson.
My God, Steve Karsay earned over $26M in his MLB Career, which generated 11.2 WAR (baseball reference) over parts of 12 seasons
Not to bad for a guy who was mostly a middle reliever. He had injury problems, of course. I remember a few of my friends thinking the Henderson deal was awful — they presumed Karsay to be a future superstar. He’d never pitched above A at that point. To me, it was the classic prospect-for-proven-veteran deal, and one designed to help win it all. Henderson wasn’t at his best, of course, but we never got burned on the Karsay end of it. This used to be my go-to example whenever someone whined about trading a prospect.
It’s a better example than Jeff Kent (whom the Mets also squandered) for 11 starts (including post-season) of David Cone.