Heartbreaking, devastating, soul-crushing; all those phrases describe how Game 7 of the World Series ended for the Toronto Blue Jays. You could not get much closer to winning it all than the Blue Jays did.

Whether it was being two outs away in the top of the ninth inning before Jeff Hoffman gave up a game-tying home run to Miguel Rojas, or the Blue Jays having the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the ninth, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s foot being inches from scoring the World Series-winning home run.

It stings like hell, and it’s going to hurt for a long, long time. Some people will never get over that Game 7 loss by the Blue Jays, and rightfully so. There are so many what-if scenarios that may haunt their dreams forever. That was a tough, tough way not only to lose a ballgame, but to have a championship slip from your fingertips.

I realize this is “only” sports, and it’s only a team, but this is a Blue Jays fan base that’s grieving, and everyone processes grief differently. If you’re angry, that’s cool. If you’re sad, that’s warranted. Nobody can say anything or do anything to make this loss any easier. It will take time to recover.

But I take solace in a few things, and maybe you can, too.

The Blue Jays were one of only two teams left standing. They were *this close* to crossing the finish line ahead of anybody else, but they came up just short. At the beginning of the season, hell, even the middle or the end of the season, could anybody have imagined they’d make it that far?

They didn’t win the World Series, but this 2025 Blue Jays team deserves to be celebrated. Their collective effort should be held in high regard. Nobody can take away the fact that the 26 men on the active roster and countless others played their asses off for 180 games this season.

Watching the heart-wrenching post-game interviews from all the Blue Jays players, as they spoke through tears about the disappointing end to their season, you could tell they felt like they had let everyone down. By the same token, the brotherhood developed by this squad was unlike anything we have ever seen.

When you travel eight months of the year as a professional baseball player, your teammates become your family. You spend more time with the people next to you in the locker room than with your own family. So you can understand why those Blue Jays players not only felt sad about losing the last game of the season, but that incarnation of the Blue Jays is something that won’t be replicated ever again.

From the fan perspective, it might look as simple as “run it back”, but post-game remarks by Chris Bassitt underscore just how once-in-a-lifetime that team chemistry was, and there’s nothing anybody can do to bring that back. Even if you bring back most of the same cast of characters, it won’t be the same. The 2025 Blue Jays were lightning in a bottle personified.

I think that’s why so many of the Blue Jays players wore their emotions on their sleeves like that. They were devastated by the loss, but part of that may have also been the realization that they may never get that close to a World Series again. The fan base hasn’t seen a trip to the Fall Classic in 32 years, and for some of those players, that may be the first and last World Series.

Sadness is the overarching emotion for Blue Jays fans, and that will take time to subside. But through that anguish, there’s a lot to be proud of.

A team that no one expected to win the American League East won its first division title in a decade. The Blue Jays were underdogs in both the ALDS and ALCS, and they dispatched both the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners. The Los Angeles Dodgers were heavy favourites going into the World Series, and the Blue Jays took them to the brink of elimination.

Those missed opportunities in the World Series will hang like a heavy cloud, but just think back to all the countless memories the 2025 Blue Jays provided a fan base that hadn’t made it further than Game 6 of the ALCS since 1993.

I was lucky enough to remember the 1992 and 1993 World Series championships, but there’s a generation of Blue Jays fans who never experienced the glory and excitement of a deep playoff run before. It’s one thing to watch the clips on YouTube and read old articles, but it’s another to be part of the living and breathing hive mind of a fan base in real time.

The 2025 Blue Jays didn’t win it all, but this team and these players will be elevated to legendary status for a lifetime. One can hope there will be murals or statues erected of guys like George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette.

20 years from now, people will recite the entire World Series 26-man roster when looking back fondly on this team. Whether it was Ernie Clement setting a record for hits in a single postseason, or Louis Varland setting another MLB record for pitching appearances in a single postseason.

Every player had a moment at some point this season, whether it was during the regular season or the postseason. Each Blue Jay put their stamp on this team by pouring their heart and soul onto the field every game.

There’s nobody who wouldn’t trade all those memories for a World Series. But think of all those players and people on the outside looking in who would’ve traded it all to be in the Blue Jays’ shoes in 2025. That’s an opportunity that might only come around once in a generation, if that.

The sun rose this morning, and life marches forward. We can all move on with our lives, baseball no longer consuming every waking moment of the day for the last eight months, and especially all of October. It was a crazy ride with so many twists and turns that not even Hollywood could script it, as Trey Yesavage said after Game 6 of the World Series.

Is it better to have played and lost than to have never played at all? That’s for each observer to decide. In my eyes, the opportunity to be on the doorstep of immortality was worth it.

Go Jays, go. Let’s do it all again next year.

Love baseball? Don’t miss The 6ix Inning Stretch — the brand new podcast from The Nation Network, presented by Betway. Hosted by Toronto sports reporter Lindsay Dunn and 3-time MLB All-Star Whit Merrifield, this weekly show delivers insider stories, unfiltered Jays talk, player interviews, and expert analysis from around the majors. New episodes drop every Wednesday — listen on your favourite podcast platform or watch on the Bluejaysnation YouTube channel.