Blue Jays great Joe Carter cheering on 2025 team in World Series vs. the L.A. Dodgers

By Canadian Press on October 22, 2025.

Joe Carter was just like Toronto Blue Jays fans across Canada on Monday night, watching Game 7 of the American League Championship Series with bated breath.

Carter is one of the all-time great Blue Jays, having won the World Series with Toronto in 1992 and 1993. His walk-off home run lifted the Jays to victory over the Philadelphia Phillies back in 1993 to help Toronto win its second consecutive championship.

He said that watching George Springer accomplish a similar feat on Monday against the Seattle Mariners, as the Blue Jays advanced to the World Series, made him empathize with the fans’ experience watching him play in the early 1990s.

“I think there were 41 million people and one, I was the one person here in the States cheering for the Blue Jays,” laughed Carter on Wednesday. “It was nerve-wracking.

“I got to experience how the fans and how my wife felt during all those times we had runs to the championships. It was nerve-wracking.”

Toronto was losing 3-1 in Monday’s climactic Game 7 when Springer came to the plate with Addison Barger on third and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at second. Springer’s drive flew 381 feet to deep left field with an exit velocity of 99.1 m.p.h., a three-run blast, to give Toronto a 4-3 lead and shift the odds of it winning the game by 41.2 per cent.

The Blue Jays’ bullpen preserved that lead to advance to the World Series against the National League’s Los Angeles Dodgers.

“What I like the best is what (Springer) said afterwards because it was runners on second and third with one out and he said all he was trying to do was get the guy in from third base and that’s a fly ball,” said Carter of Springer. “That’s what I’ve always tried to tell the people.

“When you try to do less, you end up doing more. That’s the mantra, that’s the attack that they have. That’s the way they go about their work. They’re not trying.”

Springer’s approach at the plate isn’t the only thing Carter likes about the 2025 Blue Jays. He appreciates how the entire lineup, top to bottom, is focused on making contact with the ball rather than crushing home runs.

“That’s the biggest thing, and that’s what propelled them (to victory) because if you look at Seattle, they were living and dying by the home run. I mean that was their whole shtick,” said Carter in a phone interview with The Canadian Press. “They couldn’t put together a rally. Home runs don’t always win you ball games.

“When you put together six, seven, eight, nine, 10 hits and you put together three or four innings in a row, that’s what wins you ball games.”

Carter compared this year’s lineup to WAMCO — the nickname his Blue Jays teams used for the first five hitters in their batting order. The acronym was made up of the Toronto players’ last names: Devon White, Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Carter, and John Olerud.

“They work the pitcher, they work the pitch count. They don’t strike out that much and they put the ball in play,” said Carter, who will be at Rogers Centre for Games 1 and 2 of the World Series on Friday and Saturday. “When you put the ball in play, you create a lot of pressure on the defence to make plays, and when they don’t make the play, then they have a chance to erupt and go out there and do it — not just with the home runs.

“They’re going to occasionally hit the home runs, but they’re gonna do it with hits from left-field line to the right-field line, and that’s what makes them so dangerous.”

Although the Los Angeles Dodgers are the odds-on favourite to repeat as World Series champions this year, Carter is still picking Toronto.

“I want the Blue Jays to win. It’s going to be a daunting task because everybody’s picking the Dodgers,” said Carter. “When everybody picks one team, then you’d better look at the other team. The Jays … they have what it takes and they’re not gonna be intimidated by that $100 billion payroll that the Dodgers have.

“They’re going to make them play, so this is going to be a good series. I’m picking the Jays in seven games.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2025.

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press