The ride ends here for Toronto Blue Jays fans.
Facing elimination last night for the fifth time this post-season, the Blue Jays were finally defeated by the Kansas City Royals 4-3.
A nail-biter down to the last pitch, the game provided some of the tensest moments of the playoff run. Blue Jays fan Eddie Baruel described the game as “nerve-wracking.”
He joined more than 100 others in Nathan Phillips Square — dubbed the “Bird’s Nest” by Mayor John Tory — to watch the game.
“The fact that I can experience this for myself and for all my friends and family that never got a chance to see the Jays clinch a playoff spot, it’s quite meaningful,” said Baruel.
Baruel said the Blue Jays’ pennant race has reinvigorated the city, a point hard to argue as boisterous fans roared around him after Jose Bautista’s second home run of the night.
It was a season the city’s baseball fans had waited 22 years for. Not even defeat could bring them down.
“It’s still a successful season,” said the chicken-costumed Brian So. “I don’t think many people in Toronto even expected us to be here.”
Jays fan D.J. Romeo echoed Baruel’s sentiment of a city energized by the team’s performance, declaring himself a “fan until I die.”
As he put it, expect fans like him to “keep bleeding blue, baby.”
Audio: Fans react to Jays player Jose Bautista’s second home run which tied the game in the eighth inning. (Emerson Brito/Ryersonian Staff)
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