Murray Wood: Reflections on a weekend of sports, presidential tantrum and fall colours
Murray Wood says the Riders got robbed, while the Jays surprised the Dodgers and the experts. Meanwhile, he's not sure n...
For most baseball fans, watching the Blue Jays back in the World Series feels surreal. For Larry Fahlman of Saskatchewan, it’s been the trip of a lifetime.
The Regina-area fan travelled more than 2,000 kilometres to see the first two games of the World Series in Toronto, something he’s dreamed about since the Blue Jays’ back-to-back titles in the early 1990s.
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“Everybody jokes, ‘Oh, it’s on your bucket list of lifetime things,’ and it is,” Fahlman said from his seat inside Rogers Centre.
“You always say, someday I want to do that, and it happened.”
He says Friday’s Game 1 win was pure chaos, the kind of night Jays fans will never forget.
After falling behind 2–0 early, Toronto exploded in the sixth inning with a nine-run rally, capped by Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam, the first ever in World Series history. Alejandro Kirk added a two-run homer as nearly 50,000 fans erupted inside Rogers Centre.
“It was a party, the whole place shaking,” Fahlman said.
“You could just feel everybody losing their minds. That inning will be talked about for years.”
Shohei Ohtani later homered for Los Angeles in the seventh. Still, the damage was already done. Toronto held on for an 11–4 win to open the series.
Less than 24 hours later, the mood was completely different. The Dodgers answered with a 5–1 win behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s complete-game four-hitter, the first in a World Series since 2015.
“Last night was a frat party — so loud and so crazy,” Fahlman said on Saturday. “Today it’s fly balls, ground balls, pitching duels, (and a) totally different atmosphere.”
Fahlman says Game 2 felt like “old-school baseball,” with both teams trading defensive plays until Will Smith and Max Muncy broke it open with back-to-back home runs in the seventh.
Still, he says it’s been “worth every penny” to finally see his team compete for a title again, something he’s waited more than three decades for.
Fahlman flew back home to Saskatchewan on Sunday, but says he’s already checking flights for next weekend.
“We’re looking at games 6 and 7 if it comes back to Toronto,” he said. “It’s just one of those things you can’t miss twice.”
The World Series now shifts to Los Angeles, where Game 3 goes Monday night with first pitch at 6 p.m. Saskatchewan time. All games are broadcast live on CJME and CKOM.
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