The Decibel - OK Blue Jays! A bandwagoner’s guide to the World Series

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

The Toronto Blue Jays are headed to the World Series for the first time in over 30 years. It’s the third time in franchise history that Canada’s team is playing for the championship. But this monumental moment isn’t just for the diehard Jays fans – everyone can get in on the fun.So today, we bring you The Decibel’s bandwagoner’s guide to not feeling totally lost as the Jays try to make history. Producer and lifelong fan Madeleine White will walk us through some baseball 101 – including the lingo, superstitions, weird stats, what makes this season’s team so special, and whether she thinks we’ve got a shot against the Los Angeles Dodgers.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the first time in over 30 years, the Toronto Blue Jays are headed to the World Series, and people are excited. There's about, I would say, 50 people in line. It's a Wednesday afternoon. It's not even lunchtime. So people are, I don't know, skipping work. But that is how hot the Blue Jays are. Earlier this week, producer Ali Graham and I loitered outside the Blue Jays merch shop, at Rogers Stadium. The Jays will be playing their first two games here

against the LA Dodgers starting Friday. It's about time. We deserve it. The last time Jays were in the World Series, I was three months old. It's good to be able to experience this in our lifetime. Just growing up watching games with my grandparents, my parents, this means everything to me. I've been waiting for a win for a very long time. It's nice to get something in the city. Back in the day, early 90s, we lived and died with the Jays.

And this is what fans live for. This is why we watch it. Let's hope they win. I think that have a good. good chunts. This is awesome. Awesome for the city. Oh, for the country. We talked to die-hard fans, but also people just riding this wave of joy, those we affectionately call bandwagoners. Listen, there is no shame in hopping on the bandwagon, and I'll admit, I'm doing it myself. And so today, we have a lifelong Jay's fan on the show, who also happens to be decibel producer Maddie White. She's going to walk us through what we need to know to get in on the fun,

from the lingo, superstitions, and weird stats, to what makes this year's team so special. And of course, she'll tell us whether she thinks we've got a chance against the Dodgers. This is your bandwagoner's guide to not feeling totally lost as the Jays try to make history. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Maddie. Thank you so much for coming to the other side of the show, out of the producer chair, into the guest chair today. Weird. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird, but it's so great to have you on the other side of the table.

So, of course, the Globe has a great team of sports reporters. But Maddie, we've been working together for a long time. And I wanted to talk to you because you really sum up what it means to be a true baseball nerd. You've been a fan of the Blue Jays and baseball more broadly, basically, from birth. Yes. When you go to games, you literally have one ear button listening to the radio commentators and you even keep a scorecard with a pencil and paper. I have my book right here.

I brought it to studio. This is an old school tradition that I learned goes back to the 1800s. So you are like a true baseball fan slash nerd. So we've heard from people on the streets in Toronto about what this moment means to them, the Blue Jays in the World Series. What does it mean to you? I mean, I guess a place to start, yes, lifelong. fan. I was talking to my parents about their memories of like the 90s wins because I was a little

kid back then, what they remember about how I reacted. I ran around the room when Joe Carter hit his home run. We were living in Vancouver at the time and I ran around like I was running the bases freaking out while everybody was yelling and screaming in the house. I feel way back. Blue Jays win it. The Blue Jays are World Series champions. I also played baseball for over 20 years. I traveled. I played competitively on elite women's teams. And this sport means a lot to me. This franchise means a lot to me. Like all fans, you know, new and old, there's a certain euphoria that we're all feeling right now. Give me, I want to feel your euphoria. Like, let's bring back to Game 7. Like, what did you feel? You know, I'm neurotic, right? I think a lot of

baseball fans probably feel this way. Like, it can be incredibly stressful. I am either, like, wrapped up in a little ball hugging a pillow, silently cursing to myself when they're not playing well. And then when they play well, I explode. It's dizzying. It's so visceral. Like you feel it all over your body. It's intoxicating. It's why you do this. It's why you stick through all the lows because, you know, especially with this franchise, there's been some real lows. But when it's good, boy, it's a drug man. And so I welcome all my bandwagoner friends and say, yes, I understand why you're here now. Come, come and take a seat with me on the wagon. You give me a great segue here to talk about the bandwagon. And I think it's fair that the excitement

of this moment, this is going beyond Toronto. Like the joy around the Jays is kind of going across the country because it has, the Jays have been positioned as Canada's team. And in a time that, you know, Canadian nationalism is really top of mind for a lot of people. But, you know, there might be people out there that are kind of still saying like, so what? Like, okay, whatever. This is Blue Jays. This is baseball. Can you make the case about why they should jump on the Blue Jays Batten Wagon? Yeah, so for this team specifically, they're very exciting. You know, the team itself was not really expected to do this well this year. And the start of the season, they were not great, to be honest. And 2024 was a very

disappointing year. And the start of 2025 felt a little bit like 2024 all over again. But then Canada Day, around that time, we started to take off as a team. And it got really exciting and they won their division, which is a big deal because they play against really tough teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. And in addition to the team overall being seen as an underdog, there's also like a number of players on this team that are kind of no names. And I don't mean that in a rude way. I mean in a way that like not a lot of people have heard of Nathan Lucas, for example, or even Ernie Colment or Miles Straw. And the Js have also done a really good job of bringing up their new talent. You know, you may have heard of a pitcher

called Trey I Savage, who started the year in the lowest level of the minor leagues called Singley. And now is going to pitch in a World Series game. So you have this mix of different types of players. You have your stars like Vladie and Bo Bichet and George Springer. You have your people who are having an exceptional year who maybe were not household names before this year. You have your new guys. And they all clearly really like each other. The chemistry feels palpable when you watch them play. And that's very special. So you've sold it to me that Like, this is why this, the sport is very, it's very poetic, it's romantic. But what about people that are kind of like, how do you sell it to somebody to jump on the Jay's bandwagon?

And that maybe it's like, maybe not interested in the sport so much, but like, I guess, like, the excitement of the whole thing right now. Yeah, I think there is something to be said about this kind of collective euphoria, like the joy that everyone is feeling. I think that is a worthy reason to get on this. There's so few options of these kinds of moments of all connection of everyone together, right? like going to a bar and watching a game and erupting, I was at game two of the playoff series against the Yankees and like my dad was hugging and high-fiving strangers, you know, even in the regular season,

I was at a game with a friend and we beat the Yankees again. And my friend ran up and down the stairs of our section, high-fiving people. Like, it's just, it's madness in the best sense. I think it's an interesting thing to say that this is kind of a moment to connect with strangers. right? And strangers across Canada. It doesn't just have to be in Toronto. It can be in any bar in any part of the country. Absolutely. I mean, like, when I go to games, it's not uncommon to see

science. It's like, I'm here from Saskatoon or I'm here from Halifax or, you know, and when I go up north to visit family, like, everybody wants to talk about the Jays in the summer. And that's great. That's that of what sports should be about. It should be about bringing people together. So, Maddie, I will admit I'm a bit of a bandmigger myself. Not that I don't watch or understand baseball. I know that. I do. I know that. It's mostly because I can't handle the stress of caring for something and then getting let down my loss, which happens a lot for us. It's fair. That's fair. That's the rational response.

But in this awesome run, I've been texting you during games with all my 101 questions because even though, like I said, I know the basics, like the barrier to entry in baseball is. pretty high. Like there are very specific rules. There's lingo, weird numbers. And I want everyone listening to leave this episode feeling like they can impress some of their friends or feel connected to the games they'll be watching. So can we just demystify some of this? Sure. Let's go for it. Okay. I want you to translate some of the baseball talk. So when people get excited, yes. A.K.U. Maddie. Yes. They stop making sense. Correct. And say things like, get on the sticks. Yes.

What does that mean? So, listen, I don't know if this is a thing that was said a lot. It was a thing that was said a lot when I was playing baseball. So sticks are bats. So you shout, get on the sticks when you need your team to start hitting the ball. So for example, I think I texted that to you, probably around the sixth inning of game seven against the Mariners. So right before they had their big inning in the seventh. And I was like, we really got to get on the sticks.

And you just sent me back confused emojis, which is the correct response. But yeah, baseball has tons of these things. There's like another one where you hear people shout, like, throw them a chair or give them a chair. And that's, you know, when you're like shouting at the pitcher to like strike out the batter. So why are you saying give them a chair? Because if you strike out a batter, the batter has to return to the dugout. And what do you do in the dugout? You sit in the sad chair.

You sit in the sad chair. Well, let's talk about intentional walks, meaning a hitter does not actually swing at any pitches. Why would that happen? And will we see more of them in the World Series games? Yeah, okay. So what happens when there's an intentional walk is the manager or the head coach will just flash four fingers to the umpire at behind home plate. And that is telling the umpire, this batter that is coming up to hit, I want them to just go directly to first base. I don't even want my pitcher to throw pitches to them.

So an intentional walk is used, you know, basically when you're going to face a really dangerous batter. And yes, I do think there are going to be probably a lot of them in the World Series because there are a lot of dangerous batters on the Dodgers, very specifically. There's Shohei Otani, who is arguably the best baseball player. Of all time. Of all time, certainly the best paid baseball player. But also, like, someone like Vladie, Vladimir Greer Jr. on the Blue Jays, he is a really dangerous hitter, especially right now.

He's hitting very well in the playoffs. And so the Dodgers may decide there's a situation where, like, we cannot change. chance Vladi hitting a home run right now? Okay, let's ask you that. So basically the idea is here is that strategically they don't want this person to hit a home run. Yes, that's right. Got it. Okay, let's talk about stats, because stats are a huge part of the game. What are the ones that we have to pay attention to? Like, what tells us who's good or not? Okay. So I think like one thing you want to consider for batters when you're trying to assess, is this batter really, really good? There's obvious metrics, like how many home runs have they hit, right? Like Joey Otani on the Dodgers

hit 55 home runs this year in the regular season alone. Compare that to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He hit 23 home runs in the regular season. So that's one metric. That doesn't tell you the whole picture, though. So another stat that is used to assess how good batters are is called the OPS, which stands for on base plus slugging. On base plus slugging.

I'm going to spare you the math and exactly what that means. Suffice to say that this is a good measure to indicate how good the batter is. And so, you know, right now, Vladie, I'm going to keep going back to him because he's the face of the franchise and a really good hitter. His OPS in the postseason, so that means for the playoff games he's played so far, is 1.400.000. That's, yes, you're like, means nothing to me. It means nothing to you. For context, someone with like a not great OPS is like 0.400.5. So it's like that anything above one, that's very good OPS.

That's good context for me to say like anything above one, I'm like, Whoa, that is a great OPS. Yeah, like 0.80, that's pretty darn good. All right. For pitchers, pitchers, it's ERA. So that's earned run average. And so you want to see that number be low. So like 2.1, let's say 2.1, that's a good ERA.

The TV broadcast will show you their stats as they come on when you see like five, six, you know, like crazy ones or like 11. Like, that's not good. Okay. It's like that's a measure of how many runs they tend to allow in. That are earned. I'm going to spare you the details of what earned means. I just need to know the numbers. So 11 is bad.

Too good. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So it's the opposite. OPS high, good. ERA low, good. All right.

Thank you for that one. Okay, let's talk about the fans very quickly. There are a lot of interesting signs out in the stands. Like, for instance, these K posters, what's going on with that? Yes. This is a weird one. So when you go to a game, you will often see somewhere, usually in the outfield, along a banner, a fan will start to put up the letter K

every so often. And this is a representation of how many strikeouts your starting pitcher has had. So why is that represented by the letter K? I had to read about this. And this goes back to the 1800s when we were developing this system of notation for scoring a game, because I'm not the first nerd to have done it. I come from a long lineage of nerd scoring games on our scorebooks. It should be S, right? Strikeout? Yes, I was going to Okay. S was already taken, sorry.

For what? For sacrificial bunt, which is a whole other thing. And so the person who was devising the system decided K was a good one because it was for struck out. And so he went with the K sound of struck. I mean, K is in the word strike, I guess. Yes, sure. And so something to note just very quickly is that when you see a regular K, that means

the batter struck out swinging. So they swung at the third strike. When occasionally you will see a backwards K, which are considered like more valuable, whoa. And a backwards K means that the batter was called out, which means they did not swing at the third strike. Like the pitcher froze them, essentially. Got it. So, great. That's why we see all the case.

Interesting. Okay. One more thing before we go to break. Why does everyone chew and spit in baseball? I don't. Okay. What I'm going to say to this is like, yeah, I get this all the time. Everyone's like, ewe gross, and it is ewe gross.

What I will say is there's a long tradition in baseball of people, I think, originally chew and chew in tobacco, which is really gross, if you ask me. But now it's kind of morphed into, like, a lot of baseball players will chew gum. You'll see, like, big buckets of bazooka Joe in the dugout and also eating sunflower seeds. And I got to say, like, this starts young, like, not the chewing tobacco stuff, but the sunflower seeds of the gum. It's just tradition?

That's it. I'm sure it started somewhere for a reason. You might say it's because, you know, what else you're doing? There's a lot of free time in baseball. You got time to eat some sunflower seeds out of your dirty back pocket. I don't know, but like it's just, it's been in the sport forever. It's part of the game. Part of the game.

After the break, more on the Blue Jays, our enemies, and weird superstitions. Okay, Maddie. We've got some good lingo, some impressive. of stat knowledge to throw out at our next watch party. Now let's talk about the Jays. When I spoke to fans this week, they told me all about their favorite Jays players. Just seen Vladdy.

He's the part. He's the pulse. I'm a big Max Scherzer guy. Guerrero Jr. You know, he's dancing and he's talking. Like, it does bring excitement to a lot of Latinos. Springer is the guy for me. I think as he goes, the team seems to go. You know, it's been a great year for him.

Ernie Clement is just right up there with those boys, just as productive. collective effort, but Vladdy is the men. Maddie, you've mentioned Guerrero. Tell me a bit more about why he's so loved and who else people need to know on this team. Yeah, okay. So Vladi is the face of the team, right? So earlier this year, the front office, which is like the upper management of the franchise,

signed him to a 14-year-long deal that cost $500 million. Vladi is 26. So he's essentially locked in to be a blue jay for life, right? And there's a reason why the front office made this decision. I would imagine. I am speculating a little bit here. But for example, he's obviously an excellent player. He's a big star. He hits a lot of dingers. All of that is like the sexy side of the sport. But also he's Canadian. So you may be seen a lot of photos these days. If you're on social media of like little baby Vladdy, like as a three-year-old chubby little kid and a little Montreal Expos outfit and batting helmet on the field, that's because his father, Vladimir Guerrero, senior. played for the Expos, and he was born in Montreal while his father was playing for the team. So that's Flattie. I think there are some other players

that you're going to hear a lot about, hopefully, in the World Series. George Springer, you will have probably already heard about because he hit the game-winning home run in game seven. When Springer hit it out, we all went crazy. Just an unbelievable feeling. I felt like I was out of my sea. It was levitating.

It was like nothing I've ever been involved with before. The streets were absolutely packed, You literally, you couldn't move. Hugging strangers. Yeah. High-fiving. No kissing, but just hugging everyone in sight. Jumping up and down, enjoy.

George is one of the more veteran players on the team. He's 36. He joined a few years ago. You may also have heard that the Mariner fans were quite mean to George. There was a lot of booing of George whenever he came up to bat. And allegedly, there was also booing of him when he got hit by a pitch by a mariner's pitcher. This goes back to a long, weird rivalry between the Mariners and the Houston Astros.

George used to be a really big star on the Houston Astros. That's what's happening there. But George's home run in Game 7, for example, to me, is a real classic example of why baseball is poetic. You know, he gets drilled in the knee by a team that considers him a rival. He's seriously hurt. Like, he just goes down when he gets hit in the knee in Game 5. Game 6, he comes back. He struggles.

He's clearly still in terrible pain. And then in game seven, he hits the game-winning home run. It's craziness when you think about it. Like, that's exactly how it should be written if you were writing this story. And that's George. Bo Bichette is another player. A lot of people may have heard of. He's someone who is consistently good when he goes up to bat.

He's usually our shortstop. However, right now he's on the injured list because he sprained a ligament in his knee in a game in September. So he hasn't played in the playoff so far. But a big question will be, will he play in the World Series? He has said in an interview that he would. Unfortunately, it's not Bo's decision. So we will probably find out possibly by the time this podcast airs,

whether or not Bo is going to play. So the World Series starts this Friday in Toronto. It's the best of seven games. And as you've mentioned, we're up against the L.A. Dodgers. And star player, Shohei Otani. What else do we know about this team? First things first, I am not a diehard Dodgers fan, but let me just give you, like, the top points here. And the most important point is that they are the defending champions of the World Series.

So they won it last year. They also won it in 2020. They have been to the World Series over 20 times, and they've won it eight times. You know, compare that to the Js twice. So they'd certainly have a winning record. They have a huge cast of stars on their team. They have a bigger payroll than Toronto. You know, obviously Shohay, as I said, is like the best baseball player, I would say, that we've ever seen.

He's a pitcher and an incredible hitter. That's a very rare combination, for example, in the last playoff game where he pitched, he threw 10 strikeouts, which is a lot of strikeouts. And he hit three home runs, all in the same game. Like, this does not happen. So it's not going to be easy. But there's a case for Hope. Okay. Okay.

Good to know. Some Americans are also cheering for the Jays because of the underdog team. And the LA Dodgers are not. not really liked in the U.S. as well. I think that's fair. I see that online in the chatter. I think that a lot of people feel that L.A. has an unfair advantage because of the size of their payroll because they spend so much. I think they spend this year just to pay their players. They're spending something like $320 million. The Js, I think, are closer to $250.50. So that's a sizable gap. I think there's a concern that if the Dodgers just keep winning, that there will be an

excitement that will be lost in the sport because then it'll be like, you know, you just buy the World Series because you buy the best players. So you mentioned that the J's, it's going to be a hard series for us. But, you know, a lot of fans believe that they can somehow control the outcome of these games. I do the rally cap for sure. I flip my hat inside out when they're down. Like sit in the same spot on my couch. I usually wear the same jersey after they win.

I'm sending a text in the family group chat asking what meals she's made in the past when the Blue Jays have won. Just pray. Pray a lot for that they do win. Do you have any superstitions? Do you have any rituals that you do to control the games? Of course. Every crazed fan does. You know, it's a deeply irrational thing that we all do, I think. Me, myself, sure. They're dumb. They change, which is the exact opposite of a superstition, but that's how it goes. For example, for Game 7, I made sure that I wore not just me, but my spouse, were the exact same clothes we were wearing for Game 6. We ordered the same dinner that we had on Sunday night.

And then my spouse accidentally spilled some water on his socks. So he started to take his socks off. And I started yelling at him. I was like, you can't change your outfit. Oh, my goodness. And this was just before the bomb of the seventh. And he had taken his left sock off his foot at this point. And I said, stop.

And then they won. Then they hit all the big hits. And so now my spouse is not allowed. His left foot will be bare for the World Series. Yep. No left sock. No left sock. I also wore the exact same sweater for game six and game seven.

And I also was working on game six. So I was like, I guess maybe when they were losing, I'm like, I guess maybe I have to keep, I got to open my laptop and work because that helped last time. I'm so sorry for you. So, okay, maybe our superstitions help, most likely they don't. But we'll keep doing them just in case. Just in case. But to end here, Maddie, and give it to me straight, is there a chance the Jays could win this? God, yes.

There is a chance. I'm not going to say it's easy. but at the very least there's going to be excellent baseball and I think that's exciting for me for a baseball nut that's very exciting but I'm going to make the case that the Jays can do this and hopefully I'm not jinxing it and I'm not going to get a bunch of angry fan mail for doing this but here's why I have hope let me just put it that way so because baseball is a game of stats some numbers for you the Blue Jays actually won more games in the regular season than the LA Dodgers yes it was one Blue Jays won 94 Dodgers 103 but it counts and because of this they have home

field advantage. That's why the first two games are in Toronto. And very importantly, if it goes to the final two games, game six and game seven, those will also be in Toronto. And the fans matter. The fans matter. There's energy there. You can feel it. Also, the Blue Jays have had a really good season of coming back from behind, meaning that even if they're losing in the game, like in game seven, they can somehow squeak out a win. And they did this 49 times in the regular season. That's very good. Okay. The Dodgers did it 48 times. It's going to be tough, okay? But here's what I'm also going to say is that, you know, I already talked about how this team really plays well together. I think that's really important. I think that's a huge

strength of them. I also think that baseball is a game about weird intangibles like momentum and the Js have momentum right now. For example, in all of Major League Baseball history, which is like 150 years almost, there have been four situations where the World Series teams, one of those teams won their last playoff games in Game 7, so that's the Blue Jays, right? Yep. And the other team they're facing won their playoff series in four games, which is called a sweep. Okay? That has happened four times in baseball history.

In all four times, the team that won, game seven, won the World Series. Okay. So listen, listen, it could happen. They could be another baseball legend being written right now in Toronto. Well, you know what? I am going to, I'm going to like use that positivity. and feel that, and we're going to cheer for the Jays. So go Jays, go. Thank you so much, Maddie.

You're very welcome, Cheryl. Go Jays go. Go Jays go. Go Jays go. Let's go Blue Jays. Go Jays go. That was Madeline White, Dessel producer and baseball translator. And a big thank you to the Jays fans, the diehards and the bandwagoners,

who told us about what this moment means to them. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.