How does it feel before your first bungee jump?
I have no clue. My parents didn’t leave their families to start a new life in a faraway land so their future children could nosedive off a cliff with a giant rubber band tethered to their ankles. But I’m guessing that first bungee jump feels a bit like being a Jays fan this week.
The World Series — jump! — promises to be a thrill ride. Friday can’t come fast enough. But catastrophic danger — snap! — is a creeping possibility.
To win it all, we must vanquish the Los Angeles Dodgers. That team is engineered to go gangbusters in October. The regular season is as irrelevant to L.A. as broccoli is to Burger King. This franchise is a Hollywood screenplay and the Fall Classic is always the third act.
They spared no expense to be returning champs.
Even the ball boys get driven to the park in a Cadillac Escalade.
L.A. had the highest MLB payroll this year. It surpassed $350 million (U.S.). That’s about $100 million more than Toronto. And that’s not including any tomfoolery as the Dodgers cook the books with deferred payments on long-term contracts to superstars like Shohei Ohtani.
Do I have extreme confidence in these feisty Jays? Yes. But Mr. Ohtani is more terrifying than when my parents foolishly let me watch “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Shohei is Leatherface.
If not disarmed, that affable smile may haunt our October dreams. The guy is a triple threat: pitching, slugging and scaring the bejesus out of opposing fans.
Did you watch the Dodgers clinch the NLCS against Milwaukee on Friday? The Brewers won 97 games this season, tops in the league. But against L.A., they looked as helpless as first graders trying to tackle a rampaging minotaur. The Dodgers stomped the Brewers, sweeping and sucking them up like belly button lint in the rotors of a Roomba.
Ohtani delivered one of the best games in baseball history. As the starting pitcher, he struck out 10, mixing six pitches and painting the corners while abusing the radar gun with three-digit fast balls. Then as a batter, he launched a trio of home runs, one of which left Dodger Stadium.
But you know what? Our Jays are not intimidated by Leatherface.
Anything can happen in a best-of-seven — including seventh heaven.
Let’s focus on Game 1 and metabolize the World Series one inning at a time. This city has gone bananas for the Blue Jays. When tickets went on sale Tuesday, I logged onto Ticketmaster only to discover I was in a queue behind 276,236 other fans. Seems about right.
Watching the home squad this season was a master class on grit, resolve and true team spirit. There are no easy outs in this lineup. You need a Magic 8 Ball to predict the hero any night. It wouldn’t matter if the Jays were playing 10-foot aliens with interdimensional psychokinesis.
Our guys would shrug and then make an epic comeback in the 7th.
Kevin Gausman doesn’t give a tossed chewing gum about Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman. George Springer wouldn’t flinch if Yoshinobu Yamamoto serenaded him with a little chin music. He’d just blast the next splitter into the bleachers and shout words that are not PG-13.
Does rookie phenom Trey Yesavage look like he scares easy? If this dude was confronted by a grizzly on a camping trip, he’d sip a Coors Light before nailing that bear with a 100 mph rock.
So if the Jays are not fretting about the Dodgers, neither should their fans.
Going into the World Series, our guys are post-season leaders in hits (115), runs (71), home runs (20), RBIs (66), average (.296). And that’s without Bo Bichette. The experts warn there is no way those crooked numbers hold up against L.A. pitching. But if the experts were always right, they’d be nibbling caviar on superyachts in the French Riviera after minting a fortune on sportsbooks.
This is the World Series. How things look on paper is a mirage.
All that matters is who wants it more on the field.
The Jays go into Friday as underdogs. Good. They’ve been treated as underdogs all season long. To be taken lightly works for this bunch. They don’t choke — they just bite back like alpha dogs.
That’s not to say this will be a routine fly ball. Steel yourself. Stock up on superstitious snacks. Wear your underwear inside out.
As for the intimidation factor, I refuse to be spooked by the Dodgers. I will not let anxiety dampen the first World Series in 32 years. I will evict Leatherface before he tries to squat in my brain.
The Jays have blessed us with a season for the memory books.
There is no reason to believe they are done writing magic.
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