Safe At Home

The first week after, I couldn't sleep a full night without waking up thinking about it. We were so close. I'd put so much time and energy into it over the last seven months that to come up an inch short, it was devastating. I read an article telling me it was normal to feel that way, that many other people were as equally devastated. I understood that, but it didn't make it any better. The only hope I had at that point was knowing that another chance would come, another year was only a few months away, and we'd have another chance at glory. Back then in November, all I could do is wait to hear the crack of the bat and the pop of the ball hitting the glove. All I could do is wait for redemption, for the Toronto Blue Jays to take the field again.

To follow the rhythm of the baseball season is to follow the rhythm of the seasons. Spring starts with the promise of a new beginning. As the snow melts to reveal a hidden world, the baseball season starts anew with hopes of a championship in the far off reaches of October. Summer brings activity and enjoyment, and the diamond is practically synonymous with a hot day in July and August. And as autumn begins to show its colours on the leaves and the shorter days, the tension and celebration of a playoff run looms large in the mind of those whose teams have excelled over the previous six months. The season is so long that small moments can get lost, but ultimately they matter and the slim margins add up. In October, everything is magnified, there is nowhere to hide. All you need to do is win eleven games to gain immortality. In 2025, the Blue Jays could only manage ten wins in October.

Baseball is a game of failure. Across the almost one hundred and fifty years of its professional existence the absolute greatest figures are revered for failing seven times out of ten. The best teams ever still lose at least a third of the time, and even the worst teams win around a third of their games. Yet it's that middle third where the majority lives, the line between greatness and ineptitude drawn with finely sharpened a No. 2 pencil.

Here in Canada, the land of hockey, I often hear the remark that baseball is too slow, there's not often action. But to me that's the main attraction. Hockey whizzes by you, plays (and players) crashing on top of each other, no distinction between one moment and the next. In baseball, every moment can be defined by its place in the game. I can read a scorecard of a game and know exactly how it played out. The moments between "action" are deliberate, delivering a game with pace, punctuated by moments of tension, and occasionally excitement. On top of that, baseball is a game where the goal is to find yourself safe at home. In that way, it is not too dissimilar to life.

To truly love baseball is to study its past and know the great figures and storied franchises. With that in mind I spent the lead up to this season rewatching the definitive history of the sport, Ken Burns' Baseball, a ten part documentary series on the game from its origins in the mid-19th century up to 2010 or so. Still reeling from my heartache of the 2025 Blue Jays, I found a strange and connective comfort to the past knowing that long before my team lost by literal inches, so did the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1975 Boston Red Sox, the 1960 New York Yankees, and even all the back in 1924 when the Washington Senators beat the New York Giants. To know the pain I felt in November is the same pain felt by many over a hundred years ago makes it a little bit easier, but not completely. The old adage of "We'll get 'em next year" that has kept me going did not ring true for those 1924 New York Giants. They would win another World Series, but it took nine years. Red Sox fans, though, would go eighty-six years between their 1918 and 2004 championships. Chicago Cubs’ fans waited one hundred and eight years. At this stage in March, though, all one can do is hope, secure in the knowledge that everyone starts with the same record of 0-0.

The history of baseball also teaches us about external forces in life that attempt to force our hand. Baseball is a gateway into the history of racial integration with Jackie Robinson. Baseball opens the door to a discussion about labour organizing and antitrust law through its player's union and the old reserve clause. Baseball tells us about the history of migration from industrial cities with trains and trolleys to suburban enclaves with SUVs and cul-de-sacs. It is a window into our history, and also a window into our souls.

Baseball is a lot like life. In life, no one is perfect. Everyone has to fail sometimes. The important part is learning from that failure, finding out how to be better tomorrow. You have to come back knowing the odds may not always be in your favour but just that you have to try. As Homer Simpson puts it humorously in my favourite show, The Simpsons, "Trying is the first step towards failure." But in baseball that's the point. If you don't fail, you also don't succeed. You can't become Ted Williams or Babe Ruth or Jackie Robinson by sitting on the bench. You have to get up and try again, failure be damned.

And so as my beloved Toronto Blue Jays are set to begin their 2026 season later this week, I know in my heart that they will lose, sometimes badly. Their best players will have terrible days. But they will also win, and the players no one ever thought would make an impact may have the biggest, most important moments of the season. The highs will be high, and the lows, well, they might be low. But in baseball you play every day, so even if you strike out, just put it behind you and be ready for tomorrow. You might just hit a home run and find yourself safe at home.