‘I’d bet my money on them’: Why Joe Carter thinks the Blue Jays can win it all

Nearly 32 years after Joe Carter hit his historic home run to win the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays, the baseball legend believes the current team has what it takes to win it all.

“They have guys who can do it,” Carter told Carter. Sunday magazine Host Piya Chattopadhyay.

The Blue Jays lead the New York Yankees by two games in a best-of-five American League Division Series (ALDS), With both victories coming in convincing fashion In toronto. The Jays have a chance to advance to the American League Championship Series (ALCS) With a win in Game 3 in New York on Tuesday.

But before the season began, few — if any — had made a run at the World Series. The team had a disappointing 2024, finishing with the worst record in the division, missing out on the playoffs.

Carter played for the Blue Jays from 1991 to 1997. He helped the team win a World Series title, which included a highlight-reel home run in ’93 to seal the deal.

Despite currently living in the United States, Carter is rooting for Toronto as the playoffs unfold. But if the Jays are to make the playoffs in baseball this season, he has a small stipulation about how he wants to win.

Here is part of his conversation with Chattopadhyay.

What explains how good the Jays have been this year, despite all the predictions?

The thing that turned the team around was that they had the cohesion and camaraderie. What I saw last year, a lot of people…didn’t have the tone, didn’t get hit in time, didn’t do anything. They ended in the dead last. And so it just snowballs.

But now this year, (I was) talking to players like George Springer, and he says, you know what, it’s fun to come to the stadium. They are looking forward to going to the stadium.

And it’s not just one person carrying this team. It’s not (just Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) you know, Bo Bichette is getting hurt, so other players are stepping up. You have Ernie Clement stepping up. I mean, you just keep going.

Everybody catches everybody and that’s what you have to do. One or two men can’t carry a ball club. You have to have everyone cheering for each other, pulling for each other and believing in each other.

And that’s what they do. They have so much fun taking to the field, and it’s a different guy every game.

No matter how far the Jays go in the postseason, they will face an American team. This is a battle of Canada versus the United States

You know that there are increasing political tensions between the two countries at the moment. How do you think about this part of the dynamic?

This is a different story. Our politics here in the United States, for many of us, are truly embarrassing. But I can go to this Canadian side and have a lot of fun. And that’s what I’m going to do and I do it honestly: draft for the Blue Jays, because I think this is their time.

I gave them only one criteria for them winning the World Series. They can win the World Series, they can’t get home in the bottom of the ninth to win it all. This was it.

I don’t know if you call this selfishness, but I’ve had it for 32 years. I want to keep this thing because, as you say, it hit home like that — and not just in Toronto, but in all of Canada, from the East Coast to the West Coast, it was for our entire country.

And man, this is so exciting. And I’m very proud that this happened. And I’m very proud to be one of Canada’s ambassadors, just because I hit a little ball out of the ballpark in a big moment.

Did you understand at the time what that moment meant, not just to Blue Jays fans here in Toronto, but across Canada and beyond?

Right now, I knew he was big, but after 32 years, I didn’t realize he was big at that moment.

Playing in the World Series and the entire season, it’s a long year. And so if you go from ’91 when we got to the ALCS and then ’92, and they won the World Series and then ’93, we played a lot of games and we were exhausted.

And so that home run hit, it was like, okay, now I can go home and relax and take some time off and give your body a chance to heal.

But I didn’t realize at the time how big it was. But like I say now, when I go back to my golf tournament, if I go to a Raptors game and they introduce me, it’s like an applause. Fans go.

So, you know, I see the importance of that. And you know those are the things you live for in baseball. Because when you retire, most people have that moment. One moment was a very big moment. And so I think Canadians will love me for the rest of my life.