Blue Jays World Series run fueling youth baseball surge across Canada

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00:00Blue Jays fans have been partying for weeks now as Toronto's team, or more accurately Canada's

00:06team, battle the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Youth baseball in the country

00:11is about to see the benefits too. From British Columbia to Newfoundland,

00:16kids are picking up gloves and swinging bats. Whether or not Toronto wins its third World

00:21Series title, the Blue Jays bump is in effect, influencing a new generation of young athletes.

00:30It's baseball fever, non-stop. I mean, the entire country, or most of it, is locked into these games.

00:37Adam Morissette of Baseball Canada has seen the bump a couple of times now. The first took place

00:43after the Jays won back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 93. But the Jays don't necessarily have

00:50to win it all. Even if you look back at those Blue Jays teams, 2015, 2016, so 10 years ago,

00:56it was the same type of thing. I mean, they didn't reach the World Series, but extended playoff runs.

01:01And we did see, you know, an excess of 5% to 10% registrations in the following years. I mean,

01:09COVID kind of impacted things a little bit, but we've been, you know, steadily increasing since

01:14that time and fully expecting that for next season as well.

01:20Baseball Canada, the sport's national governing body, holds nine amateur national championships

01:26and has about 280,000 youth members, according to Morissette. Players in other organizations like

01:32Little League Canada and provincial partners like Baseball Quebec bring the total number of kids

01:38playing baseball across the nation to about 9% of the youth population between age 5 and 17,

01:45or around 485,000 kids. I've got young kids at home and, you know, their family, their friends

01:53and families are really tuned into this and people that you don't necessarily expect that are,

01:59you know, watching baseball or they're not baseball fans, they're paying attention because

02:04everybody literally is talking about it. There is no shortage of role models in MLB with 24

02:11Canadian-born players in the majors in 2025 and another 1,100 Canadians playing college baseball

02:18in the U.S. After a 32-year absence from the fall classic, the Blue Jays are capitalizing

02:24on their success to help grow the game.

02:26The Blue Jays have a pretty unique opportunity because they're not just a regional team like

02:32the other 29 clubs in the United States. They get the opportunity to market across the country

02:38and they do a terrific job kind of at the amateur level with programming across the country that

02:44really extends their brand coast to coast. Blue Jays fans from coast to coast had their hearts

02:50broken by Dodgers star Freddie Freeman in Game 3 Tuesday when he ended the longest game in World

02:57Series history with a walk-off home run. Perhaps a little of the sting was taken out of it with the

03:03knowledge that Freeman is a dual citizen in the U.S. and Canada. Both his parents were born and on

03:08Ontario and he's played for the Canadian national team. Canadian kids likely took note, even

03:14if he does play for the enemy. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis.