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 team,

00:07battle the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

00:10Youth baseball in the country is about to see the benefits too.

00:13From British Columbia to Newfoundland, kids are picking up gloves and swinging bats.

00:19Whether or not Toronto wins its third World Series title, the Blue Jays' bump is in effect,

00:25influencing 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.

00:41The first took place after the Jays won back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993.

00:48But the Jays don't necessarily have to win it all.

00:51Even if you look back at those Blue Jays teams, 2015, 2016, so 10 years ago, it was the same type of thing.

00:58I mean, they didn't reach the World Series, but extended playoff runs, and we did see, you know,

01:03an excess of 5% to 10% registrations in the following years.

01:08I mean, COVID kind of impacted things a little bit, but we've been, you know, steadily increasing since that time,

01:15and 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.

01:30Players in other organizations like Little League Canada and provincial partners like Baseball Quebec

01:36bring the total number of kids playing baseball across the nation

01:40to about 9% of the youth population between age 5 and 17, or around 485,000 kids.

01:48I've got young kids at home, and, you know, their friends and families are really tuned into this,

01:56and people that you don't necessarily expect that are, you know, watching baseball or they're not baseball fans,

02:03they're paying attention because everybody literally is talking about it.

02:07There is no shortage of role models in MLB, with 24 Canadian-born players in the majors in 2025,

02:14and another 1,100 Canadians playing college baseball in the U.S.

02:19After a 32-year absence from the fall classic, the Blue Jays are capitalizing on 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 the other 29 clubs in the United States.

02:34They get the opportunity to market across the country, and they do a terrific job kind of at the amateur level

02:42with programming across the country that really extends their brand coast-to-coast.

02:48Blue Jays fans from coast-to-coast had their hearts broken by Dodgers star Freddie Freeman in Game 3 Tuesday

02:54when he ended the longest game in World Series history with a walk-off home run.

03:00Perhaps a little of the sting was taken out of it with the knowledge that Freeman is a dual citizen in the U.S. and Canada.

03:07Both his parents were born in Ontario, and he's played for the Canadian national team.

03:11Canadian kids likely took note, even if he does play for the enemy.

03:16For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis.