Posted by crazystengel on 11/2/2025 1:52:00 PM (view original):
So my Blue Jays lost the World Series last night. It was a great Game 7, the culmination of an epic series and, as one writer suggested, perhaps the best post-season in baseball history.

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." -- A. Bartlett Giamatti

I revisited the 2025 Blue Jays in the OG Twist theme, for a little more time with this team at WIS. We made the playoffs, and battled our way back to the World Series. Another terrific, seesaw series, and then... another heartbreaking Game 7 loss!

Believe It or Don't!

Just won a progressive World Series with a $55M active salary - the lowest active salary in the league - beating out teams that had over $30M higher salary. I know salary isn't everything, but I felt pretty proud of that one!

In a recently completed 1997 progressive, one of the teams had a dearth of starting pitchers...consequently the owner used Kevin Tapani (RL: 13 games, all starts, 85 IP) as a starter in 27 games. These were the only 27 games in which Tapani appeared all season. Note that these were actual STARTS, not the back half of a tandem. Tapani threw 91 innings in those starts with a 3.56 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP.

Anyone care to guess his W-L record?

0-23?

Fat guys running hard is the sweetest thing in baseball!

Portly Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk recently stole his 2nd career base (ZERO career caught stealing, by the way), and received a standing ovation for it:

YouTube clip

I found this blurry screenshot of Kirk running:



I then asked ChatGPT to sharpen the image while making Kirk 15% fatter:



What a time to be alive!

Believe It or Don't!

If I owned a sports bar I'd totally have that made into a poster, and frame it.

We won 87 games in an open league with this offense (pitchers not shown):

Player	SN	B	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	STRK	L STRK
Coleman, Vince	1986	S	161	689	97	172	14	5	0	30	47	94	2	128	26	0.25	0.299	0.284	0.584	4	10
Evers, Johnny	1904	L	158	658	64	181	24	6	2	72	30	44	8	0	0	0.275	0.313	0.339	0.652	1	9
Case, George	1939	R	157	651	71	161	14	2	0	44	52	53	5	1	2	0.247	0.307	0.275	0.582	2	8
Salazar, Luis	1982	R	151	611	43	129	15	4	5	42	12	84	3	0	0	0.211	0.229	0.273	0.503	0	8
Johnston, Dick	1886	R	157	610	26	117	20	3	1	38	3	125	5	1	0	0.192	0.202	0.239	0.441	1	10
Chapman, Sam	1939	R	154	602	66	149	29	2	11	77	50	91	4	0	0	0.248	0.307	0.357	0.664	1	9
Molitor, Paul	1978	R	157	600	29	137	24	4	3	51	20	61	0	0	1	0.228	0.252	0.297	0.548	1	11
Realmuto, J.T.	2023	R	150	565	61	133	26	9	12	74	29	117	6	1	0	0.235	0.278	0.377	0.655	1	11
Collins, Zack	2022	L	13	49	3	8	3	0	2	8	3	19	0	0	0	0.163	0.208	0.347	0.554	0	3
Shewmake, Braden	2024	L	12	49	2	11	3	0	0	4	0	4	0	7	1	0.224	0.224	0.286	0.51	0	5
Goodman, Hunter	2023	R	11	44	5	7	1	2	0	5	2	13	0	0	0	0.159	0.196	0.273	0.468	0	4
d'Arnaud, Chase	2017	R	9	31	1	5	0	0	0	1	1	7	0	1	0	0.161	0.188	0.161	0.349	1	4
Hilliard, Sam	2025	L	8	30	2	4	1	0	0	2	1	12	0	0	0	0.133	0.161	0.167	0.328	0	2
TEAM TOTALS	--	--	1756	5743	486	1266	176	40	36	460	252	974	38	139	30	0.22	0.257	0.284	0.541	4	11

Believe It or Don't!