6ix Baggers — №76: And Justice For Ball
The Blue Jays are up 2-0 in the Division Series, Game 3 is tonight and my cardiologist just left me a very concerned voicemail about my sodium levels.
Dear Drink Carters and Welcome back 6ix Baggers
So this is super awkward. No not the part about the sodium levels. That’s just a bit. Well, maybe not after hot dogs tonight. Last year I brought this baseball newsletter thing back for the World Series. You know, when we had nothing to cheer for.
And now, now, when the Blue Jays are actually up 2-0 in the Division Series against the Yankees, I’m supposed to just, not write about it? Just sit around home and generate Pixar-style Blue Jays apple picking fan fiction images on Midjourney all night?
Not a chance. First things first. I think we can all blame Scott. Scott is one of the Drink Cart OG super fans, and he texted me asking where the post-season 6ix Baggers was? Honestly, he had a point. I was going to get into it, but life has other plans. So I’m dedicating these bonus issues of baseball newsletter nerdery to Scott and my Uncle Darcy who also has suggested more baseball, less marketing.
You don’t reboot a baseball newsletter for just any October. You reboot it when your team actually shows up. When you’ve seen them at their worse being down 20-1 in Kansas City. When the bats are hot, the pitching is dealing, and the bandwagon is loading up faster than a King West patio in July.
In my best Magnum PI, “I know what you’re thinking” voice. “Didn’t this newsletter die in 2021? Wasn’t there a cringey clip show? Didn’t I sign up for marketing and advertising content?” Yes. All true. But apparently 6ix Baggers operates on soap opera rules. It can come back whenever the plot demands it. And right now, with Toronto up 2-0, the plot is demanding it.
Besides. If you don’t think that this was a very elaborate way to bring Tom Selleck into this newsletter and then pivot to sharing the trailer of his 1992 classic film Mr. Baseball, then you really don’t know me very well. Like at all.
Three years ago we went out with a whimper. Last year we squeezed out four bunt sized issues. This time? We’re riding it until the wheels fall off or the champagne runs out. How many issues? Like the contents of a hot dog, nobody knows.
So welcome back to the Drink Cart Extended Newsletter Universe again. Let’s talk baseball. But first. Here’s George Washington playing for the New York Mets thanks to AI. See there’s practical stuff here.
2 bat flips. 10 years apart.
There are moments in Toronto baseball that don’t just live in highlight reels—they live in your chest. Case in point. October 14th, 2015. Jose Bautista. Game 5 of the ALDS against Texas.
Seventh inning, two on after one of the most chaotic half-innings in playoff history. Bautista obliterates a fastball into the left field seats. Three-run bomb. Rogers Centre explodes. And then—the flip.
The bat doesn’t just leave his hands. It helicopters. It punctuates. It declares. That bat flip was a statement. A decade of frustration, of being written off, all released in one violent flick of the wrists.
Fast forward ten years.
October 5th, 2025. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Fourth inning. Yankees on the ropes, bases loaded. Will Warren throws a pitch he immediately regrets. Vladdy launches it to the upper deck. Grand slam.
Rogers Centre roars as Guerrero celebrates with his own savage bat flip, chucking his lumber to the side before gleefully taking his trip around the bases. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s Enormous Grand Slam vs. Yankees Had Blue Jays Fans Roaring
These moments are separated by a decade but connected by something deeper. Bautista’s flip was defiance. Vladdy’s was pure joy. And baseball cards. And yes, I ordered the Vladdy version.
The graphic of the postseason
Somebody in the Blue Jays’ social media department woke up and went in the paint with this graphic. The frayed threads coming apart by way of the bird (as commenters have pointed out, not a Blue Jay) and the unmistakable pinstripes slowly unravelling (a metaphor?) —isn’t just a game preview. It’s a threat.
Now we do game 3. Or as one person noted, it’s a three game series now. All we have to do is avoid a sweep and take 1.
It used to be the Skydome. It used to have a Hard Rock too.
Before Rogers Centre was Rogers Centre, back when it was still the SkyDome and felt like the future, there was a Hard Rock Cafe tucked inside.
Right there in the stadium. You could grab a burger surrounded by mid rock memorabilia before watching the Jays, or stumble in after a game for a beer under a guitar signed by someone from Aerosmith probably.
It was peak ‘90s—unnecessary, a little tacky, and somehow perfect. The Hard Rock is long gone now, replaced by what’s probably the Sportsnet cafe or some other Rogers-branded real estate, but for a certain generation of Toronto baseball fans, it’s a weirdly specific memory of when the building was still new and anything felt possible. It lasted 20 years before shutting down in 2009. And you can’t tell me that this shirt doesn’t go really hard.
Here’s 5 Things the Post Season Has Already done Amazingly
The power of AI delivered Macho Man Randy Savage parachuting into Rogers Center. I can’t stop watching it.
The Phillies have “Fall Classic Shake” with vanilla soft serve blended with dulce de leche and topped with an apple cider donut. Yes.
The Phillies also are offering, “a 9-9-9 challenge of hot dogs and beers.”
The Mariners have “a helmet filled with crab claws.”
Read Adam Bunch’s story on Toronto’s first baseball star. Ned “Cannonball” Crane.
Walkoffs
A few more quick fastballs for you to enjoy until our next edition.
We Want It All
Rally towels have a messy origin story. Pittsburgh claims the first with their Terrible Towel in 1975, created by Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope. But Vancouver hockey fans will tell you Roger Neilson invented it in 1982 when he waved a white towel on a hockey stick in mock surrender after bad officiating, got ejected, sparked a movement, and “Towel Power” was born. In Baseball? The Twins’ Homer Hanky showed up in 1987.
This year, Toronto’s “We Want It All” towels carpeted Rogers Centre with a demand. Every seat has one draped across it before fans even arrive—a sea of blue and orange that set the tone before the first pitch is thrown. The Jays are up 2-0, the building is deafening and for the first time in a decade, this city gets to believe again. Those towels aren’t just rally props. They’re a statement of intent. Whether Toronto gets it all remains to be seen, but right now? They’re making one hell of a case.
Everything Hurts (Sports Night Version)
For this section (again, maybe the only one who will care might be Scott), we’re channeling Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night. Yes, the late ‘90s dramedy before West Wing that was basically Gilmore Girls for sports, if Lorelai and Rory worked at ESPN and their names were Dan and Casey. And yes, this is kind of a call back to 6ix Baggers No. 72.
The Rapid-fire dialogue, characters who were brilliant and neurotic, and a show that treated sports as both trivial and profound in the same breath. When the stakes are this high and the absurdity is this real, sometimes the only way to capture October baseball is through dialogue that moves faster than your playoff anxiety.
DAN Justin Turner’s batting leadoff tonight.
CASEY For the Cubs?
DAN Game Two. Division Series.
CASEY He’s never batted leadoff.
DAN Not once.
CASEY Not in fourteen years?
DAN Not in the regular season. Not in any of his playoff runs with the Dodgers. Not for the Jays—
CASEY He played for the Jays?
DAN Briefly. It didn’t work out.
CASEY And now he’s—
DAN Leadoff. For the Cubs. He’s forty years old.
CASEY Everything hurts.
DAN Actually, yes. He wears a shirt that says that. “Everything Hurts.”
CASEY Of course he does.
DAN At this point in his career, it probably does. But here he is. Game Two. Must-win. Top of the order. Because that’s what October demands.
CASEY You adapt.
DAN You show up.
CASEY Even when everything hurts.
DAN Especially when everything hurts.
As it would happen. Turner went 1-2. The Cubs are now down 2-0. Milwaukee continues to roll.
Art, but make it sports
If you’re not following Art But Make It Sports yet, you should be. Otherwise you’d miss sports related gems from game two featuring Aaron Judge and Broken Eggs, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1756.
The White Caps (1985)
The Blue Jays brought back the white panel caps for the last few days of the season and the playoffs. You know the ones—the classic look, the throwback vibe, the same caps they were giving away at McDonald’s back in 1985 when a Big Mac combo and a piece of franchise history cost you pocket change (okay the hats were $1.99). Just be glad I didn’t share this one.
One more hat
This wouldn’t be much of a newsletter without some random ballcap. This is the Jack Cap from Baseballism. Because everyone needs a festive October baseball hat.
See you later this week with The Drink Cart’s previously scheduled programming on Wednesdays and Fridays and yes, more bonus baseball content (exclusively on Substack).