TORONTO — It was Game 1 of the 2025 World Series. And assuming you don’t reside in a land we like to call “Canada,” I bet you didn’t see this game coming.

Blue Jays 11, Dodgers 4? Nope! Stuff happens, even in the World Series.

But nine-run innings, against the reigning champs? They don’t happen. And pinch-hit grand slams — that bust open a World Series opener and cause Rogers Centre to shake like your grandma’s 1968 Oldsmobile? They don’t happen, either.

Advertisement

Well, fortunately, there’s such an invention as the World Series Weird and Wild column (Game 1 edition). So let’s dig in on this rollicking little baseball game Friday evening in Toronto. What do you say?

Don’t bother Addison Barger — he’s slammed

Addison Barger celebrates as he rounds first base after his sixth-inning slam. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

The first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, authored by Addison (Big Fly) Barger, was sailing through the Toronto sky. And somewhere between liftoff, back there in the batter’s box, and touchdown, way out there in right-center field, Barger’s Blue Jays teammates were trying to grasp what they were watching. It wasn’t easy.

“Insane,” said outfielder Myles Straw. “I’ll remember that forever.”

“Awesome,” said pitcher Chris Bassitt.

“I’m not sure it’s hit me yet,” said Davis Schneider, the man Barger pinch hit for. “I honestly don’t know if it will ever hit me. It’s like when George (Springer) hit that homer in (ALCS) Game 7, it was like an out-of-body experience. But the fact that we’re in the World Series, it doesn’t feel like it’s really happening.”

Then again, aren’t the best kind of October moments the ones that feel like they can’t really be happening? So, in that way, this one fits right in.

World Series history is a seductive blend of legends rising to heroic heights and the Addison Bargers of this sport somehow doing things that have never been done. So this was a wave of the bat that made total sense but also no sense at all. Think about it.

In the first game of the 121st World Series, we somehow witnessed the first pinch slam in the long, distinguished history of this event?

Really? Oh yeah. Really.

That. Happened.