LATROY HAWKINS, PITCHER: The Blue Jays were definitely not on my radar at all. I’m thinking, ‘They have their team,’ you know? ‘They’re winning with their team — what do they need to add?’ And lo and behold, we’re in Chicago one night, the game goes long, and Tulowitzki comes out of the game. And I’m thinking maybe he pulled something or tweaked something running to first base. After the game, everybody’s real quiet and they’re saying Tulo’s getting traded.

Hawkins didn’t yet realize he’d been traded to Toronto, too.

ANTHOPOULOS: I wanted LaTroy Hawkins there because we had [Aaron] Sanchez and [Roberto] Osuna in the bullpen and I thought he would be a great mentor for those guys.

HAWKINS: I knew that I was at the end [of my career]but I wanted to bring a little bit of leadership, especially for the guys in the bullpen. … You know, I thought I was just gonna end up in Colorado, ride away into the sunset without any last hurrah — and the Blue Jays made it possible for me to have a last hurrah.

RYAN GOINS, SECOND BASEMAN: My two favourite players to watch when I was coming up, Jose Reyes was one and Tulo was the other. So, I go from having one [as a teammate]to having the other. As a player, it was kind of like a little dream scenario, I guess you could say.

R.A. DICKEY, PITCHER: Tulo was really instrumental for Ryan Goins and some others. It was a home run as far as the trade went.

Literally. Tulowitzki introduced himself to the home crowd in Toronto with a home run in his Blue Jays debut. He went 3-for-5 at the plate with three RBIs and was as rock-solid as advertised defensively in an 8-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

ANTHOPOULOS: We loved the defence — I don’t think he made an error in the two months that he played with us.

CHRIS COLABELLO, FIRST BASEMAN: Tulo was a superstar, but he also was like the yeoman. Show up to work every day, do your job, play incredibly solid defence, and just really be kind of a rock, right? He was the perfect fit.

GIBBONS: Tulo became kind of our peacemaker. Any guys butting heads, Tulo was always the voice of reason. He was that kind of guy — not only a great player, but a true leader.

Anthopoulos wasn’t finished. In addition to shoring up his defence with the Tulowitzki deal, the GM took his biggest trade-market swing when he entered talks with the Tigers to bring in ace David Price. On July 30, after a marathon negotiation with Detroit’s front office, the Blue Jays got their guy.

ANTHOPOULOS: I remember just waiting for that deal to get approved. Daniel Norris was the centrepiece of the deal [going to the Tigers]and he had a health condition. We were waiting for Detroit to sign off on the medical and I was on pins and needles. … No one knew about it, obviously, other than our immediate staff involved, and I just couldn’t be in the office. So, I went down to the Docks, down to Cherry Beach [at the edge of Lake Ontario], and I parked my car and I just paced. For hours. It was awful. I paced, that morning, up and down Cherry Beach, and around the Docks, just waiting for the call. I couldn’t be around anybody. And, finally got the call at, I don’t know, 10, 11 a.m., that it was going through.

DAVID PRICE, PITCHER: I was shocked. At the time, Detroit was 53-50 and the Blue Jays were 53-50. I thought we would make a push there in the AL Central. But when I got traded to Toronto, I was excited, because I was aware of all the moves that Toronto had already made.

GOINS: Something happened when he was traveling and he got here a day later than he was supposed to, and I remember just the excitement of like, ‘All right, when is this guy gonna be here? When is he pitching for us?’

PRICE: When I got traded, the Tigers were in Baltimore, so they took me back to the hotel that night, and I took a plane from Baltimore back to Detroit — my fiancée was there, and she was packing everything up, so I had my stuff. I got in my car to drive to Toronto and about 10, 15 minutes down the interstate, I got a flat tire. So, I had to sit there and wait for AAA, and then they took my car to whatever tire shop it was and they said they didn’t have any more of my tires so I couldn’t get a new one. And then the Blue Jays sent a driver to pick me up in this random parking lot. I was just sitting there, waiting, and he picked me up and drove me through customs and to the Rogers Centre. So, it was kind of delayed, but it was definitely well worth it.

GOINS: The first night he went out and pitched, it was so loud, against Minnesota. That was wild. It was the first time we really packed the house not on a Friday or Saturday, you know?

PRICE: I remember walking out before first pitch to do my routine in the outfield and start getting loose and as soon as I came out of the dugout and get onto the turf, I got a standing ovation. There was probably 30,000 people already in the stadium at that time, my first day as a Blue Jay at the Rogers Centre. That gave me validation of how excited Blue Jays fans were, the people in Toronto, and the people of Canada.

In that first outing, Price was everything fans hoped he would be. The team’s new ace struck out 11 over eight innings, holding the Twins to a single run in a 5-1 win at Rogers Centre on Aug. 3.

PRICE: It was one of my favourite places to go as a visitor — I loved going to the Rogers Centre, I loved going to Toronto — so I was just excited to be a part of the city. That was one place I always wanted to see with a sold-out crowd, or almost to capacity, and getting traded there and getting to see that was very special.

The crowd may not have been the only draw. 

ANTHOPOULOS: I remember I had heard that he loved the popcorn at the Rogers Centre, so I asked our guys, ‘When he shows up, I wanna make sure, in his locker, we have a monster bag of popcorn.’

PRICE: It’s the No. 1 popcorn in all the baseball stadiums. It’s the best popcorn. Whenever I’m a visitor there, fans would always bring me down popcorn and I would always have it in the dugout. It was just so good … maybe the butter, the salt, I don’t know what it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a white piece of popcorn or a yellow piece, they both taste unbelievable.

Price’s impact was also felt immediately in his clubhouse leadership.

ANTHOPOULOS: He came in and became a leader of the team so fast. He was amazing.

JUSTIN SMOAK, FIRST BASEMAN: I think it was good to see a guy like him — of course, one of the best pitchers in the game, at the time — how laid back and chill he was, right? Like, there was never really any stress with him.

ANTHOPOULOS: LaTroy Hawkins took the relievers out to dinner when we were on the road. And then I think David Price got word of it. They went to pay the bill and David Price had already called in to pay it.

COLABELLO: He’s the consummate pro and he was as good as anyone in the game at the time. David is one of the most loyal, just fun-loving people. The best way to describe him is, he was a little kid with a lot of money and he wanted to share with all his friends. Anything he was going to do for himself, he was going to do for everybody else.

ANTHOPOULOS: He bought robes for everybody. It had your jersey number and your name, it was in Blue Jays blue — you know, the alternate blue unis, it was that color. And the name and the number in Blue Jays font in white on the back. And he bought them for the entire team. … Marco Estrada was obsessed with his robe. He wore it all the time. He loved that thing more than anybody I’ve ever seen. 

SMOAK: [Estrada] wore it until he was done [in Toronto], I think. I think he wore like two or so years afterwards. That was, like, his thing.

PRICE: It was something that I did in Detroit, I did it in Tampa. It was just kind of something that I liked having in the clubhouse. I couldn’t wear my Detroit one in there, so I had to get more.

COLABELLO: He was the one that brought the scooters to the team, too. Literally, he rolls up on a little two-wheel scooter and people are like, ‘Dude, where’d you get that? That’s so sick!’ … And then before you know it, he ordered like 30 of them and everybody on the team had one.

DICKEY: And that’s him, man. And no fuss, either. He’d probably be embarrassed we’re even sharing this stuff about him. For how generous he is and how good he is, he’s incredibly humble — and that’s one of the biggest compliments I could probably give him, is just his humility. Not only did he work hard, he didn’t have to try — that’s just who he was.

Chemistry in the clubhouse — which, after additional trades, also included Ben Revere and Mark Lowe — was instant. 

GIBBONS: It wasn’t just like a gradual improvement — it was like a light switch turned.

MARCO ESTRADA, PITCHER/ROBE AFFICIANDO: Right after the guys showed up, it was just a different feel inside the clubhouse.

DICKEY: You know, it’s hard to come over in the middle of an incubator and fit in with all the other eggs, and they did an incredible job of that.

JOSE BAUTISTA, RIGHT FIELDER: We had an identity as a team, and I think the guys that came in also had similar personalities. It felt like they had been there for a while even though they just got there.

PRICE: It was a very close-knit group of guys. I know that I was only there for two months, but right when I walked through the doors the first day after being traded, you know, everybody just accepted me and welcomed me with open arms and I felt like I had been there all year long. It was just a bunch of guys that liked to hang out together while we were at the field or at the hotel on the road. It was two of the most fun months I’ve had in the big leagues.

GOINS: It was not a feeling-out process, it was right away. It was, I don’t know, as perfect of a scenario as you can draw up as a GM, I would imagine.

ANTHOPOULOS: I became so hyper-focused on the makeup and the character of every single player we brought into the clubhouse, and seeing the results, seeing a difference in our clubhouse, and also, corny, but a team that became such a likable team. And not because of the winning — because we didn’t know yet at the time, even in August, right? — the characters, the personalities, the way they meshed and they bonded. And to me, it came through on the television screens, it came through to the fans in the stadium.

SMOAK: [Opposing] teams didn’t like us. I mean, we cleared the benches all the time. And I think that’s why Jays fans even loved us more. I mean, teams hated us. They couldn’t stand us. … And I think as a team, when you get that a little bit, it kind of brings you even more together, right?

COLABELLO: We had this really electric balance that just kind of meshed, and it was awesome. Because when it came down to it, at [game time], it all resulted in us going out into the dugout, going out on the field, knowing we were gonna beat the brakes off somebody — and we were gonna take no prisoners doing it.

BAUTISTA: The thing I remember the most is how united that group was, how we figured out how to play and win every single night. That was a different feeling with a group than most, because we really did spend time strategizing. ‘Okay, what are we doing today? How are we going to beat these guys?’ We were breaking down the opponents on a nightly basis.

GOINS: It was the most college-like team in the sense that it was about the team a lot.

POMPEY: I probably had the most fun I had in baseball, those last two months when those guys were there. Off the field, the bonding, everybody wanted to do stuff together, and that was probably one of the few teams I’ve ever been on — maybe the only team I’ve ever been on — where all the players wanted to hang and do stuff together as a group. … That camaraderie is very rare.

BAUTISTA: Everybody somehow ended up gravitating towards each other, whether it was in the lunchroom or in the hydrotherapy room or whatever. We just ended up always kind of around each other in the locker room … we ended up somehow always in the gym together. It was a very united group.

PRICE: That was kind of like playing baseball when you’re a little kid. It brought back those memories of just having so much fun on the baseball field. It was kind of like college, where it’s just a brotherhood in the big leagues.

GIBBONS: Obviously it ratcheted up the pressure, because we didn’t do anything the year before [at the trade deadline]and we faded. Now, we did something. Now, it’s time to put up or shut up, right?

October baseball was the ultimate goal. August and September held their challenges — including 13 games against the division-rival Yankees — but the Blue Jays barreled down the stretch, climbing (and staying) atop the standings.

PILLAR: We hit the ground running and it felt like we were never going to lose again. There was this collective belief that we were gonna win every day.

POMPEY: We could be facing the best pitcher in the league and we’re gonna win the game. Everybody had that mindset. It was almost a shock if we lost. That was the type of energy we brought every day.

As the wins piled up, the fans kept filling the ballpark. The city — and the entire country — was all about the Blue Jays.

GIBBONS: People would always say, ‘Hey, if your team’s relevant when you get to August and September, watch what happens — not only in Toronto, but in Canada.’ But we were never there, you know? We were always on the outside looking in, into June or July. But then it finally happened. 

DICKEY: Nothing’s better than a hockey fan that embraces baseball, man. It’s awesome.

PILLAR: Maybe earlier in the season, you were able to just leave your apartment, walk downtown, and you’d maybe get the occasional ‘Hey, good luck today!’ or high five or ‘Let me get a picture.’ [It went to] kind of being full-blown rockstars. We understood that winning there was powerful.

PRICE: After games, I would be riding my scooter back to the hotel and fans are running after me down the street, just yelling my name. It was an experience that I’d never had before and that was the only time I experienced something like that, was in Toronto. I felt like I was a pop star or something. It was so cool. The city definitely really gravitated to that team. We were a very likable team, we had a lot of fun, we had a lot of personalities.

BAUTISTA: The players have a privilege, which is playing for a whole country. … It’s tangible, and it gets heightened during playoff runs. No matter where you turn — TV, radio, internet, social media — it’s just everywhere. That drives players, that feeds the players’ energy.

On Sept. 12, with the team edging out the Yankees atop the division and in the midst of a four-game road series against their pin-striped rivals in New York, another boost came with the season debut of starting pitcher Marcus Stroman, sidelined to that point by a knee injury suffered in Spring Training. Stroman earned a 4-0 record down the stretch, with a 1.67 ERA.

DICKEY: He told us after [he injured his knee]in Spring Training that he’d be back and nobody believed him, really. I think people wrote him off. And that’s probably good with him. He likes to play with a chip on his shoulder anyway, you know? It was good that people doubted him. And when he came back, he was something else, man. 

PETE WALKER, PITCHING COACH: We knew what he was going through all year, rehabbing his butt off. He promised he would be ready for late in the season or the post-season. It was something that didn’t seem very possible, but he worked his tail off, got himself in a position to come back, and was huge for us.

HAWKINS: For him to be out for so long, and then come back into a pennant race? I mean, he was marvelous. He made four starts and he averaged over seven innings. It was impressive.

On Sept. 26, a Toronto win against the Rays combined with a Tigers’ victory over the Twins to officially secure the Blue Jays’ first post-season berth since 1993. They celebrated the next day, following another home win over Tampa Bay. Three days later, Anthopoulos and his team experienced a full-circle moment as Toronto clinched the AL East in Baltimore.

SMOAK: The AL East has always been the giant in Major League Baseball. It’s the toughest division in the game. No doubt, hands down, I don’t care what anybody says, it’s the toughest division in baseball.

DICKEY: I mean, crud, man. That’s hard to do. To be division champions in any year is super special.

DEVON TRAVIS, SECOND BASEMAN: For most of it, I was down in Florida [recovering from season-ending shoulder surgery]. They sent me back up there to be a part of the celebration, which is very cool. I just remember that being kind of my a-ha moment — like, ‘Man, I was a part of this, from the beginning, and I do have a little bit of a sense of belonging, even though I only played just over 60 games.’ It was a cool moment.

GIBBONS: Oh, yeah, we lit it up pretty good, you know? … It was a long time coming up there. … I think everybody knew it had been so long since that team had done anything, they were all tired of hearing about it and they all knew how good they were — and we had some guys that enjoyed life, you know? And they wanted to celebrate. So, we celebrated! [Laughs.]

BAUTISTA: We would’ve loved to enjoy that celebration in front of our fans. [But] we had to take it wherever it came, right? And we had great support. I remember that there was a lot of fans that came out, and we actually came out to celebrate on the field after the game, which kind of ticked off [Baltimore’s] grounds crew a little bit. Not only did we invade their time to work on the field, but I think there was quite a large amount of alcoholic beverages poured on the infield and they thought it was going to kill the grass … we apologized — that was not ever the intent. I think they understood that. There was a little friction there, but we handled it.

BEN REVERE, LEFT FIELDER: And then when we got to the playoffs, that’s when the real excitement started.

With home-field advantage in hand, the Blue Jays were confident heading into the first two games of the AL Division Series against the Texas Rangers. The atmosphere was electric to open Game 1, but the Blue Jays couldn’t spark much offence. Save for a trio of runs in the middle innings, capped by a Bautista home run in the sixth, Toronto’s bats couldn’t keep pace with Texas. The Rangers homered twice and totaled five runs against Price over his seven innings to claim the opener by a score of 5-3. Game 2 started as a sprint, tied 3-3 after two innings, but turned into an extra-innings marathon. By the time the Rangers broke the gridlock in the 14^th, the game had lasted nearly five hours — and the outcome was the same, with the Blue Jays unable to answer and falling short 6-4 to drop behind 0-2 in the series.

COLABELLO: The stat on us all year was, when we got ahead, we were dangerous. Like, if we got ahead, everybody better watch out. So, what happened in Game 1 and Game 2 was, we got behind. And I think because of that, our offence was probably just reeling a little bit, like we’re just feeling a little bit of extra pressure.

COLABELLO: The real moment where I knew we were going to be okay happened in Game 3. We got ahead quick, we got up 2-0 — and you still don’t feel comfortable in a 2-0 game. I came up to bat with the bases loaded and I was feeling really, really confident. … I obliterate a ball right at the first baseman — literally, couldn’t have been more at Mitch Moreland — and he turns a 3-2-3 double-play, he throws home and we don’t score a run. And it was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I hit it right at him.’ And then Tulo came up and hit the big homer — he hit the three-run homer to put us up 5-0 in that game. And that was kind of a deep-breath moment where we got some separation. And now, ‘Okay, this is our offence.’ Like, you can’t take a hitter off in our offence.

GIBBONS: Once we got rolling, they couldn’t stop us.

With Estrada’s changeup keeping the Rangers’ bats at bay, the Blue Jays’ offence found its spark with a 5-1 win to avoid the sweep. A night later, the equally crucial Game 4 saw Toronto’s offence attack early and often as veteran knuckleballer R.A. Dickey got the start.

DICKEY: Our season was in the balance, and I was so glad that I got to be in a position that I could affect the outcome. I felt like I was prepared.

COLABELLO: Getting the lead early in Game 4 was another deep-breath moment. We knew when we got the three runs in the first inning, like ‘Keep going. Just stay on the gas.’ … Before you know it, like, we’re up 7-0.

DICKEY: I threw four and two-thirds innings against Texas and only gave up one run and that was on a passed ball. And I say that only to illuminate this: John [Gibbons] came out to get me at four and two-thirds innings and a lot of people, I’m sure, thought, ‘What’s he doing?’ Because I’d literally only given up maybe two hits or something. Everybody probably thought he should’ve let me finish the fifth inning, at least, before going to the bullpen. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I couldn’t have cared less. … I mean, I had David Price coming in behind me.

Pitching out of the bullpen was unusual for Price, but it brought a huge boost to the rotation after reliever Brett Cecil suffered a season-ending calf injury in Game 2.

GIBBONS: We were down a left-handed reliever, and [Price] came to me [after Game 2]and said, ‘Listen, I’ll pitch out of the pen for you if you need me.’ … I thought, ‘You gotta be kidding me, this is unbelievable.’

DICKEY: When a perennial all-star says, ‘Hey, I’ll pitch out of the bullpen in any role you want me to,’ that just keeps everybody focused on the main thing — and when you keep the main thing the main thing, that’s when championship teams do championship things. He called everybody to the mat just with that action, with his willingness to do whatever it took. It was awesome.

GIBBONS: I don’t think many guys would do that, you know? That’s what made David even more impressive.

DICKEY: It’s amazing what you accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit, right? It was kind of in that vein — like, I was happy to hand the ball to David Price behind me and see if we couldn’t get to the next day.

COLABELLO: Game 4 never felt like it got close, even though they kind of rallied. R.A. was pitching great, and then we brought David in — and we knew when we brought David in, it was over. So, we’re already packing our bags, like we’re ready to get on the plane and get home for Game 5.

PILLAR: You feel like you get a redo. You feel like you got another chance to do what we felt like we wanted to do, and that was to win a home playoff game.

GIBBONS: We lost the first two at home. We weren’t going to lose three at home — I mean, we were too good for that, right?

REVERE: You had us down, you should’ve knocked us out.

With the series tied up and Price unavailable after pitching from the bullpen two days earlier, the Blue Jays turned to Marcus Stroman for the start in the deciding Game 5.

GIBBONS: You always had good feeling about Marcus, you know? Because he wanted to pitch in games like that. Stro always stepped up for us. When we needed something big, he always did it.

HAWKINS: He brings that type of vibe, that type of energy, that he wants the ball in the biggest moments. He pitched with a chip on his shoulder, and there was nothing wrong with that at all. That’s what made him tick and made him rise to the occasion.

The Blue Jays fell behind early, with each of the Rangers’ first three batters making contact and leadoff hitter Delino DeShields Jr. scoring on a single from Prince Fielder mere minutes into the opening inning. Toronto flexed a little offensive muscle of its own in the second against Cole Hamels, dotting the bases but couldn’t cash in a run. After Shin-Soo Choo put Texas up 2-0 with a solo home run, Bautista responded in the bottom of the third with a double to score Revere. By the time the sixth inning came around, the tension was mounting in what had become a chess match between two pitchers who’d settled into the game. That’s when slugger Edwin Encarnacion, who’d been relatively quiet to that point in his first post-season run, made his mark on the series with a solo home run to tie things up 2-2.

COLABELLO: We weren’t in the game until we tied it. And it was the first time we felt like, ‘Okay, it’s 0-0 again.’

BAUTISTA: Things felt like they were starting to spiral against us, right? [Encarnacion] kind of broke that ice and brought the momentum back our way.

PILLAR: Cole Hamels was just so dominant. He was throwing upper 90s, he was left-handed, he had a good change-up, he was throwing the cutter in on our hands for righties, and it was just a nightmare. So, we weren’t doing a lot offensively, and Edwin coming up with a huge hit, being able to tie the game — it was a part of the game that didn’t get talked about enough.

COLABELLO: It was the moment that sparked the moment.

And it was just the beginning. On deck was a seventh inning that unfolded over the course of nearly an entire hour, bringing enormous emotional swings and one of the most iconic moments in franchise history.

GOINS: It was probably one of the wildest innings you could ever have on the field.

JEFF BANISTER, RANGERS MANAGER: The events that happened in that seventh inning may never be explained.

DICKEY: It was a game where it just didn’t follow any script.

Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor singled to left off Aaron Sanchez to open the seventh inning. After Texas efficiently advanced him into scoring position, chaos and confusion ensued. During Choo’s at-bat, Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin tossed the ball to Sanchez on the mound — only, he inadvertently hit Choo’s bat with the throw, sending the ball careening down the third-base line. Odor sprinted home to score.

COLABELLO: I’m watching Russell get ready to throw the ball back to Aaron and from my perspective [at first base], I couldn’t tell if the ball hit the bat. It looked like he had kind of just stopped his motion and the ball slipped out. Right away, I was like, ‘Oh no!’ And I’m watching the ball trickle up third base and then all of a sudden, [umpire]Dale Scott came out right away and threw his hands up in the air. So, I was like, ‘Alright, something weird happened … They’re not going to let some ridiculous play affect the game.’

BANISTER: The umpires initially called it a dead ball and I’m like, ‘No, hold on a second.’

COLABELLO: I’m watching Banister come out of the dugout and I still don’t know what happened. So, Banister comes out, and I walk over to [Goins] and I’m like, ‘What…?’ And he’s like, ‘He hit the bat.’

HAWKINS: Being so far [away, in the bullpen], we didn’t know what happened. We just knew Odor did what he was supposed to do: he ran home.

COLABELLO: If you hit the batter and it’s not intentional [interference on the hitter’s part], the ball’s in play, and that’s why Banister had come out. And so, when I saw [the umpire]start walking toward the dugout to tell Gibby, I go, ‘uh oh.’

GIBBONS: To be honest with you, I didn’t know that rule. I couldn’t remember ever seeing something like that. And I’m thinking, ‘Well, the umpire threw his hands up, so it’s a dead ball, right?’

HAWKINS: It was tough for us to have an understanding of what just transpired. So, we’ve got guys running to the clubhouse, looking on TVs, trying to figure it out, and then running all the way back to the bullpen with the news.

BANISTER: We talked about it, cause it’s a live ball and Odor scored. As soon as they came back, the Blue Jays faithful let us — let everybody in the world — know that they were unhappy with it.

POMPEY: We were kind of all in shock. Nobody knew what was going on. And then they scored the run and I just kept thinking, ‘If we lose this game because of that, like, everybody in the city of Toronto is just going to riot.’

DICKEY: I can totally relate to the feeling of dread that a fan may have had watching that unfold, because you’re thinking, ‘The fates are against us — I can’t believe something that wacky happened that’s gonna cost us the game.’ Like, you immediately go to worst-case scenarios, right? In the dugout, we were not moved. If anything, it only invigorated us, that we were not going to lose.

TRAVIS: But as a fan, I thought, ‘Oh, f—. We lost.’

GIBBONS: They ended up getting it right, and of course it was almost like that was meant to be, too, right? It set the stage for something even more dramatic.

POMPEY: A lot of baseball players believe in baseball gods and whatever. If it’s to be, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna find a way, right? And then obviously, the [bottom of the]inning starts.

Martin led off the bottom of the seventh and hit a ground ball up the middle that should have been a routine play for Rangers short stop Elvis Andrus. Instead, Andrus bobbled it and Martin reached base unchallenged.

PILLAR: After Russ got on with the error [charged to Andrus], it’s like, ‘Okay, errors happen,’ you know? Like, one — you never anticipate multiple. In my scenario, Cole had struck me out twice — he was really, really good and hard to hit — and I just kind of went into this super, super ultra-competitive mode. ‘I’m gonna do whatever it takes to not strike out. Like, I just gotta put this ball in play.’

Pillar sent a grounder down the first-base line, where it was easily scooped up by Moreland. Moreland shanked his throw to second, a one-bouncer that Andrus again bobbled for the Rangers’ second-straight error.

COLABELLO: Russell just creeps to the inside of the baseline, which was a genius move at that point because I would tell you most base-runners probably aren’t doing that unless they’re running down to first. For Russell to take away the inside lane there, it caused a little bit of blurring vision on both sides — on Moreland’s side, and on Andrus’s side — and Moreland clearly had already choked the ball a little bit, but if Russell doesn’t block Andrus’s vision, like, he catches that ball, in my mind.

PILLAR: They throw it away, and you could kind of just feel the life in the stadium kind of come back. You get runners on first and second, no outs, after everything that happened, and you could kind of just feel the momentum completely shifted.

COLABELLO: If you look at the dugout reaction at that point, when we get the tying run on second, with nobody out, now we’re like, ‘Okay, now we go. Now you’ve given us a runner in scoring position, and you don’t get away with these situations against us.’ When we got first and second, blood was in the water.

Justin Smoak was on deck, but Pillar’s single changed the calculus. Instead, bunt expert Ryan Goins stepped up to bat.

HALE: Ryan Goins, he kind of was our situational guy. You know, you play defence, you run with him, you bunt, you move runners.

GOINS: I remember going from sitting next to DeMarlo Hale on the bench and watching Kevin hit the ball, watching them throw it away, and right when the ball hit the dirt I got up off the bench and ran out to go bunt.

One pitch into Goins’ at-bat, the crowd roared as Toronto native Dalton Pompey ran out onto the field to pinch-run for Martin.

POMPEY: I remember they threw a pitch first. And then I just heard my name. It was DeMarlo Hale, he just screamed my name, he’s like, ‘Pomp! You gotta get out there!’ I’m like, ‘Okay!’ I take off my sweater and I just run out there. That’s the thing, for my job — it’s very spontaneous. If I wasn’t ready, if I didn’t stretch, if wasn’t good to go, I would have been in a bad spot. Next thing you know, I’m in the game.

Goins bunted along the third-base line, where Rangers third baseman Adrián Beltré was perfectly positioned to meet the ball, scooping it up and relaying it to Andrus covering third. Beltré’s throw was perfect, but Andrus dropped it as Pompey slid, arms extended in front of him, into third.

POMPEY: I’m running to third and I remember Andrus being a little bit in front of me. He gets to the base, ready to catch the ball, and I slide in, and at this point, I don’t know what’s happening. I look up and everybody’s screaming, and at first, I was like, ‘Did I get there before the ball got there?’ And then I look at the dugout, and I looked at David Price and he made like juggling motion [to say], ‘He dropped the ball. He didn’t catch it.’

PILLAR: Does him running at second base kind of force Elvis to feel like the play’s gonna be a little bit closer than it is if it’s Russ running? Only he can answer that question, but ultimately it worked out in our favour.

Charged with another error, Andrus had now played a role in all three in the inning.

COLABELLO: This is the moment where I give all the credit to the fans, because they made it unbearable to be the other team on the other side. Like, Game 5, the tightest moment, it was 22 years of pent-up energy that was in that building in that moment in time. And it just goes to show you that major leaguers are human beings and they can be affected by emotions just as much as the next guy.

POMPEY: I always tell people, what Andrus went through that inning was the epitome of being a baseball player and how mental this game can be. Like, this guy is an all-star, he’s played well for so long, and so consistent, and you can just see how it can snowball on you and it can get so mental, so quickly.

BANISTER: Just to watch a great shortstop go through the challenges that he had in that moment — and as a manager, not being able to do anything about that — the human side of me cared for Elvis, and our entire team, really, in that moment.

HAWKINS: You’re on an island. And the ball will find you.

BANISTER: I still believe this game has a cruel sense of humor. There are things that happen inside our game and they’re inexplainable at times.

TRAVIS: There’s no number, there’s no statistic, there’s nothing that can ever take away the fact that human error inside of this game is inexplicable. Really, really good teams take advantage of one mistake. When you make three? Good teams really make you pay, and they normally bury you — and that’s what we did that game.

BAUTISTA: It was like, ‘Hey, they’re folding, they’re losing it, they’re cracking down and they’re giving it to us. It’s for us to take.’ You feel that as a pro at this level immediately — and you pounce on it.

With the bases now loaded with no outs, Ben Revere hit a bouncer to first, which was scooped up by Moreland and thrown to catcher Chris Gimenez as Pompey sprinted home.

POMPEY: I’m running home, and my first natural instinct is just to make sure you slide over the plate, but also to, like, nick the catcher … I didn’t mean to necessarily knock him over. It was more so, ‘How can I disrupt his throw, so either A, he doesn’t make the throw, or B, maybe he throws it and he throws it away?’

PILLAR: That was when the rule had just changed and everyone was a little cautious of what is in the lane, out of the lane. … Ultimately, it was fine, but you’re scared. Like, he just came in to pinch-run. Did he just do something stupid that’s gonna cost us the game by taking out the catcher? And it wasn’t ill-intent; he was just playing it hard and he had a good slide, but it was just very hyper-sensitive at that time because the rule had just gotten changed.

POMPEY: In my mind, I was like, ‘You’re doing everything right, you’re doing everything by the book.’ Nothing was malicious, I just took out his back leg a little bit and that was it.

COLABELLO: Kudos to him for running the bases the way he did, and he had a really good slide into home plate too, to break up the double-play. Dalton left his mark on that game. Even though it doesn’t say anything in the box score, he made his mark.

With the bases still loaded and one out, Banister pulled Hamels out of the game after 111 pitches. Closer Sam Dyson took over for the Rangers.

BANISTER: It kind of got to a point where, you know, you do the math problem in your head with Cole on the mound and the bases-loaded situation. We brought in Dyson, who had been one of the hottest relief pitchers in baseball at the time. … Dyson, with the sinker ball that he had been throwing — it had been so hot, almost unhittable. We needed a ground-ball double-play at the time to get off the diamond.

Josh Donaldson was looking to go deep, as he had 41 times during what was an MVP-winning regular season, but got jammed and instead hit a bloop to centre that caught Odor on his heels, landing just beyond his outstretched glove. Pillar scored the game-tying run, Goins advanced to third, and Revere was thrown out at second on a fielder’s choice.

GOINS: You could see how [Odor] was going at it, he wasn’t tracking it — his feet were kind of tangled up, he was kind of going in circles. And then once it hits the ground, I feel like I was running the fastest I ever have to third.

PILLAR: There’s a lot of talk about the three errors, but you could argue that it was four errors because the whole Josh Donaldson hit was a misplay [by Odor]. I was on base, and I was able to score there. In my mind, there was a lot of relief when that happened because you’re thinking, at the very least, the game’s tied — like, we wiped off that bat mistake that Russ had. He’s probably very relieved.

With the game tied 3-3, two on and two out and Dyson on the mound in a seventh inning that had already lasted nearly 40 minutes, it was Bautista’s turn at the plate.

BAUTISTA: I was trying to keep calm, keep it simple, stay relaxed, and just focus on the task at hand, have a good-quality at-bat. But it was the situational-hitting approach that allowed me to get the good result. I wasn’t going out there trying to hit a home run or get a base hit — I was simply trying to execute on the situation [with a man on third]… And in baseball, that means just try… to drive the ball to the outfield. And that’s what I kept my focus on. Sometimes you do that in baseball and you make something special happen.

COLABELLO: Jose and I had talked specifically about Dyson. He came up to me and he said, ‘I saw his change-up. I got it.’ Which essentially meant he felt like he could recognize his change-up off of his fastball. And he could recognize it early enough to know that with the change-up, he wouldn’t swing.

BAUTISTA: I faced [Dyson] three or four times that year, and I think prior to that at-bat I had grounded out to third base or shortstop every time. I mean, he threw 94 per cent fastballs. So, it was like facing Mariano Rivera. You know what you’re getting: it’s either, he executes and he gets you out or, when he doesn’t, you have a chance — and you only get a chance — to execute, so it’s not a guarantee. He threw nothing but sinkers. For me, I’m a rhythm hitter. Like, I have to feel in sync and in time so I can manipulate my hands and just kind of whip the barrel through the zone and make good contact … I finally felt some timing with him — and when you get that, then it’s fun. Because then you see the ball well, you feel in rhythm and in sync and you’re hunting instead of hoping that you get a mistake or something like that. So, your mentality changes, your confidence changes — and I definitely felt like that going into that at-bat.

COLABELLO: As Jose was walking up to home plate, I was like, ‘He’s going to hit a ball so hard right now. I just pray that he elevates it.’

HAWKINS: He knew he was getting a sinker, he just had to meet it out front.

BAUTISTA: I just missed the previous one because it was a nasty pitch. I fouled it off my foot. The other one, you know, he gave me a chance. He threw it probably higher than he wanted to, he left it up in the zone a little bit more than the others, and I’m a low-ball hitter, so I was able to get a barrel out in front and make good contact. And, obviously, you know what happened.

Bautista took the third pitch he saw from Dyson deep for a three-run shot, one of the most famous home runs in Blue Jays history — with an iconic celebration to match.

PILLAR: It’s kind of this surreal moment that you get to be a part of. You know, every time you talk about it, you can very easily go back to where you were at, what you were thinking, how it felt, what it sounded like. Like, it’s one of those moments that feels like it happened in slow motion. And it feels like it happened yesterday.

POMPEY: I was standing next to Josh Thole, the catcher, and when Bautista was going up to bat, he said to me, ‘If he hits a home run here, this place is gonna come down.’ A couple pitches later, I remember him hitting the ball and seeing it like halfway through the air, and we just all ran out of the dugout like we were kids again. That moment was incredibly special. I couldn’t even tell you where it landed, I just knew — everybody just knew — it was a home run.

SMOAK: When that roof’s closed, I don’t know what, but that ball flies. You knew, that night, as soon as he hit it — you could hear it. You don’t even have to see it; you could hear it. I don’t know how many people fit in that stadium, but I think everybody knew it was gone that night.

PILLAR: His swing, the sound it made, the first millisecond it leaves the bat, at the right trajectory, you know. You know.

WALKER: I think everybody on the bench knew. You just knew that swing and you knew when he got it right, and hit it right. It was instantaneous.

ESTRADA: And it helped that he just stood there, too [laughs].

PILLAR: In the moment, I think everyone realized, when Jose hit that home run and we went on to win that game, that if you were in that stadium, you were part of a game that will be talked about forever. You could sense that, you could feel that. I mean, that celebration after was crazy.

DICKEY: When he hit that ball, it was such a no-doubter that half of us were almost to the third-base line before it ever went out of the stadium. We were running around like a bunch of 10-year-olds.

GIBBONS: It’s gotta be one of the most dramatic home runs in baseball history.

ANTHOPOULOS: The way he threw the bat in disgust. It was great. For me, it was the facial expression — just like, ‘Get the hell outta here.’ You know what I mean? Like, just discarding the bat with such disdain and disgust, like, ‘I’m done with you.’

GIBBONS: Now, everybody bat flips — but none of ’em are like that one.

HALE: It has become an iconic moment. The one thing that, when I look back, it’s clear in my mind how loud the stadium was, and there was, you feel like, a little shake, you know? It was weird. Like, excuse my language, but it was like, ‘Damn, what the f— is happening?’

HAWKINS: It was pandemonium in that damn dome.

BAUTISTA: I think that’s maybe the only con to being the guy that actually did it — you don’t get to enjoy it [laughs]. … I wasn’t thinking, it was just happening. Things were just moving quick. … As soon as I hit the ball, I don’t remember much other than a few minutes later when I’m in the dugout, just trying to get a drink and the guys are all around me, just smacking me in the back and all that stuff. … I just wanted to get back in the dugout, get our six outs, and get outta there.

Bautista’s home run gave Toronto a 6-3 lead. It also solidified the slugger’s place in Toronto lore.

ANTHOPOULOS: MVP-calibre player for years and years and years. Represented the organization, the city, the country, the team, so well. Was so proud to be a Blue Jay — it mattered to him; it meant something to him. And for him to finally get a moment — hey, look, we can talk about Jose’s 54-home run season and this and that, but we don’t. We talk about the Bat Flip.

COLABELLO: The fact that it was him, the fact that it was 22 years, the fact that he is Toronto… it was perfect. There’s no better way to describe it than ‘perfect.’

GIBBONS: It couldn’t have happened to a more perfect guy. I don’t think if anybody else hits that home run, you feel it as much, because Jose had been the face of the franchise for a few years, through a lot of lean times. … Didn’t win the World Series, like, Joe Carter’s [game-winning home run in 1993], but in Blue Jays history it’s right up there because of the long drought and the dramatics of it.

BAUTISTA: It’s not just about one guy and it does take a village and a great group — and the stage has to be set, there’s no discounting that. I was lucky to be in that position and even luckier to come through, but it took a lot of effort and not giving up and strong will and determination to put our team in that situation for me to go up to the plate.

Two scoreless innings later, the Blue Jays officially claimed the series, putting a stamp on what was the biggest victory since winning the World Series in 1993.

BAUTISTA: It’s one of those celebrations that you just, you’ve gotta have, right? You can’t let a moment like that pass by and just say, ‘Okay, you know, we’ve gotta keep our composure and come back for the next series’ — screw that. You celebrate that. We were down 0-2 at home, went on the road, won two to bring it back, and won in front of our fans, getting into the next round of the playoffs after 22 years. We enjoyed that celebration.

PILLAR: There was nowhere like winning in Toronto. I’ll go on record and I’ll put that on my headstone: there was nothing like winning there, there was not a better atmosphere, a more intense atmosphere.

DICKEY: I’ll never forget running around jumping in the stands, body-surfing with the fans. That was just so incredible.

POMPEY: I grew up [in Toronto]. I was born in ’92, so I never saw the winning teams. Like, this was the first time the team was in the playoffs from my experience, and like, I’m on the team! It was just like a full-circle moment. It was pretty emotional for me, just to be a part of that game.

GOINS: It just had that feel that, when we won that game, it was like, ‘Okay, we might win the World Series.’ If this can’t beat us, what’s gonna beat us? Especially with our attitudes of the players, the guys we had, super-confident, borderline a little arrogant — that’s what our team was, you know?

BANISTER: [The loss] will never not sting, right? Because I felt like we had a really, really good ball club. …There were two titans of teams that were going at each other. Both teams loved to play the game and both teams played hard. And it’s a shame that one of them had to go home. And I really believe that we beat each other up so much that it didn’t do them any favours moving forward, either.

Two days after celebrating their remarkable ALDS victory, the Blue Jays opened the ALCS against the Royals in Kansas City — a series that ultimately didn’t go Toronto’s way, stumping the squad in six games and halting the Blue Jays’ run that captured the nation.

BAUTISTA: All the sacrifice, hard work, in that season from our group paid off. It was really fun to move on to the next round. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get to the World Series, but sometimes it’s just not in the works for you.

COLABELLO: It was like, the stars were aligned — they just forgot to line up the last star where we won the World Series.

ESTRADA: It felt like we were the team to beat, and not being able to win it all, it just stings. Even today, just talking about it, you’re like, ‘Man.’ But, you know, if we were going to lose to someone, I guess they were the right team, because [the Royals]went on to the World Series.

PILLAR: It always feels a little bit better that, you know, your loss wasn’t in vain, you eventually lost to the best team. But there’s also this part of you that realizes, that could’ve been us, you know? If we beat them, are we the champs? … We’ll never know. We can dream on it.

GIBBONS: It was a historic team. We didn’t win at all, but it’ll be a team I think that’s remembered forever up there.

DICKEY: You have to hold it the right way, you know? Baseball’s hard. It’s really, really hard. So, whenever you get to the post-season and you have the kind of ride that we did, there’s this incredible balancing act that’s going on where you’re disappointed and you want to learn from it for the next year and gain as much experience as you can, but you also want to celebrate how hard it is and what you were able to do.

WALKER: I go back and I’ll watch it every once in a while just to kind of get a feel for it. To be able to live that, be in the dugout, experience it — very fortunate, and just will never forget it.

BANISTER: I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t watch a replay of the game until last year. … I got a lot of questions about it, being over here [as bench coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks]and some of these young guys, they go and they look — everything’s so accessible on the Internet, they Google everything. I started hearing somebody’s phone, during pregame or something, and I could hear the commentating, so I knew what game it was. And I look over at ’em and they’re all looking at me and I said, ‘Yeah, that really happened.’ And I went home that night and actually watched it and revisited it. I felt like I needed to watch it. I needed to kind of cleanse myself of that moment.

Ten years later, that season — and the lessons it taught those who experienced it — is still a source of pride for everyone involved.

ANTHOPOULOS: You know, it was the first time I had a true understanding of community and what sports can do and the power of sports and I know it sounds corny but it’s absolutely true. Bringing everybody together, bringing a community together, and pride and everything, and it was amazing. … That’s what it’s about. Bringing a community together; a team that people are proud of. And seeing that, you become addicted to it. You just wanna keep feeding it and adding to it. And it’s changed my career forever.

COLABELLO: The 2015 season, I would imagine, every guy that you talk to will tell you, short of them being part of a World Series team somewhere else, like, that was the most fun that they’ve ever had playing professional baseball.

DICKEY: It’s one of the funnest years I’ve ever had. Like, the Cy Young year for me was great, and I was so thankful for it, but when you do things as a team, I mean, it’s just so rewarding.

GOINS: Every time I come back [to Toronto], as a player or a coach or whatever, like, you can just feel it, you know? You get the chills and you think about all the times that you had and it was great. It was amazing. I couldn’t be more thankful. …That’s the one time I wish I could get back in my life and do it all over again.

ESTRADA: There was never another season like that.

GIBBONS: It was obviously the biggest moment of my career to play a part in that with that great group of guys. It’ll go down in baseball lore, especially in Toronto Blue Jays history. It sure was fun to be a part of.

ANTHOPOULOS: That’s the whole point, right? The fact that 10 years later, we talk about it … that’s what makes sports special. Not the individual awards and all that — it’s the special team events, because as a community, we all remember it.

With files from Ben Nicholson-Smith.