The Los Angeles Dodgers will be celebrating one of the most crucial moments of last year’s World Series win — and Blue Jays fans might want to look away.
On Wednesday afternoon, the team unveiled a bobblehead giveaway entitled “The Catch,” featuring Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages colliding with Enrique ‘Kike’ Hernandez to rob Ernie Clement of a game-winning hit in Game 7.
The Dodgers will be giving out the souvenir to the first 40,000 fans in attendance for the team’s game against the Washington Nationals on Sunday, Sept. 6. The team’s website says that fans will receive “The Catch” bobblehead “while supplies last” and that it is “one giveaway item, per person, per valid ticket.”
What are fans saying?
While it is a neat giveaway to the unbiased baseball fan, many Blue Jays fans on social media couldn’t help but weigh in.
“30 million Blue Jays fans just cried out in anguish,” one user commented on Reddit.
“Thanks, I hate it,” a Blue Jays fan wrote.
“This was the one moment where I thought we had it,” another replied.
“Daggers to the heart,” another fan wrote. “We’d have carved statues of Ernie into mountains had this ball dropped.”
Many others on social media chimed in to note that the name “The Catch” is already taken by a couple of historical highlight-reel plays.
Legendary New York Giants centre fielder Willie Mays’ “The Catch” was the original play which earned the moniker, back on Sept. 29, 1954, during Game 1 of the World Series. Mays
Joe Montana’s touchdown toss to Dwight Clark during the 1981 NFC Championship Game against the Dallas Cowboys also was dubbed “The Catch” by football fans.
As for the Dodgers version — in case you forgot or simply repressed the memory, Toronto fans — here’s what happened last Nov. 1.
What was ‘The Catch’?
During Game 7 of the World Series last year, the Blue Jays entered the bottom of the ninth tied 4-4 with the Dodgers after Jeff Hoffman had given up a solo home run during the top of the inning.
After loading the bases with one out, the Jays had nearly scored the winning run, only for pinch-runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa to be gunned down at the plate on a ground ball to Miguel Rojas.
Then, with two outs, Clement launched a flyball to deep left-centre field, where Hernandez and Pages were chasing it down. With the ball coming down near the warning track,
2That was as close as it got for the Jays, as the Dodgers would go on to win the game in the 11th inning on a solo home run by Will Smith.