Winter’s gloomy spirit lifts as baseball’s Blue Jays land.

Dylan Cease struck out 12 Oakland A’s batters in his debut with the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday, setting a club record for debuting pitchers. (Instagram via bluejays)

By SHAWNA RICHER

The Toronto Blue Jays played their first opening day 50 years ago in the snow.

Not a flurry, but snow that collected on the brims of people’s hats and accumulated on the field so much that groundskeepers used a hockey rink Zamboni to clear the turf. Blue Jays third baseman Dave McKay, a Canadian, said that April 7, 1977, was the coldest day he had ever played baseball in his life.

Spring in Toronto, and much of Canada, is a paradox. There are a few warm days in March, when rain washes dirty snowbanks into the sewer. Some insane people start wearing shorts. But then it gets cold again. Then warmish. It always snows in April. Last Friday, it was arrogantly winter. The roof of the stadium many Canadians still call the SkyDome won’t open until May.

It’s been the Rogers Centre since 2005, when the telecom giant took full ownership of Canada’s only Major League Baseball team. But the old name, the SkyDome, still suits the bowl with the retractable roof that opened in 1989, even with its recent renovations.

On Friday night, the Blue Jays walked in where they left us last. The sellout crowd stood and roared. We haven’t seen them in forever. That Game 7 World Series loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers feels like yesterday.

Ahead of their 50th season opener, against the Athletics, a crisp blue banner to mark Toronto’s American League pennant was unfurled. It begged for additional context: within two outs of upsetting the defending champions in 11 innings.

It’s difficult to describe how pleasurable — and indelible — last October was, in Toronto and so much of the country, to someone who wasn’t here. In the same way, it’s impossible to adequately explain what it was like in 1977, a new Toronto MLB team playing at windswept Exhibition Stadium in a snowstorm. I know people who were there, and they carry that day inside them.

Everyone in the United States who cared about baseball predicted a Dodgers sweep. But Canadians weren’t having it. Love for the scrappy Blue Jays — a team whose players repeatedly said was built on friendship — overran Toronto. By the time the Blue Jays flattened the Dodgers, 11-4, in Game 1 of the World Series, they had seized the country’s autumn heart.

Sports are not that important. They are so important. It’s just baseball. People are deeply stirred by it. In the grocery store, at the doctor’s office or waiting to cross the street, strangers talked excitedly. There were only two types of days: game days, or waiting-for-the-game days. And Canadians were longing for something to throw their arms around.

It had been a fraught stretch for Canada-U.S. relations. In the preceding 10 months, President Donald Trump had at times suggested that Canada should become the 51st state, called the border an arbitrary line and applied punishing tariffs. Canadians were angry and hurt, and in large numbers, they stopped traveling to the United States and buying American products. The Blue Jays became a natural unifier.

The joy of winning baseball has also come to magnify how agonizing Canada’s national winter game has recently felt.

The Canadian men’s and women’s Olympic hockey teams lost gold medal games to the United States. The Vancouver Canucks are the worst team in the NHL. Some of the loudest cheers the Toronto Maple Leafs have heard all year came last Wednesday night when a half-dozen Blue Jays players attended the game. Only the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens have Stanley Cup hopes.

The Blue Jays won championships in 1992 and 1993, but most years were far from that. When a disappointing regular season concluded, that was it. We wouldn’t have more baseball, but we still had late summer and fall. We had hockey. We leaned gently into winter. Last year, when I left the stadium hours after Alejandro Kirk had grounded into the double play that ended Game 7, it was a freezing November night. Baseball was over. Winter was on the doorstep.

Outside the stadium Friday, it was a few degrees below zero. Inside, the temperature was October. And around 7 o’clock Eastern time, the Blue Jays still had 162 games to win or lose. Three hours later they had a walk-off 3-2 victory.

Opening day was “a little bit different this year,” said John Schneider, the Toronto manager. “You tie in the 50th anniversary and excitement around the team and unveiling some stuff tonight, yeah.”

The Blue Jays aren’t favorites to make the World Series, but they weren’t last year either. It’s as likely as anything, but it won’t feel the same. And I wouldn’t want it to.