Joe Carter is getting a statue outside Rogers Centre.
To kick off their 50th anniversary season, the Blue Jays will honor their franchise legend and immortalize the team’s most iconic moment: Carter’s walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series and bring Toronto back-to-back championships.
Carter’s statue will be located between Gates 5 and 6 outside Rogers Centre. It will be unveiled on Saturday, July 18, in a special pregame ceremony with Blue Jays alumni celebrating the 1992 and ’93 World Series-winning teams.
Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro and president emeritus Paul Beeston surprised Carter with the news in a video the team shared to social media on Monday.
“You know how much I love you guys and the Blue Jays and this city,” Carter says in the video. “It’s home for me. It really is.
“To have an honor like that bestowed, that is — I’m at a loss for words, really. And I’m not usually at a loss for words.”
Carter, who was a five-time All-Star in Toronto and slugged 203 of his 396 career home runs in a Jays uniform while leading the team to both of its World Series titles, will be the first Blue Jays player with a statue outside Rogers Centre. But the statue will be a tribute to both the ’92 and ’93 championship teams.
“The Blue Jays have a rich and storied history in the fabric of Canadian sport, and the back-to-back World Series championships will forever have a special place in the hearts and minds of sports fans across the country,” Shapiro said in a statement. “As we embark on our 50th season, this statue is emblematic of baseball greatness in Canada and will be shared with fans for generations to come.”
Carter’s walk-off home run against the Phillies in Game 6 of the Fall Classic at the SkyDome on Oct. 23, 1993, is one of the most memorable moments in baseball history, not just Blue Jays history.
And it marked the first World Series won on Canadian soil.
“My teammates from ’92 and ’93 are a special group, and we all understood what it meant to play for an entire country,” Carter said in a statement. “We felt such pride wearing the maple leaf on our uniforms. Fans embraced us, and we loved them right back. This statue is for the fans.”
Carter’s statue will be just one part of a year honoring Blue Jays alumni in Toronto, as the team celebrates its 50th season. The first 15,000 fans in attendance at the game of the statue’s unveiling on July 18 will receive a set of 1992 and ’93 World Series replica rings.
