Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball franchise based outside the United States, and their significance extends far beyond the city of Toronto -- they are Canada's team, followed by fans from British Columbia to Newfoundland with a national passion that intensifies every time the Blue Jays are competitive. Founded in 1977, the franchise endured a difficult first decade before assembling one of the most powerful rosters of the early 1990s.

The back-to-back World Series championships of 1992 and 1993 represent the franchise's crowning achievement and one of the great runs in baseball history. Those teams, featuring Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar, John Olerud, Paul Molitor, and Jack Morris, played with a fearless aggression that captivated an entire nation. Carter's walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series is one of the most iconic moments in the sport's history and remains the only walk-off homer to clinch a championship. The SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) became the epicenter of Canadian sporting culture during those years, routinely drawing more than four million fans per season.

The decades that followed brought prolonged mediocrity that tested the patience of the fan base, but the Blue Jays' unique position as a national franchise ensures a built-in audience that few teams can match. The Rogers Centre, with its retractable roof overlooking the CN Tower and the Toronto skyline, is showing its age, and plans for a new downtown ballpark represent the franchise's ambition to recapture the magic of the championship years. The Blue Jays' roster-building challenge is unique in baseball -- competing in the brutal AL East while navigating the complexities of Canadian taxes, cross-border travel, and the pressure of representing an entire nation's baseball hopes.