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The Most Important Home Run in Blue Jays History: A Lesson in Internet Literacy
By Nick Piccone
Published:
If you follow me on social media, you most likely get my sense of humor. I’ve got the same dry-ish type of humor in real life as I do on my social media posts. I’ve seen over the years what kinds of posts most people find humorous and what types of posts most don’t, thanks to the advent of Philly Sports Twitter. The only problem with that was you kind of had to be in the Ol’ Boys Circle to even get one reply during an actual intelligent conversation. Unfortunately, when you’d try to make a sarcastic-type post in hopes they would laugh at it, because they didn’t do enough research into your other posts or you as a human being, they would take your joke seriously and try to get other people to pile on if they didn’t understand the sarcasm behind it.
Which brings me to Monday night’s Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, when George Springer hit the most important home run in Blue Jays history.
The “most important home run by the Blue Jays in Toronto” joke has been made hundreds of times, especially during any series when the Phillies re-visit the scene of the crime on the night of October 23rd, 1993. Of course, that moment was bigger than some random series in the summer, so I probably should have been prepared for the responses once the tweet broke containment.
But, yes, I was alive on October 23rd, 1993. The 1993 Phillies season is the first time I watched the team the full season. I probably caught games here and there before that, but 1993 was when I could call myself a legitimate Phillies fan. And yes, I know that the Phillies lost Game 6 of the World Series thanks to a walk-off home run.
I believe all of that lore was evident in my Twitter post:
Without anyone else’s prompt, I doubled down and said they have not had a more important home run ever.
Really cementing the fact that I had, in fact, watched the 1993 MLB season end at the hands of a home run. I literally acknowledged the end of the 1993 World Series by not acknowledging it.
One click of the handle would bring you to my page, which highlights Crossing Broad in PHILLY, Fox Sports The Gambler in PHILLY, and the Straight Shooters Podcast in PHILLY. My location says PHILLY. Everything about my page screams PHILLY. But, in 2025, that takes too much time for lazy people. That’s just too many steps preventing lazy people from getting their takes off. There’s even a search function on each account’s page where you can check to see if they’ve said something very dumb in the past (big fan of this feature as most of you know). In fact, I had someone who was self-proclaimed fluent in sarcasm swing and miss, too. There were even people who thought I was a Blue Jays fan. I am not sure how anyone could possibly come to that conclusion. But they did.
There were also people gaslighting me, telling me I wasn’t being sarcastic or that I was being serious and didn’t know baseball history. I think those are the best people because I think they clearly realize in real time how wrong their initial thought process was, but they absolutely can’t admit it. Their truth is their truth and I meant whatever it is they say that I meant. It’s wild how often that happens today instead of the ‘my bad.’
It’s a lesson not only for people to try to understand a joke, but also a lesson for me. A lesson in how dismal internet literacy is today. And a lesson in how when people realize they’re wrong about something, how often they just dig their heels in and double down on being wrong. I had a pretty good idea internet literacy wasn’t that great even before that post was made, because of *gestures at everything*. But even I can give someone who wants me to suffer the illest of fate because of a sports joke the benefit of the doubt. So, the lesson here, kids, is to never joke.
Kinkead: Joe Carter? Never heard of him.
Nick Piccone has covered Philly sports and events for over 14 years with various outlets. He covered professional wrestling for PhillyVoice from 2015-2021, and co-launched The Straight Shooters podcast in 2015. He's also a producer for Fox Sports Radio Philadelphia and the Villanova Sports Radio Network. He grew up in South Philadelphia and South Jersey, and is a graduate of Neumann University. Contact: picconenick@gmail.com