Interview #55: Liz McGuire, Topps Card
As Kruk and Kuip would say, she's a "gamer"
Liz McGuire (yes, a real person, not the Disney character) is a diehard Blue Jays fan from a humble dairy farm in Ontario. Last season she took a rogue missile of a foul ball off the bat of Bo Bichette to her forehead. The resulting pic went viral and even Topps created a Topps Now card of the photo. So that’s how I came across Liz in my social media searches for people to interview.
While the damage from the foul ball is (hopefully) temporary, her passion for baseball is permanent. It’s actually infectious, because I was enjoying a mellow offseason and after our two-hour chat, I’m begging for spring training to start. Well, that and a Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl doesn’t get me overly excited.
We talked about the Blue Jays, choosing baseball over hockey, life during the Covid Era (the Blue Jays went 670 days between home games at Rogers Field) and the foul ball. You can follow Liz on Twitter here: @lizzzzzzzzzzy and listen to her on the Jay Bird Watching podcast.
Baseball North of the Border
I haven't interviewed any Blue Jays fans yet.
I mean, they are a team.
And they once were good.
They once were good, and you know what, it was beautiful. And they were good not just once, but twice that time. And everyone forgets in the 80s how often they won the division. (note: 5 times from 1985-93)
But you weren't around for those, were you?
I was. ’92, ’93, I was watching those. I've been around for a while. I went into the Dark Ages a bit when they had their black uniforms, I kind of checked out then. Then I checked back in when they got blue again.
Are you from close to Toronto?
I was from a farm, in the Ottawa Valley. It's about five hours east. The Blue Jays seemed like a faraway dream that you could go to the SkyDome. And at the time, the big thing was that there was a McDonald's at the SkyDome. And I was like, that's amazing.
Well, you're almost closer to Montreal then.
Honestly, I'm not gonna lie to you, they had a bird. I liked that bird on their hat very much. When I went to school in Ottawa, the Expos were still playing then. I never got to go, but I had friends who would take the bus to Montreal for the day, go see the Expos and come back, around 2004, 2003.
So you didn't like Youppi?
No, everybody loves Youppi! I think Youppi! is the same guy who made the Phillie Phanatic, I think he's part of the same lineage, and Gritty. Youppi! belongs to the Canadiens now. It's a great mascot.
Well, yeah, the Blue Jays mascot is some angry bird, right?
No, it's cute. He’s OK. I met him a few times. The mascot was a bird... get ready, bud. There was two of them. There was Domer the Turtle for the SkyDome and BJ Birdy. We have a mascot that isn't terrifying looking, he’s cute enough, he can dance, and so that's all I ask.
I went in ’06.
Yeah, they cuted him up since then.
He was like a hardcore break-dancing mascot.
He’s still that way, but a little bit cuter. You were there in the black sparkle, I call them the sparkle jerseys with the silver. It would’ve been some incarnation of Ace, who is our current mascot. He's less, like, urban now.
Are you into any other sports?
No, I'm not. Everybody I know plays hockey, I’m from a big hockey area. I'm a trash skater, I played hockey for a bit. But when I moved away, there was no accessible hockey to watch. So even in Ottawa, for the Senators you have to travel 40 minutes by bus, it's not a thing you can just walk and do. In Toronto, the only way you can go see the Leafs play is if you have so much money; like my coworker had tickets to the game and I was like, bud, how’d you get tickets to the Leafs game? She was like, oh, my cousin's on the Islanders.
So it's not about whether hockey was good or not, hockey's fine, but it's not accessible. So now mostly baseball, and different leagues of baseball. We have a local league called the Intercounty Baseball League, we have a local team called the Toronto Maple Leafs, which are older than the hockey team. Cito Gaston is managing them for a little bit this year. We've had some high profile signings in that league, which has been fun 'cause I literally just get drunk on a hill down the street and shout at the baseball team. Mostly just baseball for me; I love getting drunk and hanging out and high-fiving at the ballpark, and shouting about calls is the best.
I think that's what people love about hockey.
Hockey's great, I have nothing against hockey. It's just that it doesn't happen every single day. In baseball, every single day. Me and my friends kind of treat it like a soap opera, what's the gossip, who's hurt, what’s going on. The group chat all summer's pumping.
What was it like up there in the 80s and 90s? The team was good, but did the sport have a hold in Canada?
Yeah, it had a massive hold. The whole country was enthralled with the Blue Jays. Kids wear their shirts everywhere, it was like the big logo in Canada. There's different logos for hockey, there’s different teams. But the Blue Jays had a hold on Canada. And then it trickled when they stopped winning. They won the last World Series in ’93, they didn't make the playoffs until 2015. So there was a big drought, the Jays were kind of a joke for a long time. But you could go see them. The local newspaper had a pass, and it was like $25 for every game of the season. It's a general admission pass. And so it was kind of known that you could get seats for cheap. I worked downtown and that's what got us into it. After work, we’d go to watch the Jays.
The hats were good, the logos were cute, and it was right when they switched back in 2009 to the blue uniforms. You could go for like $15 and it was fun to do. And also, I had been so far away from the team for so long that it was almost an insane reality where I could just roll down to a Jays game after work. At the start we were just hanging out in the 500s (the upper deck sections), and then you get enthralled in it, you get pulled back into the game and then start watching on TV, and then they started to win many years later, and then they started losing again.
I was at like 40 games last year. The Jays have a package in the spring where you get every game for $40 for a month. Not each game for $40. I'm talking all games in April, you pay $40. We usually bought a package for $80 for 30 games in April and May. It’s also still cold here, the dome does not open until Victoria Day weekend, May 24th. So it's still cold and we would go to these games and just go for promo day, hang out; and at the SkyDome, you can also bring your own food, you can bring in pizzas. It's great. It's so great, I swear to God they're going to take it away. It's just too good.
But the sport itself, like I really believe that in baseball, I would say, like what if in hockey there was a magic point that could score 4 points at once? That's amazing. And that's the beauty of baseball, things can get turned around so fast. When the Jays dropped the lead to the Mariners in the second Wild Card game and, they were up by 8, and before you knew it, they were down, and they lost that game badly. It's frustrating, but that's the beauty and magic of baseball. It's a scrambling sport where anything can happen. It really is good at drawing you in. Hockey is so consistently fast. Go, go, go. But baseball is just a bunch of big moments.
There’s yet another story of baseball creating a lifelong fan because the sport was accessible. A few good seasons, affordable seats, being able to watch on TV, that’s where the hook is. Not suites and streaming packages and multi-million dollar free agents and jersey ads. Anyways. Also, I have no idea how they let a family friendly sport get away with two mascots named Domer and BJ. I’m sure teenage fans loved that. And finally, you can bring your own food in! I’d rather have a hot dog than lukewarm pizza I brought from three blocks over, but I imagine it’s great for families to bring their own food for kids instead of buying chicken tenders for $15 that wind up on the ground before getting half-way done.
The Heat-Seeking Foul Ball
So last year you became famous. What was that like?
So it wasn't good, man. It was a night called Country Night and Chris Bassitt was pitching, and it was a game against Tampa. It was a Friday night. We usually sit in super, super nosebleeds. We had good seats, somebody gave us good seats, we were in the 100s. The SkyDome had just been renovated, so they moved all the seats closer. These seats used to be farther away, but now they're closer to the field, so I was like, this is going to be awesome. They also turned the seats; before, because it was a multi-use stadium, they literally looked straight ahead, so you'd be looking straight into the outfield to the other side of it, not to the field of action, which was home plate. I can sit in the outfield and not have to move my neck, I can be focused on home plate. So we're down there and we're out between third base and outfield, we’re not usually where fouls go.
So it's country night and I'm hanging with my buddies. The Jays are getting no-hit. It’s the 7th inning, Jays are getting no-hit, boring as fuck. But we're in the good seats, I've had a bunch of beers, we’re having a good time. Bo Bichette is at the plate, and there's been a bad call, and I turned to my buddy and I’m like they need robot umpires, enough of this. And then all of a sudden, I just hear a noise and a faraway scream, and I knew right away I had gotten hit straight on.
I was super embarrassed. So the first thing that crosses my mind is I'm going to play this off. I'm a baseball fan. I know to watch the field of play. And I literally just turned and then I got hit. It was a weird unravelling of unfortunate events after. I got hit right in my head, I literally stand up and I'm like, guys, I'm fine. And all the kids around me had this terror look in their eyes. And I thought, oh, no, this probably isn't good.
Jays medical comes down, they give me some ice, I go up. My buddies are down there 'cause a woman had taken the ball that hit me. I literally had the lace marks in my face. And she wouldn't give it back. And all the homies are like, we'll give you $100, we'll give you $500 for the ball, and the crowd’s chanting give me the ball. And they run out of the stadium with the ball. She was like, oh, it brushed my neck, I’m hurt, too. So I see my head and I look insane. I'm icing my head and I’m sitting on the concourse. The lady comes by me with her husband, and I say, hey, I got really hurt, can I please have the ball? And they laugh at me and they walk away.
You don't have it?
No, and I had a vision what I was gonna do with the ball. I was like, this ball is cursed. It had gone straight and then roped over the foul nets and in my face directly. The people in my section didn't know a ball was coming until it my hat flew off, it was such a weird right-angle drop. So I'm like, OK, I had a vision in my head if I get this ball, I'm gonna take my nephew, he’s 16, he’s a baseball guy, we're going to go down to the river and he's going to hit it into the river. I never want to see it again. It came for my head like a demon fireball sent from hell. This ball is cursed.
The Jays give me some ice and I was like anything else? And they're like, no and made me sign something. So I go back to my seat and I just finished the game 'cause the Jays had a rally going, I had good seats, it was Friday night. I finished the game. And then outside, I take a picture to say to my nephew, it’s literally his first Little League game the next day, I was like, I can't make it. That was the picture on the Topps card, it's me saying to my nephew, I can't make it your Little League game, sorry. We go to the emerge and they scan my face for fractures and bruises whatever. I have a massive goose egg and they're like, it's gonna melt down into your face. I look insane. I'm wearing full Jays gear. I’ve got a massive thing on my head. Everyone knows why I'm there. I think the black eye is going to last like three days. No, it lasted two months. It went down into one eye and moved to the other and I had two black eyes. All around town people would shout at me, high-five me and buy me beers, which was beautiful, but it was insane. Anyway, that was my time at the baseball game on Country Night. It was messed up.
Did it hurt?
No, no. I will say there's a problem with the concussion protocol in North America, like 100%, 'cause I could have answered any question. I could have done long division for the first time in my life. I was so adrenaline jammed. I knew what day it was. I knew where I was. I knew what seat I was sitting in. Two days later, I just started throwing up and couldn't remember what room I was in. I had a really bad concussion, but they were like, well, you're not concussed. I was like, the ball was going 110 miles an hour, like direct hit. I don't think this is all right. So yeah, I was pretty concussed. It didn't hurt ‘til two days later, where my eyes hurt, I feel the fluid in my face moving around, my nose hurt, my teeth hurt. I was concussed for 6 to 7 months. It wasn't good. I still am. You can see I have a dent right there. (note: yes there’s still a little dent on her forehead 9 months later)
The next day, I'm sitting at home. And I'm like, that was a real weird night. I sent out a tweet. I was like, hey Jays, it wasn't your fault, things happen, but can I get a ball? I put the phone down and within, I don't know, 45 minutes, it had 6 million views and 10,000 retweets. And I was like, I gotta put my phone down. I didn't need that. People seemed stoked on the story and were supportive, but I really thought they were gonna nuke me. Number one, I was a female baseball fan and sometimes people are harder on them. And the second one is I admitted to turning away for a second. The only thing I will swing back on is people who say you aren't paying attention. I was watching baseball like people do, where you yell about things and turn your head sometimes. I wasn't taking selfies, which I do at games all the time, but I wasn't in that time, I was just like having a baseball-related conversation about the baseball game.
So the whole world is now seeing you with basically a growth on your head. Not exactly a glam shot.
No glam shot there. It is what it is. I look disgusting, but like, also so cute. I still look cute and disgusting at the same time. The hat that I was wearing is totally mashed in. Somebody tried to buy it off me for $500 bucks and I was like, I'm literally wearing it on a fishing trip. You cannot have my hat.
Your eyebrow is being pushed out of the way.
It's being pushed out of the way. I had to go to a wedding and I matched my dress to my black eyes. I was like, I can't mask these things. And I looked and there was the line, I had the line of the ball in my head. At least in Canada, we don't pay money for healthcare. I didn't pay any money for anything which was good.
Show off.
Yeah. My advice for everyone is to stay out of the news. It was a freak accident and it wasn't good, but what was cool was, people wanna talk to me about baseball and I love baseball. I also think the Blue Jays were confused, 'cause they were like this chick’s either gonna sue us, or we're gonna keep her happy with a fan pack. I was like, no, I really like baseball. I am a baseball fan, Rogers. I am. Eventually though, I got batting practice passes. I met Aaron Judge on the field, got him to sign a ball for me. That was cool, it was a trip, but yeah, like I almost died. That's the thing is like, yeah, you look at it and you're like, oh, funny story. I almost died. There's been people who died from that. A Dodgers fan died from that. It was over by my temple. Down a bit, just dead. Dead. Dead.
Yeah, and down a fraction of an inch and that’s your eye socket being obliterated.
The temple's right there. It was a close call. And I worry about kids, I do worry about children. If I were a kid, I'd be dead.
Well, obviously I want to talk about baseball with you, but the whole reason I know who you are is-
Because I got beaned. I know, it's such a goofy thing. I still get stopped in the street. Topps gave me a baseball card, they gave me 110 of them. They're mostly under my bed. I am the worst collectible, everyone's like, oh, we want a card, and I was like, no. I got $3,000 for one of them. There’s less than 10 out there.
It's all about scarcity.
And it's also just like, I didn't do anything. I stayed at the game. It's also kind of a personal thing to me.
Is there anything on the back of the card? Beers above replacement? All-time games attended? Foul balls caught?
No, on the back it just says congratulations, you've got Elizabeth McGuire’s card. I don’t have stats.
When Topps asked me to be a Topps card, I was so brain smashed a day later I was like, sure man, whatever. I had no idea what that meant, no clue that that was a big, huge deal. And I will literally be walking down the street still and I'll hear whispers, she’s a Topps card. It's weird. People seem to really like baseball cards.
And you don’t look unrecognizable. Just severely wounded. It's such a memorable photo.
Yeah, I think that's it.
So you had a mostly positive experience going viral.
Yeah, it was funny. I thought that it wasn't gonna be. I'm like a rare case study in going viral and having everybody be super nice to you. I find actually that people who are kind of mean, the one-offs, would be somebody who doesn't go to baseball games. They’re just like, I could have caught that. Bud, no, you couldn't have. Nobody could have.
I'm somebody you're going to see around the ballpark. You go to enough games, I'm going to be around. I had somebody approach me, a little girl was like I know you. She was maybe six, and she got her picture taken with me because she was like, they don’t put girls on baseball cards. You're a girl on a baseball card. I don't really like how I got there. There's a lot of women who deserve to be on a baseball card, but it's still nice to have a fan base accept you, own you and are proud of you. So that was good. I'm just a baseball fan. I'm around. Anybody can come say what's up to me. I always say what's up back. I like talking baseball. It's awesome. It was a bad season. But it was beautiful the way the fan base came together.
That picture circulated last summer. It’s a wild picture, that goose egg on her forehead is terrifying. And then the long-term health impacts are also tough to hear about. She says she’s doing much better now and hopefully gets back to 100% one day soon. I played goalie in hockey last week and someone hit a slap shot like 70mph past my glove from in close. There’s no way I’d have stopped a 110mph slicing foul ball with no warning. Also, when you think about it, Liz might have been hit by the hardest ball of the season, by fan or player. The nets stop a lot of the real lasers from taking out an unsuspecting fan. The fastest HBP was 103.5mph, but that nicked the elbow guard. The fastest hit ball was 121.5mph by Oneil Cruz, but that was a double that didn’t hit anyone. So Liz likely was the hardest hit individual at any MLB game last year. And lived to tell the tale.
Podcasts, Covid and the Church of Baseball
So the podcast stuff, when did you start doing that?
I was on this media tour where I did the New York Times, the Washington Post and People magazine; I probably did 50 morning shows. And so when I was doing that, I was doing local podcasts and a team was like, hey, do you wanna join our team? I was like, sure. Which is funny, so I was on Reddit asking hey, I'm interviewing this player, does anybody have any questions for the podcast? It was Todd Stottlemeyer, a former Jays pitcher on the championship teams. And somebody was like Liz, did you take a liner to the head and then turn that into an interview with Todd Stottlemeyer? Yes, I did, man. So the podcast is called the Jaybird Watching podcast. We have some good guests. We have former players. We had Jay Jackson, Ricky Romero, it's just fun, man.
It's fun to shoot the shit about baseball, as you know, but there's always so much to talk about. It's been a dark time for Blue Jays fans. We had a really promising looking team in 2021 with Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. They just didn't build the right team around them. They built what seems to be a very defense-heavy team that just couldn't score runs, the lowest scoring runners in scoring position, which makes it the most miserable team to watch. You got a guy on 3rd, you’re down by one, you're like, we're not doing that. They can't score that man. That man will die on 3rd, he’ll be there tomorrow. It's just so frustrating.
It's been a really hard team to watch. The current drama is what are they going to do with Vladimir Guerrero Jr, are they going to extend him? Are they going to trade him? He's our guy. Vladdy’s our guy, like we all love Vladdy. We have a hard time in Canada attracting free agents. We just signed Anthony Santander, which was a big deal, 'cause like it seems like nobody wants to come here. We have a lot of money. It's so funny, somebody will go to Kansas, they won't go to Toronto. We are an international class city, we are banging, got the best food, best restaurants, best culture. Everyone's like, well, it's taxes. No, it's the same as New York or California. It's been a frustrating couple years. We hate our front office. Hate them. We haven't won a playoff game since 2016.
Is that overshadowed by the Maple Leafs being in town and having their own drought since 1967?
Here's the thing with the Maple Leafs. If you look at the Maple Leafs and the Blue Jays, yeah, the Jays have won a ring in more recent time than the Leafs, but the Leafs consistently do well in the playoffs. They've been making deeper and deeper runs every single year. They're making those deep runs at least, and the Jays are not making those deep runs. A single playoff win in 10 years is embarrassing. So it's not really overshadowed so much as conglomed into the losing Toronto culture. I remember I was upset about the Wild Card game a couple years ago and my buddy’s like, you're a real Toronto sports fan now. You got a losing team and you're sad in the playoffs. The Toronto sports culture is one of losing. But I also believe the Toronto sports culture is one of complacency. We're so used to losing that it's like, oh, we made the wild card. Fuck it, let's win the whole division. We could win the whole division, but for some reason even the front office is like it's good enough we made the wild card. No, it's not. Boston, New York fans would be rioting.
But your Wild Card win was one of the most epic playoff moments of all time.
The bat flip is historical, but man, we're supposed to have new stuff by now. The bat flip’s amazing, but it's like, look at the Mets run this year, right? Super fun. That was wild, they had Grimace. They had Hawk Tuah throw the pitch, which is of poor taste, but whatever. Pumpkin. They had that hit song, the OMG song. But none of this matters, 'cause they didn't win the ring. So yeah, bat flip was beautiful. It was amazing. But we didn't win.
What was it like when Toronto had the most severe lockdown of all the baseball teams during Covid?
It was hard. The vibe in Ontario, they closed down playgrounds, it was locked down. You were not to go outside. It was weird. They were literally playing in Buffalo, far away. Everyone else is playing in front of cardboard cutouts, empty stadiums, which was insane. We had all these players who had played for the Jays for a season-and-a-half, and they had never been to Toronto. There was an interview with (Santiago) Espinal and he was like, yeah, I have not been to Toronto yet, but I'm really excited about it. I remember being so upset about it. It was cool to watch ‘em in Buffalo 'cause it's a small stadium and it's a little bit like another rinky dink. They made it nicer. But it was really heart breaking not to have them here. The streets of Toronto, there was no buzz.
They brought the Jays back in August, and they played this montage of Toronto. I'm like with my niece and nephew, my niece is like seven at this time, she hasn't been in school, hasn't been in a playground, and they an intro panning through the city. I'm like, that's my street! And then they show us a locked down park and she’s like, that's my park! And then the Jays came on and it was the best feeling. It was sad. 'Cause they were called the Buffalo Jays and New York took them under their wing and that was beautiful. But it's like those are our guys. That's our team. It's in the same way you miss things when they're gone. There's a scene out of Wayne's World, they make a replica of a studio of where they used to shoot the show and the line is, this is just like Wayne's basement, but this is not Wayne's basement. That was watching the Blue Jays far away.
What keeps you a baseball fan these days? What is it about baseball that keeps you going and wanting to stay a fan after it tried to kill you?
Baseball did try to kill me. The question that I had from people was like, there's pictures of me back at the park and my face is mashed, it’s only been three days and I'm back at the park and they’re like Liz, why'd you go back? I was like number one, I had tickets.
Number two because I truly believe that baseball's magic. There's parts of disbelief in baseball that I don't know can exist in other sports. There's a routine play, but then it doesn't go routine. Somebody drops the ball. Runners get scored. Things can get turned around real fast. If you're sitting in the stands, or I'm sitting in the 500s where I like to be, and you're down by three, two out, bottom of the ninth, there's that moment where you hold your breath, maybe things can turn around, and sometimes they do. And when they do, it's amazing. In life, there's not a lot of things where you can be like, that felt like a miracle. It felt like a miracle that we collectively witnessed together, that we as fans became a community in this moment and we saw something spectacular and amazing, that for a moment took us out of our bodies. Seeing that walk off home run, it's the best.
And it doesn't matter where we are in the standings. If you're at a game, you're locked into that game. And the best feeling in the world is when I have 2 beers in my hand, one for each hand, and there's a home run and you feel the home run horn vibrating your beers. It’s the best feeling, man. For me, that's what keeps me coming back. I really don't like when people take a bad attitude. The team is bad, things are hard, but I'm not going to hate on it… outside of our front office. I'm not going to hate on things for sport. I really do love baseball, and I love spending the time with my friends. It’s also a time when everyone's so busy, it's really hard to get together, but in the summer time it's easy 'cause you're going to the park. It's about community and the feeling of magic. It's the Church of Baseball, right? You go, you worship at the Church of baseball. Sometimes things work out your way, most often they don't. But you just got to keep showing up.
Baseball's magic.
Fifty-five interviews in and that explanation of why baseball is so great is the best one so far. The pure enthusiasm and joy when Liz talks baseball is contagious. Even with the Blue Jays as a team struggling a bit, she still loves the game, what it means as far as being part of a community and just the little things that make it so fun. Spending a 9-inning game at Rogers Centre with a couple Molsons talking baseball with her in the 10th row of section 523 on a sunny Toronto summer afternoon sounds like a blast. Thank you to Liz for her time and great interview, and hopefully you enjoyed it just as much as she loves two beers during a Jays rally.