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Toronto Blue Jays home run hero Addison Barger shuts down David Ortiz's gift offer

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
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Oct 25 2025, 4:50 am
Toronto Blue Jays home run hero Addison Barger shuts down David Ortiz's gift offer
FOX Sports

It’s been quite a whirlwind few days for Toronto Blue Jays slugger Addison Barger.

Early Friday, Barger found out that he’d be out of Toronto’s starting lineup for Game 1 of the World Series, part of a lineup shuffle to fit Bo Bichette in for his first game of the postseason.

But keeping ready for his big moment, Barger eventually came up clutch in the sixth inning, as he knocked home the first-ever pinch-hit Grand Slam in World Series history.

The four-run bomb gave the Blue Jays a 9-2 lead in the game, pushing the lead from “slightly comfortable” to “almost completely out of reach.”

“I don’t even know how to describe it. I couldn’t feel my legs. I just kind of blacked out,” Barger said in a postgame interview with Sportsnet.

The night before Barger made his World Series debut, he was sleeping on teammate Davis Schneider’s pullout couch, who also lives with Ernie Clement.

After the game, Barger was interviewed on the FOX Sports postgame show, chatting with former major league stars like David Ortiz, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

Ortiz even gifted Barger a “My Dawg” shirt for his big moment.

But Barger admitted that he wasn’t exactly fond of the former Boston slugger’s present, leaving it on set.

“There’s Red Sox on it. I’m not wearing a team that’s in our division shirt. No way,” Barger explained in a postgame press confernce.

But there was one other shirt that Barger wore this week that was a little predictive of his eventual huge home run.

Walking by members of the media prior to Thursday’s World Series media day, Barger was spotted wearing an “I hit balls hard” shirt.

And it turns out that was a free shirt as well, having been gifted it in 2021 while in the minor leagues from one of his hitting coaches.

“The goal is to hit the ball hard. So I’ll take it,” Barger replied to a question asked by Offside.

Game 2 of the World Series goes Saturday night at the Rogers Centre, with Kevin Gausman expected on the mound for Toronto against Los Angeles’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

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