Blue Jays to honour Joe Carter’s World Series-clinching homer with statue outside Rogers Centre

The Toronto Blue Jays are set to immortalize one of the most iconic figures in franchise history, announcing plans to build a statue of 1993 World Series hero Joe Carter outside Rogers Centre.

The reveal came in a video shared by the club, showing Carter arriving at the Rogers Centre for what he believed was a routine business meeting in June 2025. Instead, he was greeted by former team president Paul Beeston and current president Mark Shapiro, who informed him that the organization would be commissioning a statue in his honour — a tribute to the man whose walk‑off home run in 1993 remains one of the most unforgettable moments in Canadian sports history.

“We’re going to have a statue out front between Gate 5 and Gate 6,” Shapiro starts off saying.

“It was about as exciting a moment, and there’s not a Canadian that was alive at that time that doesn’t know where they were,” Beeston adds.

Carter spent seven seasons in Toronto, winning two World Series and making five All-Star appearances along the way. He sits fifth all-time in home runs (203) and RBIs (736).

The Blue Jays have been steadily reshaping the ballpark and its surrounding footprint in recent years, adding new fan spaces and modernizing the stadium’s exterior. A permanent monument to Carter marks the most significant step yet in the club’s effort to celebrate its past while ushering in a new era.

“It’s an honour,” an emotional Carter says in the video. “Thank you, guys. You know how much I love you guys and the Blue Jays and this city. That’s why I come back and do all of this stuff… It’s home for me.”

Statue to be unveiled in July

The 2026 season will mark 50 years since the Blue Jays were established, and the organization has signalled that a series of legacy projects, celebrations and alumni events will unfold throughout the year. Carter’s statue is expected to be a centrepiece of those plans.

Carter, whose leap around the bases after his World Series‑winning homer has been replayed for decades, remains one of the most beloved players in team history.

“Joe’s depiction in the statue represents the first World Series won on Canadian soil and his famous walk-off home run in 1993, while the statue is symbolic of the back-to-back championships and a tribute to both the 1992 and 1993 teams,” a Blue Jays spokesperson said in a press release.

The 1992 and 1993 World Series statue will be unveiled on July 18 in a special pregame ceremony honouring the two championship teams, with alumni. 

The baseball club announced that the first 15,000 fans on July 18 will receive a set of replica rings from the 1992 and 1993 World Series. On Aug. 10, the first 15,000 fans will receive a back-to-back replica statue giveaway.

“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 via a press release on Monday. “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.”