The Toronto Blue Jays’ impending World Series appearance has a lot of people thinking back to 1993, when Joe Carter’s home run earned the Jays their second straight championship, which remains the last time they won it to this day.
In Saskatoon, another memory is tied to that victory. After Carter famously touched them all, thousands of people flooded Eighth Street in the city. What started as jubilation devolved into a riot, with cars and businesses damaged, tear gas sprayed and multiple arrests.
This week, city archivist Jeff O’Brien recounted the riot for host Stephanie Massicotte on CBC’s Saskatoon Morning.
He said it started out joyful, with an estimated 4,000 people waving Canadian flags, hanging out of car windows and partying.
“I mean, that sounds like a pretty good time,” O’Brien said. “Then things got complicated.”
Riot in Saskatoon after Blue Jays win 1993 World Series
Police in the area found themselves severely outnumbered. At some point the crowd got out of hand, although how exactly that happened is still up for debate.
“The [Saskatoon StarPhoenix] newspaper the next day quoted people who said things like, ‘things were fine until the police showed up,’” he said. “So there were suggestions that the police overreacted.”
Police called in the riot squad and read the crowd the actual riot act, which in Canada has the decidedly less catchy title of Criminal Code section 67.
“It goes all the way back to 18th century England, and it says that when 12 or more people are unlawfully or riotously assembled together — that’s the official wording — then this proclamation gets read out loud,” O’Brien said. “It basically says, ‘OK, go home now.’ And you have to do it within a certain amount of time, 30 minutes. And if you don’t, they can arrest you.”
Former CBC Saskatoon radio host Garth Materie, then a reporter, happened to be in the area, having watched the game at an establishment on Eighth Street. He shared his memories of that night with Saskatoon Morning in 2015.
“People started to pour back into the place and they were all tearing [up], and their noses were running, and they were coughing,” Materie said.
“Then someone yelled out, ‘the cops are throwing tear gas around.’”
He said he went out to try to see what was going on and found an extremely angry crowd.
“There’s bottles and tire irons and all kind of stuff getting thrown at anybody in uniform,” he said.
Materie said CBC later found out the police had been ordered to keep 8th Street open to traffic no matter what. Officers’ inability to do so led them to call in the riot squad, he said, which in turn led to the tear gas and the further enraging of the crowd.
Things calmed down by about 1:30 a.m. CST, according to O’Brien. At least 14 arrests were made; some people were charged and others let off with warnings.
O’Brien said there have been other spontaneous mass gatherings in the city, but nothing so out of control. After the announcement of the end of the Second World War, an estimated 20,000 people — half the city’s population at the time — crowded downtown Saskatoon.
“I talked to a lady one time who told me that she and her friends danced until sunrise that night in front of the Bessborough Hotel on 21st Street,” he said.
Asked if he thinks we could see a repeat riot if the Jays win it again this year, O’Brien expressed cautious optimism.
“I hope not,” he said.
“I can’t imagine it. For one thing, you know, all those kids out there throwing beer bottles in 1993, they’re in their 50s now. So they’re going home early.”
