Blue Jays home run jacket, explained: How Toronto sluggers use blue sport coat to celebrate hitting HRs

Daniel Chavkin

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Blue Jays home run jacket, explained: How Toronto sluggers use blue sport coat to celebrate hitting HRs image

The Toronto Blue Jays 2025 resurgence put Toronto back in the spotlight, but it also means the return of the Blue Jays home run jacket.

With teams across the majors creating new ways to celebrate home runs, the Blue Jays have incorporated the same celebration for parts of the last five years. The fashion statement has become a core piece of the Blue Jays offense, and is often seen on the backs of stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer.

Here's a look at how the Blue Jays home run jacket came to be and why it is such an important part of the team.

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Blue Jays home run jacket, explained

In 2021, as MLB teams came up with their own ways to celebrate home runs, the Blue Jays decided to incorporate a home run jacket. This new blue sport coat initially included the names of every Toronto player's country on the back, along with the Blue Jays logo and "The Blue Jacket" on one of the sleeves.

Most importantly, the jacket features the phrase "La Gente Del Barrio," or "the people of the neighborhood" in Spanish. According to The Daily Hive, Blue Jays team interpreter Hector Lebron came up with the idea as a way to represent every culture on the team.

The jacket made it's debut at Fenway Park in July of 2021.

For the next season-and-a-half, Toronto players adorned this jacket every time they hit a ball over the fence. That coincided with a strong stretch of play, including 91 wins in 2021 and a playoff appearance in 2022.

However, after Toronto was swept at home by the Seattle Mariners in the 2022 Wild Card series, the home run jacket went away. Toronto saw roster changes in 2023, and while they still made the playoffs, the season was a grind.

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Toronto struggled to begin the 2024 season, so the Blue Jays brought back the home run jacket in an attempt to spark the club.

"It made me feel happy, we waited for that for a long time," Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said, via Sportsnet. "We all pulled together and we said, let's bring the jacket back. Everybody is on board with that."

At that point, the jacket had evolved to include the Canadian flag on one sleeve.

The players acknowledged that the jacket itself doesn't equate to winning games, but they believed there wasn't any harm in having it aboard.

"It just felt like something we should do and we did it," Bo Bichette said. "I don't think it has anything to do with if we play good or not, but that's why we brought it back, because I think it could help in a way."

Guerrero believed, though, that the jacket could offer an incentive for players to play their best.

"I think that can help a lot," Guerrero said. "I see the jacket like, OK, you do something good, you put the jacket on. Sometimes when you see a lot of guys grab the jacket, you say, 'I want to do something good too so I can put on the jacket, too.' But it's more like having fun. We have to have fun right now. We're up and down and to me the jacket brings the fun."

The Blue Jays missed the playoffs that year, but the jacket remained nonetheless. However, in 2025, Toronto bounced back with it's best season in a decade, winning the AL East with 94 wins, all while the jacket was part of the club.

Along with the postseason berth, the Blue Jays added even more details to the jacket that acknowledge the playoff appearance.

Now that the Blue Jays have found success while also using their home run jacket, it's hard to see the celebration going anywhere in the future.

Daniel Chavkin

Daniel Chavkin is a Digital Content Producer for The Sporting News. A 2018 graduate from the University of Maryland, he has previously written for Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports and NFLTradeRumors.com.