Former Blue Jays reflect on Joe Carter's memorable blast in 1993 World Series

On the twentieth anniversary of Joe Carter's iconic home run -- a walkoff, three-run blast to lift the Blue Jays to their second straight World Series title -- some of the series' prominent figures took a chance to reflect on the moment at Sportsnet.ca:

Jerry Howarth, Radio
Going to the bottom of the ninth inning, the Phillies open their bullpen door out there in right field and when Mitch Williams came out, Rickey, from what they tell me, went right down the dugout bench, his palms [up], he said, “Give me five, give me five. He’s going to walk me on four pitches. We’re going to win this thing.”

Joe Carter
When I come to the plate, I’m like, “Boy, it always comes down to this.” I could hear people screaming, “Let’s go Joe! Come on Joe!” Everybody’s watching. My idea was to go up there with a game plan: I’m not gonna swing until I get a strike. I was gonna take. Some people become anxious and swing at a bad pitch, the first pitch. I hadn’t faced Mitch in five or six years. He was really new to me, but that was my game plan. I didn’t mind hitting deep in the count; it didn’t bother me.

Darren Kritzer, Bat Boy
The first memory always comes back to trying to retrieve Joe Carter’s bat. I just thought, “My job all day has been to go out and retrieve the bats and bring them back, so what do I do?” So I go to find it, the bat was just kind of kicked aside and I brought it back. There’s a photo where I’m just basically at the tail end trying to get into the pile. Because I went work-first, let’s get the job done, and then I celebrated. I think the bat’s in the Hall of Fame now.

Check out the entire retrospective here.