Toronto’s Corrugated Fan Base Is on the Move Yet Again

The Blue Jays are still barred from playing in Canada, but as they decamp from Florida, their fans — in plastic cutout form — will make the trip to Buffalo.

Lauren Ash grew up in a baseball household in Belleville, Ontario, a two-hour drive from Toronto. When the Blue Jays won their first World Series in 1992, a nine-year-old Ash became a lifelong fan. She moved to the city at 18 and sitting in the 500-level at SkyDome with friends became a ritual. Getting the chance to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a game in 2014 was a career highlight. “For my family, it was like I had won an Oscar,” Ash said, laughing. “When I called my mom to tell her, she said: ‘This is it. This is what you’ve worked for.’” Ash was filming the first season of her NBC comedy “Superstore” in 2015 when the Blue Jays returned to the postseason for the first time in 22 years. She hid her phone on the set and listened to the M.L.B. app for updates during Game 5 of an American League division series against the Texas Rangers, eventually rushing to her co-star Ben Feldman’s trailer in time to watch Jose Bautista’s infamous bat-flip home run happen live.