Carter’s overall game improved dramatically in 1991, as he helped the Toronto Blue Jays win the division title and hit the game-winning single that clinched the AL East championship; he also emerged for the first time as a team leader. In 1992, he helped the Jays win their first World Series championship, the first ever won by a Canadian-based team. Carter hit two home runs and recorded the final out of the Series, taking a throw to first base from reliever Mike Timlin to nab Otis Nixon of the Atlanta Braves, who bunted. This was the first time a World Series ended on a bunt.
Carter and Edwin Encarnación are the only two Blue Jays to hit two home runs in one inning, with Carter’s coming against the Baltimore Orioles in 1993 and Encarnacion’s against the Houston Astros in 2013.
In 1993, the Blue Jays reached the World Series again, facing the Philadelphia Phillies. In Game 6, with the Blue Jays leading three games to two, Carter came to bat with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Blue Jays trailing 6–5 and Rickey Henderson and Paul Molitor on base. On a 2–2 count, Carter hit a three-run walk-off home run off Phillies pitcher Mitch Williams (against whom he had previously been 0–4 in his career) to win the World Series, only the second time a Series has ended with a home run (the other being in 1960, when Bill Mazeroski did it for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees), and the only time the home run has been hit by a player whose team was trailing in the bottom of the 9th inning in a potential championship clinching game.
Upon hitting the home run, Carter jumped up and down many times, most notably while rounding first base, where his helmet came off. Tom Cheek, the Blue Jays’ radio broadcaster, called the play: “Touch ’em all, Joe! You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life!”
A video of this set getting ripped:
