TORONTO (Reuters) -It may be the most famous piece of hotel furniture in Toronto Blue Jays history – and now fans of Canada's only Major League Baseball team can get an up-close look at it too.
The pull-out couch that Addison Barger slept on in Blue Jays teammate Davis Schneider's hotel room the night before hitting the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history will be on display in the lobby of the Toronto Marriott City Centre until November 14, transforming a humble piece of furniture into an unlikely shrine to baseball greatness.
Barger pinch-hit for Schneider in the sixth inning of Game One and his four-run blast was the punctuation mark in an 11-4 Toronto victory that gave the Blue Jays a 1-0 series lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After the game Schneider told reporters that Barger, who was displaced from his apartment given family were in town for the World Series, needed a place to sleep and had slept on the couch in his room that overlooks the field where the Blue Jays would go on to lose the World Series in a decisive seventh game.
"My girlfriend is here and he was like, ‘Can I sleep in the bed with you guys?’ So I was like, ‘No, sleep on my couch.’ It’s a pull-out. It was squeaking all night," Schneider said after Game One.
"It was so funny to look over and see him sleeping there in the middle of the night. He’s a head case, but he’s funny."
The Toronto hotel invited fans to take a photo with the couch as part of a contest to win a one-night stay in a field-view room and a Blue Jays jersey.
The Blue Jays were two outs away from winning their first World Series title in 32 years but the Dodgers got a game-tying home run from Miguel Rojas in the top of the ninth inning before Will Smith hit what proved to be the game-winning homer in the11th to become MLB's first repeat champion in 25 years.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto)
