TORONTO -- DURING THE seventh inning of Major League Baseball postseason games he watched as a child, Blake Snell would stand, put his hand over his heart and sing in the living room of his home in Shoreline, Washington. There was something wondrous about the whole spectacle -- the entire stadium out of their seats, belting out "God Bless America" in unison, and the pitcher smack dab in the middle of it -- that burrowed into Snell's head, never to be forgotten, every start an opportunity to become the sort of pitcher he once watched and revered.

"All I've ever wanted to do is just be on the mound in the seventh inning of a playoff game when 'God Bless America' is playing," Snell said. "That's the coolest thing to me. I've been chasing that for 20-something years. Twenty years. And then

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