'I hope they win it': Nova Scotian who pitched for Blue Jays reflects on playoff run, his career

Watching highlights of the Toronto Blue Jays on their current playoff run, Vince Horsman says the team reminds him of a style of baseball from years gone past.

Horsman, a left-handed pitcher who was born and raised in Dartmouth, N.S., played in 141 games over five seasons in the major leagues, including one season with the Jays in 1991.

Horsman said that in an era where teams rely on analytics to make decisions and the focus is more about power, the Jays take a different approach.

"They still have their thumpers, but they're not afraid to go the other way and use the whole field," he said. "And it's kind of, like, to me, it looks more like an approach of a time gone by."

Horsman spoke to CBC News on Saturday ahead of Game 2 of the World Series between the Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers evened the series to 1-1 with a 5-1 win.

Horsman has spent the last four decades in professional baseball, first as a player and then as a coach. He's coached in the United States, Mexico, Italy and Taiwan, where he's currently a pitching coach with the 7-Eleven Unilions in Tainan City.

Fourteen years of Horsman's career were spent as a pitching coach with the Jays' farm teams, so he knows many of the coaches involved with the team today.

"I'm happy for them and I'm happy for the people back in Canada because I know how much they support Toronto," said Horsman by phone from his home in Palm Harbor, Fla. "And I hope they do well, I hope they win it."

Horsman's path to professional baseball was an unlikely one rooted in a 1984 national tournament for midget players in Moncton, N.B. Horsman, 17, pitched well in the two games he appeared in, catching the attention of a Jays scout.

That led to the team to send their head Canadian