As the Toronto Blue Jays rolled through the magical stretch that was MLB post-season 2025, the team bandwagon had no problem welcoming more casual fans from right across the Sudbury region – and the province of Ontario – and the entire country, for that matter.
Dr Ryan Faubert was most definitely not among said bandwagon-jumpers.
As the official team chiropractor of the Blue Jays, the 28 year-old native of Azilda and graduate of Lockerby Composite and Laurentian University was right in the middle of that clubhouse, through each and every round of the playoffs, as the team returned to the Rogers Centre for their home encounters.
“Just being in that whole situation was very surreal, at times, especially being on the field after the ALCS (American League Championship Series) win,” said Faubert, who attended CMCC (Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College) in Toronto once he had secured his Kinesiology degree back home.
“Here you are, experiencing those things you watched on TV as a kid.”
Make no mistake: Ryan Faubert had very early visions of someday winning a World Series – just as a player and not as a key cog with the medical team that allows the Toronto players to do what they do best.
And this, mind you, comes to be only after venturing down a couple of different athletic pathways along the way.
Watching her son play six full seasons of youth soccer all while netting one solitary goal was enough to convince Shelley Laakso that young Ryan best look in another direction. “She was bored of watching me play (soccer),” laughed Faubert. “She kind of forced me to try baseball – but I’ve loved it ever since.”
Picking up the sport at age seven, this only child progressed to the point of finding himself as a mainstay with the Sudbury Voyageurs' rep teams of his age group, initially showcasing enough skills at the plate to warrant time mostly at first base, sprinkled with some pitching assignments on the side.
As the velocity of opposing pitchers increased, Faubert’s batting average decreased – and by the age of 15, he had decided that focusing on the mound might be his best option to play beyond high-school.
A smattering of out of town stops included Olone College (California), Thompson Rivers University (B.C.) and the Western Canadian Baseball League (Alberta & Saskatchewan) before injuries curtailed his ability to move on – all while serving as a launching pad for the line of studies that eventually landed Faubert a job in the Major League Baseball ranks – albeit off the field of play.
“I used to see athletic therapists, massage therapists and chiropractors all the time (as a player)," he stated. “I loved learning about rehab.”
During his time at Laurentian, Faubert worked closely with Jean-Gilles Larocque and The Baseball Academy / Sudbury Voyageurs, gaining a foothold in strength and conditioning and some level of knowledge re: coaching of pitchers.
By the time he heads to Toronto and CMCC, that involvement vaults to a whole new level, thanks in large part to his involvement with the Baseball Development Group (BDG) in Scarborough. “I knew that if I was not going to make it as an athlete, in baseball, I would like to make it in physio or something like that,” said Faubert.
“I knew that I wanted to get into rehab sciences - but where exactly that was going to take me, I didn’t know.”
Co-founded by Stephen Osterer, the now VP of Player Development and Farm Director for the Cleveland Guardians, BDG had established itself as the place to go for high level pitching talent in southern Ontario, a setting where a wealth of multi-disciplinary medical professionals sharing information daily.
“Everyone that was coming through the facility seemed to be getting major league jobs,” said Faubert, benefitting at that time from being immersed in both the academic (CMCC) and the practical (BDG) settings. “As I graduated, I already had a clientele base because I knew a lot of the baseball teams from working with BDG,” he said.
Time to forge another key connection.
On somewhat of a whim, Faubert signed on to an on-line career day offered by the Jays, crossing paths with Dr Patrick Graham, a former NHLer from Toronto who would serve as the official Toronto team chiropractor for more than three decades.
Beating out 20+ applicants for a chance to work side by side with the founder of The Core Optimum Health Centre, Faubert was ecstatic to be groomed under the wings of his new mentor. When Graham was summoned to assist with the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy, Faubert was asked to step up.
“The interview process with the Jays was basically that Ryder Cup weekend,” he acknowledged. “You have to build confidence with the players – but I felt that I had a degree of confidence as well because I had worked on high level baseball players since I was 22.”
High level, perhaps – but not at the level of a team that had qualified for the MLB playoffs for the third time in four years. This is pretty heady territory, indeed.
“You may be a bit star-struck, but you can’t show that,” said Faubert. Specializing largely in pre-game “adjustments”, the northern Ontario lad quickly found his niche. “My job is often just about making guys feel good before they go out on the field,” he said.
For as much as his academic resume spoke for itself, his background in baseball only added to the attractiveness of the “Ryan Faubert package” for the Toronto Blue Jays. “I can talk the same language as the players,” he said. “If you can’t talk the same language as them, it’s really hard for them to build a connection with you.”
“I’m not sure if I wasn’t part of baseball that I would have been able to take these opportunities and take off.”
Ryan Faubert has taken off indeed; not as a Johnny-come-lately Blue Jays bandwagon jumper but as a integral part of a crew that came within three outs of winning a World Series.
