Sax player who jams outside Toronto Blue Jays games calls it quits after 17 years

If you've attended any Toronto Blue Jays game in the past two decades, there's been a distinct sound fans could count on as they walked towards the stadium.

Long before the national anthems or the sound of Blue Jays fans pouring through the Rogers Centre ticket stalls, an unmistakable alto saxophone would ring from the hill outside the SkyWalk from Union Station, where fans would split toward the 100- and 200-level gates.

After 17 years of making her music a part of every Blue Jays fan's gameday experience, Tessi Perrier, a busker better known by fans as "Saxy Sady," is calling it a career.

Perrier spent most of her time greeting fans with a smile and possibly a rendition of the baseball classic "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" before and after every game.

Following Thursday's 3-1 Blue Jays victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, she played outside Rogers Centre for the final time.

"It was a very emotional day for me," Perrier told blogTO.

For the first 15 years, Saxy Sady rarely missed a Blue Jays home game, no matter the circumstances. Whether it was sweltering heat or pouring rain, she'd arrive hours before first pitch, play through the pre-game rush, take a short break, then return as fans streamed out of the Rogers Centre back toward Union Station.

When she first started busking outside the Rogers Centre in 2009, she thought it would be difficult to convince other musicians or vendors to let her have a spot.

But her music quickly became synonymous with Blue Jays fans' gameday experience.

"Fans would shoo any intruders away and would protect my corner," she says.

(Photo submitted to Offside)

There's also a world where Perrier may have never picked up a saxophone and became Saxy Sady. She reveals that she only stumbled upon it after being told she was "too old" to become a female vocal lead of a band.

Heartbroken at the time, she wandered into the former Richmond's Trading Post on Church St., where she saw a cheap, beat-up and "ugly" alto saxophone sitting in the storefront window.

"I remember thinking, 'Oh dear, you're ugly too.' I bought it to hang on my wall, so it could feel pretty."

The very next day, she headed downtown and started busking outside the former Captain John's Harbour Restaurant at the bottom of Yonge St. and Queens Quay, and she's been busking ever since.

Perrier told blogTO that life has recently made it hard for her to busk outside every Blue Jays game over the last few seasons.

In 2021, she missed several games after her 94-year-old mother died following a battle with Alzheimer's disease.

"My mother and father were deeply in love and married for almost 75 years," she said. "The death of my mother devastated my father, so I had to miss a couple of games."

She worked out a solution with her father to help him grieve the loss. When the Blue Jays were home, Saxy Sady was in Toronto. When they were on the road, Tessi Perrier drove back to Windsor to take care of her father.

He passed away of bone cancer in September 2025 at the age of 98.

"I once saw a picture of a tiger about to pounce," she said. "There was a phrase on the photo that said, 'Knowing when.'" Perrier says Thursday was her "when."

Her retirement follows that of popular Blue Jays gameday busker Rockin' Rick Donaldson, who called it a career last season after spending 36 years drumming outside between Gates 5 and 6.

Though she has retired her Saxy Sady character from busking outside the Rogers Centre, Perrier plans to remain connected to the team in other ways.

After all, she admits she has a soft spot for the fan-favourite infielder Ernie Clement and even has a stuffed giraffe emoji she named after him.