For 17 years, Toronto Blue Jays fans could count on a familiar soundtrack before and after games at Rogers Centre: the sharp, unmistakable sound of an alto sax drifting from the hill outside the SkyWalk from Union Station.
Now that run is over.
Tessi Perrier, better known to generations of fans as “Saxy Sady,” has stepped away from busking outside Blue Jays games after Thursday’s 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Perrier said the day hit hard.
"It was a very emotional day for me," Perrier told blogTO.
For years, her routine was part of the ballpark rhythm. She’d show up hours before first pitch, play through the crowd building toward the 100- and 200-level gates, take a brief break, then pick it back up as fans poured back out toward Union Station. More often than not, she greeted them with a smile and a familiar tune, sometimes “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
In her first 15 years outside Rogers Centre, Perrier was almost always there, rain or shine, heat or cold. She said she expected competition when she started busking there in 2009, but instead found Blue Jays fans looking out for her.
"Fans would shoo any intruders away and would protect my corner," she says.
Perrier’s path to the saxophone was hardly planned. She said she only ended up with the instrument after being told she was "too old" to become a female vocal lead of a band. Heartbroken, she wandered into the former Richmond's Trading Post on Church St. and spotted a cheap, beat-up alto saxophone in the window.
"I remember thinking, 'Oh dear, you're ugly too.' I bought it to hang on my wall, so it could feel pretty."
Instead, she took it downtown the next day and started busking outside the former Captain John's Harbour Restaurant at the bottom of Yonge St. and Queens Quay. She never really stopped.
The last few seasons made it tougher for her to keep up the same pace. 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."
Perrier said she and her father worked out a system so she could help him through his grief: when the Blue Jays were home, she stayed in Toronto; when they were on the road, she drove back to Windsor to care for him. He later died of bone cancer in September 2025 at 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 departure comes after another longtime fixture of Blue Jays game days also stepped away, with Rockin' Rick Donaldson retiring last season after 36 years drumming outside between Gates 5 and 6.
Even with Saxy Sady retired from her Rogers Centre post, Perrier isn’t disappearing from the Blue Jays scene entirely. She says she plans to stay connected to the team, and she’s got a soft spot for fan-favourite infielder Ernie Clement - plus a stuffed giraffe emoji she named after him.
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