SPORTS FOR THE PEOPLE
Enter Jurassic Park. Inoculate yourself, for the sickness is Raptors fever. Please everyone, enjoy the moment, but understand I have no horse in this race. I grew up a Detroit Pistons fan. In high school, as my love of baseball faded into childhood memory it was immediately replaced by basketball. I haven’t watched a NBA game since I moved to my “new market” in 2002. I had zero interest in my only basketball option, which was subscribing to cable so I could watch the 2002 Toronto Raptors. I let it fade away.
In the Spring and early summer of 2015, Rogers Centre during baseball season was back to it’s usual self. Sure there was a moment of excitement early in 2013 when Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos signed several big name free agents, and acquired additional All-Stars via-trade. However, that ship turned out to be a mirage, and very quickly began taking on water early in the season. 2014 a better team, but still, finding good seats at a decent price was not difficult, and while attendance was up, there were still empty seats everywhere. The first third of 2015 was no different, and then, the Jays started winning. In fact, they actually looked decent. Cut to, Alex Anthopoulos literally betting the farm for the two biggest names on the trading block as the trade deadline approached in late July. First, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, a former NL batting champion, and then, Cy Young winning pitcher David Price. I’ll assume you know the rest, but just in case you don’t, the Jays went 40-18 for the rest of the season, and Rogers Centre was the hottest ticket in town times two hundred.
When the season ended that October, the Jays were AL East champions, slotted against their rivals in the AL West, the Texas Rangers.
Fast forward, the series being tied 2-2 in a best of five, the do or die game to be played in Toronto.
7th inning, the game tied 2-2, Shin-Soo Choo at the plate, and Jays catcher Russell Martin doing something he has done countless times before, throws the ball back to pitcher Aaron Sanchez, except he doesn’t. In the process, the ball hits the end of Shin-Soo Choo’s bat, and rolls into play. In what was an exceptionally headsup move, Rougned Odor ran home, to push the Rangers up by one. The home plate umpire immediately waved the ball dead, telling Odor to return to third base. However, this is where that particular baseball game became quite “baseball-y”. Consider this, it’s a game with almost a century and half of mutating rules. The condensed version of what occurred is this; the umpires made a call with officials in New York to confer with the rule book. That actually happened, like a lawyer consulting a legal library to help with a case. And what did the rule book say? Rougned Odor was safe. 3-2 Rangers in the top of the 7th. What followed was this; after arguing the call, John Gibbons announced he was playing the game “under protest”. John was protesting rules. Rules that are older than any living person on this planet; which much like math are not left to improvisation. There was nothing to argue. John could have approached the ump, and put on a good ol’ fashioned Earl Weaver-esque three act drama, but instead, he “protested” the rules of the game that he not only once played, but managed. What occurred with Martin’s throw was an astoundingly random accident, and the fact that the opposing team had scored, and that it was perfectly within the rules of the game did not work for ol' Gibby; nor did it work for the packed house at Rogers Centre.
They demanded a recount.
That's when things got ugly. The Toronto crowd began with the obligatory boos, and then unfortunately, the launching of countless beer cans and plastic bottles, some of which were full, from the third deck of Rogers Centre. Now folks, that's some genuinely dangerous physics. The camera cut to a woman shielding a baby as beer cans fell beside her. Texas players left the field, Blue Jays players left the dugout, and pleaded for the fans to stop while debris continued to rain down on the AstroTurf. It was ugly, and that's not too strong a word. While many Toronto fans were thrilled by Game 5, and continue to mythologize it within their personal sports lore, there was nothing exciting about it. It was something that was difficult to witness, one as a fan of a game that I genuinely love, but also as a human. It was mob rule as entertainment. I can’t view it from any other perspective, and I don't possess the program installation to do otherwise.
On social media that day, there was a clear line. Us vs. them. I remember, because I was parked on the lonely island of "them" who “disapproved.” "Them" being, Canadians who were ashamed of their country at that moment. Yet as that game and it’s ugliness progressed; Joey Bat’s unsportsmanlike bat flip; 2010’s AL Defensive Player Of The Year Elvis Andrus making two errors in one inning, and watching a Rangers team that was clearly rattled by the behaviour of the Rogers Centre crowd I felt embarrassment, but mostly disgust towards what I saw. One, because my own friend’s had ripped the game I had long found no friendship in away from me and made it their own, but also, because they seemed entirely OK with what was happening. Because their team, “Canada’s team” was winning. Left-leaning friends, who had no use for nationalism and the horrid tribalism that it grows were all for the questionable behaviours of the fans cheering on “Canada’s team” and applauding the behaviour of that Rogers Centre crowd for “winning the game.”
In a piece from the CBC lauding the Top 5 Moments from the 2015 playoffs, number one is Jose Bautista’s bat flip. Number three was “Jays Nation.” Stating, “We're not done with Game 5 of the Blue Jays vs. Rangers series just yet. After a handful of controversial calls by the umpires, Jays fans resorted to throwing beer bottles on the field during the top of the seventh. (WARNING: Rangers fans might find some language offensive.)” The piece then goes on to ask, “Has this become a baseball rite of passage?”
Ain't that right Snowflake?
So, as I watch the surrounding streets and bars fill as the Raptors near their first championship, I can’t help but feel the same emotions I felt back in 2015. Nothing quite as ugly as Game 5, 2015 has occurred, and I sincerely hope it won’t, but I do question this blind rooting of geography and invisible lines. Is it about sports, or is it about country, and why does it bring out such human ugliness? Kevin Durant injuring his achilles tendon drew a very audible cheer from those in attendance at Monday’s Raptors game. His career may well be over, or best case scenario, seriously altered and on hold for recovery. Sorry folks, that's ugly.
Now, twelve men from countries that are not Canada continue playing for a team that happens to be geographically located within it, and tens of thousands of people with no former regard to their sport are now cheering for “Canada’s team.” Are we saying “WE THE NORTH” or Canada first? I know that seems like an extreme comparison, but I think it’s worth considering, because I fear it comes from the same place that all of the ugliness of the recent past comes from. When you see Trump’s approval rating hovering at 43%, or the results of last year’s Provincial election and think, “How the hell is that possible” understand that in 2015 I and many other people who weren’t Jays fans looked at Jose’s Bautista’s “approval rating” through the magnifying glass of sports fandom and wondered the same.
SPORTS FOR THE PEOPLE (unless it's the other team's people.)
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