Toronto (Canada) (AFP) – At the White House earlier this month, US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney were asked about Canadians who, furious over tariffs and annexation threats, had canceled travel to the United States. Carney made a comment that sounded like pure sports trash talk: “We’re coming down for the World Series.”
The exchange took place on October 7, when the Toronto Blue Jays — the only Canadian team left in Major League Baseball — were still two weeks away from clinching their first World Series spot in 32 years. The next day, the Jays knocked out the New York Yankees — from Trump’s home city — and then beat the Seattle Mariners to claim the American League pennant on Monday, sending them to the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Aside from being boldly prescient, Carney’s jab nodded to the unique role the Blue Jays occupy as the only surviving Canadian team in a sport often described as America’s national pastime.
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Canada’s first MLB franchise was the Montreal Expos, but they had limited on-field success before ownership challenges and dismal attendance forced a relocation and rebrand as the Washington Nationals. After the Jays beat the Mariners in a do-or-die game 7, Blue Jays manager John Schneider — who was born in New Jersey — was asked if the World Series might become a US-Canada grudge match given lingering bilateral tensions. “We’ll see. I know it will be the Blue Jays versus the Dodgers,” Schneider told reporters. “But I know that these guys in there know that they’re representing the country too,” he added.
For Jays fan Chris Kitowski, who has watched several playoff games at a packed Toronto sports bar, Trump’s actions — including a trade war that threatens thousands of Canadian jobs — have added energy to the World Series. “There’s a confrontation happening between Canada and the US,” the 60-year-old told AFP. Now there’s a “confrontation over the American national sport,” he said, adding that the timing was “perfect.”
– National pride –
US-Canada sports tensions erupted earlier this year during the Four Nations ice hockey tournament in February. Trump, who had only returned to office in January, was then regularly talking about making Canada the 51st US state and mocking then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, calling him “governor.” When the puck dropped in an opening-round US-Canada game, three fights erupted within the first nine seconds — an extreme rarity that some said highlighted tensions between the two countries. The US national anthem was booed before the contest began.
With resentment simmering, Trump called the US team to cheer them on before the final, which Canada won in overtime. “The national mood has relaxed” in Canada since the initial months of Trump’s second term, but it remains a combustible environment, University of Toronto political scientist Lewis Krashinsky told AFP. Annexation threats have eased, but Trump still mentioned a US-Canada “merger” in his recent Oval Office meeting with Carney, while US protectionism has battered key sectors of the Canadian economy.
“There’s obviously the potential for serious political tensions and national pride to be on full display during this series,” Krashinsky said. One social media post, or a mid-series political comment, could cause tensions to flare, he noted. A social media post falsely attributed to Trump, and which accused the “Un-American Blue Jays” of trying to “steal” the World Series, has circulated on several platforms. Some Jays fans continue to believe it is authentic.
The last World Series game played outside the United States was in October 1993, when the Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies. For Kitowski, the series that opens Friday in Toronto and moves to Los Angeles next week should serve as a reminder of the enduring passion for baseball in Canada. “We play your game and we’re going to win,” he said. “What are you going to do then?”
© 2024 AFP
