Nostalgia, Part 4: Canadian Content

Bostonians don't realize it, but New York also has a serious baseball rivalry with Toronto.  (I'm not sure that Torontonians realize it either, to be honest.)  The below picture is at a game against the Blue Jays. 

I've been to couple of Yankees games at whatever they're calling the Skydome these days, and they're always very well attended by whole families of New Yorkers up for the weekend. 

Of course, if the loonie stays around par, that kind of thing might become less attractive. Will the Torontonians care?  I have to say, I've always found the kind of Yankee fan who goes to Toronto games to be remarkably well behaved.  For Yankees' fans.  New Yorkers in general, as we all know, are very polite folks.

(The worst stereotypical big-city rudeness I've ever encountered in my life?  Calgary.  No foolin'.  I think it's because Canadian content laws there have translated into Shania Twain every hour, on the hour.)

Anyway, I think the long slow decline of baseball in Quebec is tragic.  Much as I like the Washington Nationals — much as Washingtonians love having their Nationals — something seems to have gone out of the world with the Expos' departure.   

Comments

[RS]

Funny thing about the lack of baseball in Quebec is that parks in the neighborhoods that surround mine have busy cricket fields but I've never seen anyone playing baseball. You also get the feeling that Montrealers view baseball as that "thing we did as kids back during the Trudeau administration." The only thing relevant these days is the Canadiens, and do you really need anything else? Coming from the south, playing baseball as a kid, I am still a newbie to the ice thing...I try not to let it get out that I barely know how to skate.

[James Bodi]

Well I remember Toronto's brief shining moment as a baseball power. The next year, the players struck and we forgot all about the sport.

You know, in my experience, New Yorkers are no less polite as a group than most other North Americans. The rude Calgarians surprise me - when I was last there I found the aw-shucks faux-small town friendliness a little off-putting.