I respectfully submit that Baseball should be declared Canada’s game for a while. It’ll give the Canadian men’s hockey team get their house in order and we can cheer for team Canada in the World Baseball Classic.
Yesterday I watched the Canadians take on the American All-Star Dream team. I thought “It’d be nice to see a game that the Canadians are in, and it’ll be fun to watch all those great American big-league players in action, even if they are trouncing the poor boys in red and white”.
Picture, if you will, yours truly grinning maniacally with the Canadians up 8-0 in the 5th inning. The commentators were actually talking about the “mercy rule” (If you’re leading by 10 runs after 7 innings the game ends right there). The star American sluggers had been held in check by a kid from Surrey, BC who pitched in single-A ball last year. Meanwhile the Canadians had managed 3 triples and an inside-the-park home run against some of the best pitching there is.
Unfortunately the Canadian bullpen isn’t that deep and the Americans were able to get 6 runs and get back in the game, thanks largely to a Jason Varitek grand slam. The late innings were tense but the Canadians managed to hold on and win 8-6.
Yes, the great American National Baseball Team was bested at their own game by a bunch of Canadian upstarts. Weeeeeee!