A Magpie Amongst The Beavers: Let's Go To The Ball Game

Since time began, men have been hitting balls with sticks. Whacking them, in fact, with all their brutish might. Proper smashing balls as hard as they can.

To my eyes, that makes baseball the default sport. Gather 45,000 tanked-up spectators in a state-of-the-art stadium and spend a good few hours watching highly paid ball hitting experts and you have a recipe for success. Unless you're the Toronto Blue Jays, in which case you have a recipe to print money without necessarily being successful in the traditional sporting sense (hitting more balls further than the ball-hitters in the other-coloured jerseys).

So we took the opportunity to again gasp and cheer as the Blue Jays bravely acquiesced to the juggernaut that is the New York Yankees. Cue my asking of baseball questions that would shame any self-respecting Canadian five-year-old, like; "What happens when it bounces before the barrier but still goes into the crowd? Is that a home run too?" (Answer: no, it isn't. And shut up, David, we're trying to enjoy the game.)

As you may be aware, the Yankees are utterly dominant in Major League Baseball, and are much maligned/admired as a result. The Rogers Centre seemed to be an even split between Yankee-detesting homers and glory hunting mercenaries. I was sure we had such self-denying Torontonians behind us - their bratty children included - but it turned out that they were actually American when the youngest of them noted: "Mommy, Canadian money is so much cooler than our money"; a comment that drew a deadpan "damn right it is" from one of our number. You can hear them in this video, in fact, which shows a lovely catch by the Blue Jays' Charlie Farnsbarnes (or was it Henry Fotzengoggle?) before Derek Jeter's gargantuan face appears on the titantron:

The Yankees - curse their very graves - ran out 5-2 winners, prompting further ricockulous questions from yours truly as to why they should be so successful in a league that, like other US sports, features a salary cap, collective bargaining and so on. Turns out they are subject to the cap (the "luxury tax") like any other team, but they, unlike other teams, can afford to break the rules. So the Yankees - may their eyes rot in their sockets - stockpile the best players, fork out for the luxury tax, win World Series after World Series, see the merchandise sales roll in, stockpile the best players, fork out for the luxury tax... It's the circle of capitalism.

Nevertheless, the Blue Jays remain Toronto's best chance of sporting glory. The Maple Leafs are abysmal; the Raptors are irredeemable; Toronto FC appears to be some kind of ongoing in-joke. Is Toronto's Canadian Football team (yes, it exists) even any good? Given the calibre of the city's other franchises - lacrosse notwithstanding - it seems rather unlikely. Enjoy the photojournalism!