Bob Schwartz

Tag: MLB

October 21, 2025

Toronto Blue Jays are champions of the AMERICAN League

The Toronto Blue Jays have won the championship of the MLB American League, heading to the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

When the Arizona Diamondbacks (National League champion in 2023) failed to make this year’s playoffs, I temporarily moved my fandom for this season to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Why? Because I already liked our North American neighbor Canada, but when Trump began his campaign of disdain and disrespect—idiotically suggesting that it should become the 51st state—I became a bigger Canada supporter and promoter.

It is still a question whether the Blue Jays can defeat the Dodgers, though it would be great to have a Canadian team as world champion of the American game (they have before, 31 years ago).

I am guessing that some MAGA people, often uninformed and irrational, will clamor for this Canadian team to be excluded entirely from Major League Baseball. Or, alternatively, will push harder for Canada as a 51st state.

I’m not saying that if you don’t love Trump you should love the Blue Jays. I’m not not saying that. Maybe you love LA, maybe you love the Dodgers. It’s a free country?

All I’m saying is that the Blue Jays are a very good baseball team, that Canada is a very good independent country with lots to recommend it, so rooting for the Blue Jays is worth considering. O Canada! Go Canada!

© 2025 Bob Schwartz

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February 15, 2025

Baseball: Distraction is no sin, and baseball is mine

If you say “pitchers and catchers” to a baseball fan, they understand. It is the beginning of Major League Baseball Spring Training. Pitchers and catchers arrive first, to get more work in. Then the rest of the roster arrives, along with prospects invited for evaluation. We are a little more than a month until the regular season starts.

Baseball as a distraction is no sin, just as being a fan of other sports, or music, or any cultural phenomenon needs no justification. As regularly pointed out, Bart Giamatti was President of Yale University before he became—a tenure cut very short by his death—Commissioner of MLB. He loved the game, wrote movingly about it. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for anybody.

That this spring, this year, some of us might seek distraction is no secret. The thing about distraction is that like everything it should be in balance. There is a life to lead and a nation to tend. As citizens we should pay attention and act appropriately. As fans, though, we know about fresh starts. Every game, every inning, every pitch and at bat is a new possibility. It all starts here and now.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz

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