TORONTO – Oh for cripes sake. Take a deep breath, everyone. Step back from the abyss. Don’t go all American on us, OK?
I believe the Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade completely when he says he wasn’t showing any disrespect to the Canadian national anthem on Saturday by finishing his pre-game routine of nailing one last jumper before the anthem is played. In fact, my guess is he was only half paying attention to the thing – which, come to think of it, is what a lot of people do.
So save all your false invective. Instead, consider the tiresome North American habit of politicizing a sports event with something that is by its nature exclusionary.
Seriously: You play O Canada and the Star Spangled Banner, but where is Tautiska giesme for Lithuania’s Jonas Valanciunas? Or Zdravljica, the Slovenian anthem, for Goran Dragic or Himno Nacional Argentino for Luis Scola?
I’ve made the point often in this space and on my radio show that it’s time we joined the rest of the world and stopped playing national anthems before sports events. It’s not a political gathering; in fact, it cheapens the meaning of the song.
What Wade did is no worse than fans that cheer through the playing of the anthem, or goaltenders that bob up and down during it. I hate to tell you this folks, but treating a national anthem like We Will Rock You is hardly a moment of sober reflection.
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You want to play the anthem after an international hockey game or soccer match or during an Olympic medal ceremony? Have at it. Nobody in Europe plays the national anthem before league soccer, because they realize that when a club team has players from 12 different nations on it, the anthem is in fact a slight.
But then, have world wars fought on your own soil and fight a constant battle against neo-fascist thugs on your streets and you probably have a better sense of the dangers of nationalism than we do.
We abuse our symbols – witness the NFL getting paid by the U.S. military for its over-the-top displays of militarism, essentially turning patriotism into a recruiting tool. Or better yet, witness the creeping, cloying sops to our own military at professional sports events.
You want to do something to honour the military? Send a cheque to veterans support groups. In the meantime, if you’re a Toronto Raptors fan in Miami or if you’re going to Game 5 at Air Canada Centre, forget responding to Wade’s imagined slight. Be better than that, and if you must, go to the bathroom or nip out for a beverage – like so many of us do. Don’t worry, the anthem won’t mind. And some day, some league president or commissioner is going to have the stones to put an end to this nonsense.
A PILLAR OF STRENGTH
The cool thing about being able to hang around the batting cage is the ability to get a sense of how engaged different baseball players are in going about their business. Do it enough, and you begin to see why manager John Gibbons is such a big fan of Kevin Pillar, who will head into this six-game road-trip starting tonight in San Francisco as the hottest bat in the Toronto Blue Jays lineup.
Gibbons will admit he didn’t know exactly how to take Pillar when he first came up with the team. The fit that Pillar pitched when Gibbons pinch-hit for him in a game in 2014 and the resulting exile to Triple-A Buffalo left many wondering whether the relationship was finished.
Yet Gibbons kept an open mind – he famously said in the spring of 2015 when he was asked about giving Pillar another chance that, “Hey, I’m not going too hot right now myself, you know?” Now, Gibbons lauds the way Pillar “never gives up on anything,” whether it’s a gapper, intentions of being a lead-off hitter but, mostly, on himself – and, yes, Gibbons is aware that Pillar’s multi-homer game on June 2 against the Washington Nationals‘ Max Scherzer came at a time when the manager’s job reportedly hung in the balance.
During one round of batting practice on the Blue Jays’ recent homestand, Gibbons looked on as Josh Donaldson and Brook Jacoby became engaged in an animated and largely one-sided discussion about a mechanical aspect of Donaldson’s swing. Within seconds, Pillar had sidled up to listen to the discussion.
“He wants to learn as much as he can about this game,” Gibbons said. “He really absorbs stuff. He’s committed.”
Pillar and Michael Saunders have profited immensely from the platoon job-sharing arrangement at the top of the order, but Gibbons admits that the longer Troy Tulowitzki fights himself in the middle of the order, the greater the possibility that Saunders’ bat will be needed in the middle of the lineup to break up all the right-handed hitters – which would result in Pillar going back up top on a more regular basis.
That situation was, of course, found wanting at the start of the year because Pillar simply wasn’t enough of an on-base machine to handle the role – a weakness that mitigates his attributes on the basepaths compared to Saunders, who has been pinch-run for as a lead-off hitter on two occasions the past two weeks. But all that’s in the future. For now, Pillar says he’s “really just trusting my eyes at the plate.”
Lately, there’s been a great deal positive to see.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
• Terrific scenes this weekend as Leicester City were officially crowned champions of the Barclays Premier League in one of the most unexpected titles in professional sports history – a win that forced bookies to pay out more than 15 million pounds, 26,500 of which went to 24-year-old Levi Taylor, who placed a number of bets on the team to win the league and finish in the top four and top six.
The Sun reported that the 24-year-old residential care worker had put a down payment on a house, paid off his car, and arranged for a trip to Greece for himself and his girlfriend – as one does.
And it’s not just punters making a killing, either: Leicester City owner and Thai businessman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha bought each member of the 30-man team a 32,700 pound Mercedes B-Class with electric drive, in addition to bankrolling a trip to Las Vegas.
• Well, that was conclusive: The Chicago Cubs walked off the Nationals in 13 innings Sunday for their first four-game sweep of that franchise since April 3-6, 1998, when it was the Montreal Expos.
The Cubs are now 24-6 and have yet to lose consecutive games, the deepest they’ve gone into the regular season without consecutive losses since 1907, when they lost their 36th and 37th games. The 1999 Braves were the last club to go this long without back-to-back losses: Theirs occurring in the 30th and 31st games of that season.
The Cubs didn’t let Bryce Harper hurt them, walking him 13 times in the four-game series (breaking the previous MLB record of 12 in a four-game series, set by Eddie Joost in 1948 and Max Bishop in 1930.) Harper became the first player in 100 years to reach base seven times without recording an at-bat in Sunday’s series finale. The Cubs walked him six times, three intentionally.
• Sunday’s sell-out crowd at Rogers Centre raised attendance through 19 home dates to 685,447, more than 200,000 ahead of last season’s total through 19 games.
With an average crowd of 36,076, the Blue Jays are on pace to attract 2.95 million spectators, which would be the most since they last drew four million in 1993.
THE ENDGAME
I’m not on board with the sky is falling express when it comes to Valanciunas’ injury. As much as I admire his performance this season and continue to regret ever penning a column I wrote when he was drafted decrying the pick as being wasted on another soft Euro – you’d think somebody who learned lessons about under-estimating the toughness of European hockey players would know better.
At any rate, my guess is the Raptors can get through this series going small, which means Cory Joseph is going to have to emerge as a key player in these next four games. I like their chances.
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show from 9-11 a.m. E. and Baseball Central from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET on Sportsnet 590 The FAN.