CANADA, CORNDOGS AND COMMERCIALISING CRICKETS COUSIN
Illustrations by Ed Farley
By Vinay Patel
Over the summer, one of our writers had the opportunity to watch a Major League Baseball game in Toronto, Canada. Impact’s Vinay Patel discusses his experience and compares sports games in the UK and the increasing commercialisation of American sports.
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During my trip to Canada over the summer, I got the chance to watch a Major League Baseball game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Oakland Athletics at the Rogers Centre in Downtown Toronto. You can imagine my scepticism as an avid cricket fan as to whether it would surpass its older, more distinguished cousin sport both in terms of quality and overall enjoyment. To say that I was a baseball novice would be a severe understatement, given that I had no idea who the Blue Jays were until I was offered to go and watch them play in the few days prior - my only connection to the Oakland As was through an all-time classic sports film ‘Moneyball’. However, I was more than determined to remain open minded about a new sport and what was likely to be a once in a lifetime experience for a Brit across the pond. I was forced to adopt the mindset quickly, as the blue shirts were starting to filter into the local, double-decker (!) train that was headed Downtown.
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Where the average group of travelling fans in Britain would feature the built-in package of unique chanting, singing and more often than not, drinking, those in Canada replaced such tendencies with… civilised conversation?
“It can be argued that the commercialisation of American sports has Make no mistake, I think the creativity also led to a filtered of the Barmy Army, and more recentmethod of fan-support” ly the viral West Ham fan-made chant about their own Lucas Paqueta, in the rendition of 90s classic ‘Push The Feeling On’, is what adds to the beautiful sporting culture of our nation. The warm Saturday afternoon sensation was not enough to distract me that fan culture was different here, not bad, just different.
The walk to the Rogers Centre from the train station coincided with the pre-match buildup and growing anticipation for one man, which was, as fate would have it, cricket star Chris Gayle! Famed for his swashbuckling big-hitting in white-ball cricket, Gayle is the most capped player for the West Indies in international cricket and their leading run-scorer in both T20 and ODIs. The ‘Universe Boss’ was set to throw the first pitch and kickstart the game for the Blue Jays.
