I Pissed Off Canada Yesterday
There it is. The tweet that rattled an entire country on a Sunday in August.
Now, before I get into the shitshow fallout from this tweet, I just wanna say — I actually enjoyed the hat trick treatment from the fans in Toronto. I did. I thought it was clever, and a nice way to deviate from the norm in baseball, while also showing some local flavor. I’m all about that, and I’ve written about it extensively. I’ve probably written about 20 blogs defending Jose Bautista’s bat-flip since it happened. My tweet was harmless, obviously taken out of context, and it also revealed just how sensitive Blue Jays fans are. I mean, holy SHIT, they’re STILL tweeting me about this to the point where my handle was trending in their entire COUNTRY, not just the city of Toronto.
Here’s what I meant, and how people with a brain actually interpreted this tweet: I’m not hating on throwing hats on the field for a three home run game. You don’t have to tweet me 500 times explaining what a hat trick is. I follow hockey a little bit. The Bruins just won a Stanley Cup a few years ago. I know you’re not familiar with those, but it’s that big trophy that gets awarded to the best team in the NHL at the end of the year. I’m not hating on the Blue Jays. I actually picked them to win the AL East at the beginning of the season. I’m not hating on fun in baseball. I’m the anti-Goose Gossage. I’m making fun of you guys for being a hockey town that just recently started caring about baseball. That’s the joke. Outrage.
I’m saying that a good chunk of your fan base hopped on the Blue Jays bandwagon last August, which they did, and that they’re all hockey fans with nothing better to do this time of year, so they’ve adopted the Blue Jays. “Toronto still figuring out baseball,” AKA you’re hockey fans who are still getting used to the whole going to baseball games thing, hence why you’re doing something that only hockey fans would do, only you’re doing it at a baseball game. The fact that I have to spell that out for you is mind-numbing.
Yes, I made fun of you. Yes, you overreacted. With the amount of butthurt Blue Jays fans that I’ve heard from since that tweet, you would’ve thought I tweeted a picture of a burning Canadian flag or something. You’ve even got Toronto media members weaponizing social media, although I’ve heard that only Barstool writers do that.
Viral Twitter is the worst Twitter. The only reason why it’s not enjoyable is because people on the internet are the worst. Every day, there’s one story that everybody chooses to get irrationally upset about, and yesterday in Canada, it was my tweet. You kinda just have to sit back and watch the hate roll through, because it’s coming in like a hurricane. But once it’s gone, it’s gone. Same thing happened to me during the Pablo Sandoval Instagram story. You just have to buckle up, and enjoy the ride. Sit back, and watch hundreds of people stroll through your mentions with their fake internet outrage, and then they’re gone. They move on to the next thing that they pretend to be mad about, and then the sun comes out, and you go about your day.
I just don’t understand what these Blue Jays fans are so mad about. I’m saying that you have bandwagon fans, because you have bandwagon fans. I don’t care that you have bandwagon fans. I want more baseball fans at baseball games. I’m not on some sort of crusade to expose your bandwagon fan base, but now I kind of have to in order to prove my point that you’re challenging here. What I posted originally wasn’t some sort of extensive research blog about Blue Jays fans and their attendance figures. It was a tweet that I put maybe two seconds of thought into, figured it’d get a couple laughs, and then I never would’ve thought about it again. I was unaware that I was about to rock the country of Canada to its core.
If you’re a diehard Blue Jays fan who has watched this team and followed them throughout the years, even when they sucked, I tip my cap to you. There are plenty of you out there, because I’ve interacted with a whole bunch over the years, and the attendance numbers were never TERRIBLE in Toronto, but they were never historical like they are now, either.
So, for some of these people to sit there and act like they’ve bled Blue Jays baseball their whole life, and that the Blue Jays fan base has always been this rabid — get fuckin’ real, buddy. That’s like finishing your freshman year at 115 pounds, and then walking through the door as a sophomore the next year, looking like 190 pounds of rock hard muscle, telling everyone that you just “changed your diet” and that you’ve always been that jacked. Noooooo you fucking haven’t, and everybody knows it. Nobody’s judging you. Just don’t act like what you see now is what it’s always been.
Facts are facts. There’s been a huge increase in attendance up in Toronto ever since the team became relevant again. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s actually pretty normal. Winning brings in new fans, and that’s great for the game. That would likely happen in any market outside of Tampa Bay. My issue, like I’ve been saying, is their denial that they’re a bandwagon fan base right now. Numbers never lie, Tiko. I’ve got all these Blue Jays fans denying that they’re bandwagon fans, and at the same time, they’re ripping the tags off their new Blue Jays shirsey. Nobody wants to admit that they hopped on the bandwagon after the team started winning. I get it. But for those who did, it’s okay to admit that you’re new to the game. Welcome! Baseball’s happy to have you.