The recent celebrations for the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans as they move on to American League Championship Series (ALCS) has been tinged by disappointment for them both, since the actions of a crowd member during the game on Oct. 3.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the news recently will know what I mean when I say that today, I am disheartened to be a Toronto sports fan. During the seventh inning of the “win or go home” wild card game between Toronto and Baltimore, a Jays fan took it upon himself to throw a beer can in the direction of Baltimore Orioles outfielder Hyun Soo Kim, as he was in the process of catching a deep fly ball in left field.
Since the miraculous Jose Bautista “bat flip” from the Blue Jays’ playoff run last year, the organization has begun to garner national attention from U.S. networks and publications. The team hasn’t seen this sort of public attention since the glory years of 1992-93, when the Blue Jays won their last back-to-back World Series championships. Everyone can get a little bit crazy at games. That’s what makes experiencing sports and playoff games so wonderful and mesmerizing. It’s the game-seven-sudden -death-overtime-of-the-Stanley-Cup-playoff kind of moments that remind fans and players why sport is an integral part of everyday life. It can make us cheer at the top of our lungs in excitement, and sit motionless on our couches in disbelief.
However, the actions of this man are not sportsmanlike behaviour. Not only is this an embarrassment to the man who committed this action, it’s an embarrassment to his family, his friends, fellow co-workers, and to every single person who lives in the beautiful city we know as Toronto, or as many Carleton students know it as, home.
In order to ensure such behaviour does not occur again this year, the Rogers Centre will now be pouring beer into plastic cups and disposing of canned beverages until the conclusion of the Jays’ playoff run.
Shortly after the conclusion of the wild card game, police announced that they had found a potential culprit to the incident named Ken Pagan, a man who is a Postmedia employee. Case closed, right? But there are many problems that arise from this.
One problem is that the Toronto police have no lawful evidence to rightfully determine whether Pagan indeed committed the crime or not. The police are also somewhat to blame for this incident of mass shaming as well, for whether or not they had the authority, no one should ever have to experience the reality of having an embarrassing photo posted to social media for an action they were probably framed into performing, even if it was a foolish decision made by a drunken bystander. We are lucky everyone was able to come away safe without any injuries, but that doesn’t mean nobody was hurt by the fallout.
Although I grew up in a town right outside of Toronto, almost every teen and young adult who lives there will tell you that “the 6ix” has influenced their life in some way. There’s a certain atmosphere that runs across the lakeshore air that makes walking around Toronto feel more like a specialty and a privilege than anything else.
From “We The North” to “Canada’s Team,” there’s always been a sense that how we choose to represent Toronto will ultimately reflect how the rest of the world views our culture. As fans, we all have to do better than Pagan. Right now, the hopes of a nation lie on the bats of the Jays. We can only hope that the bright lights of the ALCS are a sign of better things to come.
