DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS COLUMN: Blue Jays earned ‘Canada’s Team’ title

While the Toronto Blue Jays season came to a heart-breaking conclusion with an extra-innings double-play, the team’s run to the World Series solidified their spot as possibly Canada’s most popular team in any sport.

The Blue Jays role as ‘Canada’s Team’ isn’t just about games in October. It’s about a team that puts in the work across the country, including right here in Steinbach.

Just this summer I was driving into work, and saw it was baseball day at one of the local middle schools. Every kid was rotating fielding, batting and pitching stations in their field area. And every kid was wearing a Blue Jays hat and t-shirt.

The team also sponsors challenger baseball across the country, making the sport accessible to everyone.

I know the Raptors do a lot for basketball in this country, but the Blue Jays are way more visible in rural and smaller communities across the nation.

Maybe that’s because baseball as a whole is a more popular sport in Canada, but as someone who counts himself as way more of an NBA fan than an MLB fan, watching this run has been quite rewarding.

The moniker of “Canada’s Team” is an overused one, especially when it comes to hockey, but in my opinion, the Blue Jays have earned the right to dub themselves that, thanks to their effort to connect with grassroots baseball not just in big cities across Canada, but right down to the grassroots.