Game on

Two events to mention in the Greater Parkdale Area, today.

By far the most important, in the view of most citizens, will be the baseball game at the former Sky Dome (can’t remember what they call it now), between our Blue Jays and the strangely-named Kansas City “Royals.” As monarchists, we are pleased when any Yanquis genuflect, though puzzled given republican tendencies in the rest of that country.

On looking it up, I discover that the name derives from the American Royal, a livestock show and rodeo in that Missouri port, dating back to the nineteenth century. Now all I need to know is why they called that “the Royal.” …

Aha, goddit. … Rivalry was being offered to the (rather older) livestock show (less rodeo) of the (English) Royal Agricultural Society. … There is a “Royal Welsh Show,” too, which includes falconry and racing events such as four-in-hand that must resemble a rodeo; so why not also a “Royal American Show”? All my Loyalist ancestors approve.

I thought the Kansas City baseball team were called the Athletics, but silly me. That one apparently moved to Oakland, California, forty-six years ago. We all know what Gertrude Stein thought of Oakland. And now we all know that my own interest in baseball fizzled at the age of fifteen. My heart does, however, still rise to some results in “the insect game,” as my Chief Texas Correspondent calls it. He refers to the noble game of cricket: descended, I think (though nobody else does), from the old Roman Harpastum, played with something the size and density of a softball.

As we are reminded by the current Rugby (Union) World Cup, being played over there, the ancient Romans and Alexandrian Hellenists also played a masculine bladder-ball game, involving more gladiatorial collision. The description in the Deipnosophists sounds very much like rugby à quinze. Galen thinks it might be good exercise; Martial mentions it in an epigram; Cicero somewhere describes a freak accident when the follis (football) came through the window of a barber shop, surprising the barber, who then cut the throat of the customer he was shaving. (Well, I share Cicero’s taste for sick humour.)

Nothing is new under the sun, except, the prospect that the Blue Jays will be taken by the Royals in four straight, which would sadden my countrymen, but delight me, as it would prevent the Jays from winning or losing the so-called “World Series” — with all the riots and property damage that implies. Long story short: game three of the qualifying series happens tonight, and if the bat of our swaggering José Bautista (a legal Hispanic immigrant) isn’t swinging correctly, Toronto’s windows may yet be saved.

On the other hand, repairs after public violence and bloodletting are good for the GDP.


There is also a “federal” (i.e. Dominion) election today, which will give my fellow citizens something to do with their time while waiting for the big game to start.

Had the baseball match been last night, instead, I’d have been cheering fulsomely for the Jays, knowing that victory would make people feel good about themselves, and thus vote for Harper, swinging perhaps thirty close Ontario seats, and keeping the Conservatives in power. As it stands, the glumness and anxiety are likely to push them the other way, so that we wake up tomorrow morning with little Justin Trudeau (son of the Antichrist) elected to the prime minister’s office. Which would be all very well if you happened to live in another country.

No point in voting here in inner Parkdale, where the contest is only between the two Cloud Cuckoo parties, and no politician even partially sane (Rob Ford comes to mind, in the moments when he is off crack) will long flourish. Too, this is so in the heart of every modern Western metropolis, outside the USA, where there is no competition, and all the mental and material underclasses vote for one and the same godforsaking party. (I find it takes at least three to divide this constituency effectively.) The Trudeau child has already won the hearts of Canada’s sentimental female electorate, so the only question is how many men will be voting.

I could explain to gentle foreign reader how sad this all is, but hey, you don’t need to know. All I can do is express my envy for you, being at a distance; and recoil in my usual way from the poisoned fruits of “democracy.” Alas, they ask voters for photo-ID up here (unlike down there in the Natted States Merica), which makes stuffing the ballot box damnably hard.