There's a federal election in Canada on Monday, the 42nd in its history, with incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper trying to hold onto his job against Justin Trudeau. When making out the schedule, election officials must not have realized that Major League Baseball's postseason would be returning to Toronto the same day, with the Blue Jays hosting the Royals at Rogers Centre in Game 3 of the ALCS. It has been 22 years since the Jays made the playoffs.
This is why the United States usually waits until an early Tuesday in November to hold its federal elections (although the World Series has overlapped before). What can you do, eh? Except vote, and watch baseball. That's what the Blue Jays players such as Game 3 starting pitcher Marcus Stroman are encouraging fans to do.
From the Associated Press:
“Get up at 8, 9 a.m., go vote, get that out of the way and start getting ready for the game by noon,” Stroman told Canadian TV station Sportsnet on Friday. “I’m going to need the city as rowdy and crazy as possible.”
Catcher Russell Martin and outfielder Dalton Pompey are the two lone Canadians on Toronto’s roster. Martin declined to answer questions about the election Sunday, while the 22-year-old Pompey acknowledged he’s never voted. He’s only been eligible once before, in the May 2011 election that saw Harper win his first majority.
Pompey said some of his 33,000 Twitter followers have been asking him to urge others to vote
“I’m definitely going to tweet it out and raise awareness,” he said.
Second baseman Ryan Goins, from Texas, hasn’t been paying much attention to the campaign.
“To be honest, not at all,” Goins said. “I’m a baseball player, that’s what I do, that’s my job. I just know taxes are going to kill me either way.
Now that's a ballplayer response if ever there was one from Goins. There are exceptions all along the political spectrum, some of them quite loud, but ballplayers as a rule tend to stay out of political conversations, in part to not alienate fans. Jays manager John Gibbons isn't afraid to be known as politically conservative, and has been friendly with Harper, but he also wasn't much into commenting about Canada's election.
“I don’t get into politics. If we were 2-0 up I might have a comment.”
Besides -- Harper, Trudeau and New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair also attended Blue Jays games this season. After Toronto lost all three times, the leaders made a pact via Twitter that they would stay away from Rogers Centre as the Blue Jays chased their first division crown since 1993.
A great reason to vote for all three: Staying away from the ballpark!
Attention Canadian readers who are not yet registered to vote: You still can, if you bring your driver's license to a polling place. And, like Stroman said, get it done before he throws the first pitch tonight.
