Editorials - Feb. 13, 2026
The end of an era
“Get up ball, get up, and GONE!!” was a unique Martinezism that fans will have to get along without now. Buck Martinez, a.k.a. Mr. Blue Jay, has decided to hang up his mic and retire from his role as the voice of the Toronto Blue Jays after a career spanning 38 years in the broadcast booth and spending 17 years as a catcher.
For a generation, Martinez was the primary voice of the franchise. His unmistakable support for the home team was a crowd favourite.
Like Foster Hewitt, the legendary Toronto Maple Leafs play-by-play announcer, Martinez set a gold standard for sports colour commentary.
After calling more than 4,000 games, it is fitting that his last appearance was calling Game 7 of the World Series, a finale that had not happened for the Jays in 32 years. He called every game of the 2025 season, which he called “glorious.... Only one other outcome could have topped this fantastic year.”
Enjoy your retirement, Buck. We’re going to miss you and your unbridled passion for the game. – DS
In too deep
“The world needs plenty of bartenders,” shouts Cpt. Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) at Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) after Dignam punches Sgt. Sullivan (Matt Damon) in the face a few times over a disagreement in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Best Picture Oscar winner The Departed, dismissing him with, “Two weeks with pay!” What was Marty trying to tell us? A cop’s got to work to get suspended without pay.
And yet that’s exactly what Myron Demkiw, chief of the Toronto Police Service, is seeking for six of the seven officers implicated in the Project South investigation that has ensnared 27 people, including those officers, in dozens of charges from bribery, drug trafficking, guns, fraud, obstruction of justice to a plot to murder a corrections officer. The officers were concentrated in the city’s west end.
Putting aside what’s going on with ICE in the U.S., most cases of police corruption are often limited to a bad apple or two, though there seems to be an awful lot of bad apples. Conspiracies like the one uncovered in the Toronto Police Service are rare and they tend to make international news. They also serve as confirmation, for many who’ve grown skeptical of the role of our modern-day police, that the days of a cop rhythmically twirling his baton while walking a beat, chatting with residents and eagerly awaiting a chance to help his community are a thing of the past. “Adversarial” would be a word that’s not out of place for many when describing their relationship with the police.
Nothing short of a large-scale, transparent investigation (Demkiw has welcomed both internal and external probes and, in fact, the provincial government has vowed to open its own probe, getting to the heart of the corruption to ensure it never happens again), a trial free of bias and convictions with fulsome sentences, if found guilty, should suffice if the province’s second-largest police force wants to maintain any credibility, not just for them, but all of our police officers. – SL
Uniting America
This past Sunday, Bad Bunny, a.k.a. Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, delivered an outstanding performance that was joyful, culturally rich and deeply memorable. His Super Bowl Halftime Show blended high energy, inventive staging and powerful cultural imagery that brought Puerto Rican life and heritage to the world’s biggest live audience.
More than just wildly entertaining, the show offered a layered message of unity and diasporic pride. Throughout the extravaganza, Bad Bunny celebrated the diversity of the Americas, and near the end he held up a football reading “Together, We Are America,” before naming countries from South America through Central America and up to Canada, with their flags displayed behind him. A prominent message on the stadium screen read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Ocasio also used visual storytelling to honour Puerto Rican culture and identity. Dancers, musicians and imagery throughout the show highlighted the richness of his heritage, and he proudly waved a version of the Puerto Rican flag tied to independence. The scene exuded jubilation and cultural pride without forcing overt politics, letting the music and imagery speak for themselves while insisting that love and inclusion matter deeply.
For many viewers, regardless of whether they understood every lyric, the emotion was unmistakable. This was a moment of unity, of rhythm and joy, and of cultural celebration on a stage watched by millions. To say artistry matters is not to diminish sport, but to remind us that music, culture and performance connect us in ways that numbers on a scoreboard never can. In a world often divided by difference and noise, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show was a reminder that beauty and shared expression can move us, inspire us and bring us together. That is something worth celebrating in any country, on any Sunday. – SBS