It goes both ways - Shawn Loughlin editorial

While the battle over vaccination status has certainly waned in recent months, the discussion continues to pop up every week or two in the world of baseball for fans of the Toronto Blue Jays.

 

While people continue to protest the (largely non-existent) vaccination and mask mandates and (mostly eliminated) vaccination pass requirements - seemingly because they lack a hobby - one of the few arenas in which status remains a factor is professional sports. This is due to an agreement between Canada and the United States regarding vaccination status and travel between the two countries. 

 

This past weekend came the news that Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, both all-star members of the St. Louis Cardinals, would miss a series with the Toronto Blue Jays due to their vaccination status.  

 

This was more of a regular discussion last year when individual U.S. states were left to decide for themselves on vaccination status for buildings and activities. Kyrie Irving of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets was likely one of the most high-profile examples, as he was unable to play home games in New York due to the local vaccination rules and his choice not to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

 

However, now that states have dropped their requirements, the last barrier for unvaccinated players remains crossing from Canada into the U.S. and vice versa. But, because the majority of professional sports teams reside in the U.S., it’s often viewed by many as a Canadian issue. 

 

Of the 30 professional basketball teams, just one is Canadian. Those figures - one of 30 - are the same for Major League Baseball. There are 32 professional hockey teams and seven of them are Canadian; more than the other two leagues, but still below a quarter. 

 

Because Canadian teams know they’ll have to play the vast majority of their road games in the U.S., general managers have taken these vaccination regulations into consideration. So, Canadian teams travelling to the U.S. is often pretty uneventful news. However, when teams come from the U.S. into Canada and one of their stars has to miss the game because he or she is unvaccinated, the conversation becomes about the “socialist” Canadian government.

 

Blue Jays fans and reporters finally got tired of American pundits opining that the Blue Jays had a “competitive advantage” as a result of the rules and compiled a chart so simple that even American sports fans could understand it. 

 

It showed that unvaccinated players on the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, sharing the American League East division with the Jays, would miss 10 games as a result of the rules. The New York Yankees, also in the division, would have players miss nine games. The numbers then drop from there to four games and below for the league’s other teams. If the Blue Jays had an unvaccinated player on the roster, however, he would miss 81 games - half of the season. 

 

So, while people like Joe Rogan (never underestimate the ability of a bloated, puffy, former reality television star to influence the American people) like to label Canada as communist and dump all over our way of life, it’s easy to forget that this arrangement goes both ways. But, sometimes it can be a little hard to get that point across to some people.

 

This all goes back to what was said to be the foundation of the original freedom convoy, an agreement between Canada and the U.S. over requirements to cross the border. Sure, sales of those cute flags and car window stickers went through the roof, but there’s a little more to it than that. Maybe we need a chart to explain it.