The Texas Rangers home opener is Monday afternoon against the Toronto Blue Jays — do you think the Canadian team has some Nazi jibes in store for Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Gil Lebreton?
Lebreton, recall, wrote a column comparing the Canadian patriotism during the Vancouver Winter Olympics to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Canadians went crazy, thinking he called them Nazis.
Toronto Star sports reporter Morgan Campbell, who will be in Arlington covering the game for his newspaper, said he will stick his Canadian foot up Lebreton’s extra-wide American ass if they run across each other at the Ballpark during the game.
Not really.
Campbell is Canadian, people! Canadians don’t talk like that. They’re reserved. Mellow. Campbell has way too much class to maul an Ugly American simply for being obnoxious.
(Campbell, however, is “AmeriCanadian.” He’s lived in both countries. His American side might erupt into violence at any moment.)
The funny thing about Lebreton’s column, Campbell said, is that America is super-patriotic to the point of absurdity during the Olympics. To have an American sportswriter come to Vancouver and complain about patriotic furor was hilariously ironic.
Campbell said the patriotism shown in Vancouver was a good thing, a departure from the typical Canadian reserve and something of a “breakthrough.”
“For two weeks Canadians dispensed with the national inferiority complex,” he said.
Still, there’s a limit to patriotism.
“Canadians don’t need to get as patriotic and jingoistic as they think Americans are,” he said.
Of course, Texans are in a class by themselves.
Campbell flew to Houston this morning to watch the Blue Jays play an exhibition game before heading to Arlington tomorrow. One of his fellow sportswriters checked into a hotel and the receptionist greeted him by saying, “Welcome to Texas, the best state in the country.”
The two Canadians are still laughing about that.
