The relationship between Canada and the United States isn’t at its best right now due to a variety of factors.
But that’s no reason that a baseball team should be poking fun at the Great White North.
After the Cleveland Guardians dispatched the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 on Sunday afternoon at Rogers Centre, the visitor’s social media team decided to take a jab at Canada.
The post in question simply read, “America > Canada, objectively.”
While it was quickly deleted after some uproar online, sports journalist Jake Ferraro made a screenshot and reposted it for all to see.
While social media staffers for sports teams often tend to get cheeky with their content, many fans of both the Guardians and Blue Jays felt this was too much.
“Not how Cleveland fans like to represent ourselves at all,” one fan replied. “Worked hard and put up with a lot of s*** over the decades to not be in this kind of position.
“Clearly some garbage person that is running social media.”
Many social media users pointed out that while some playful banter is fine most of the time, the current political climate between the two nations makes this a hot-button issue.
“Really dumb time to post that,” one user wrote.
“I’m normally all for the friendly Canada slander, but maybe not right now,” another posted.
One user on Reddit wrote that it was “probably for the best” that the post was deleted given that “it was in poor taste given the current political climate.”
It also was noted by another user on X that no other MLB team has fielded more Canadian players over the past three years than the Guardians.
In fact, reliever Cade Smith, of Vancouver, and Mississauga’s Bo Naylor both played for the Guardians during the weekend series at Rogers Centre.
The team also has featured Bo’s brother Josh Naylor, Cal Quantrill and Erik Sabrowski and set an MLB record with four Canadians on its post-season roster last fall.
With their victory on Sunday, Cleveland edged the Blue Jays for the series win and improved their record to 20-16, good for first place in AL Central.
The Blue Jays, on the other hand, continue to struggle with a record of 16-18 and now head out West to Anaheim for a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels, which starts on Tuesday night.