Major League Baseball making no friends up North...

Last night was Major League Baseball's All-Star game, hosted in St. Louis, MO. With two Toronto Blue Jays in the American League starting line-up, and Canada's two most prominent players - Jason Bay and Justin Morneau - also representing the AL, Major League Baseball went all out in welcoming Canada's participating and place in the game.

TSN, picking up on a Canadian Press release, goes into a bit more detail:

Grammy Award winner Sheryl Crow sang the Star Spangled Banner before Tuesday's all-star game.

O Canada was handled by a recorded instrumental rendition piped through the speakers, and Canadian slugger Justin Morneau felt the national anthem deserved better.

Now that's how you sell the supposedly globalized, international game that is baseball. I particularly like Morneau's assessment of what would happen if Toronto did the same thing to the Star Spangled Banner... Then again, that would necessitate Toronto being made host of the All Star festivities, assuming MLB can find it on a map...

For all the problems and controversy that has surrounded singing the national anthems before games in the past (particularly in Montréal, where unfortunately the American anthem has received a less-than-gracious reception on a few occasions), playing the anthems before games is a tradition in North American sport, and one that the players and clubs they represent can and should take pride in. However, with the globalization of sport over the past thirty years, and the ever-increasing number of non-North Americans playing in the big-four American leagues, there are bound to be more questions asked of the reasoning behind playing the anthems. If the leagues aren't even prepared to show the songs, the athletes, and above all, the fans whom the anthems represent, the respect they deserve, then why even bother?

Major League Baseball did themselves no favours last night. You have to hope this issue doesn't just get swept under the rug, but it almost certainly will. Jays fans, next home game, stand up and be counted. O Canada is ours, show them how it's done.