Little rivalry between competing cities
Toronto, Cleveland not at daggers drawn
CLEVELAND • To call a Toronto/ Cleveland playoff meeting the continuation of a rivalry is probably stretching things.
Yes, the respective baseball teams from the two cities will meet in the American League Championship Series beginning Friday about a stone’s throw from where — and five months after — their respective basketball teams met in their own Eastern Conference Final, so maybe the better description is a budding rivalry.
That two teams from the same cities are meeting in the same calendar year in two different professional sports is a first, but it still doesn’t make it a rivalry.
A rivalry needs a little dislike, maybe even a little hatred, and evidence of that between these two cities is sparse. There really is no animosity between Toronto and Cleveland. In fact, there is probably more of a shared sense of being overlooked.
Until the Cavaliers won the NBA title this year, the city hadn’t experienced a major sports title in 52 years.
Toronto had been a title town in a professional sport far more recently, but like Cleveland always felt looked down upon by the rest of the continental sporting community.
It’s safe to say no sports fan is looking down on either city these days, with final four appearances in both the NBA and MLB playoffs.
DeMar DeRozan, who played a huge role in getting Toronto to that Eastern Conference Final against Cleveland in May, was not aware that the two baseball teams meeting at basically the same point made him part of history.
“It’s great,” he said. “At some point in time every sport city, town, state, they have their moment, their run, and it’s a cool thing to be able to witness and be a part of, and I think later on when we really look back at it, it’ll be a cool thing.”
Even through a six- game series that saw the Raptors on the wrong end of lopsided losses here in Cleveland, there was never any real animosity.
What little there was — like that dust- up at centre court in Toronto, which ended with Tristan Thompson landing an elbow square on the chops of teammate LeBron James after Thompson and now former Raptors’ Bismack Biyombo got into it a little bit — was all heat of the moment.
Biyombo also had a minor altercation with Kyrie Irving but, again, nothing came of it.
From a baseball standpoint the Jays and Cleveland have even less bad blood. When the best you can come up with in terms of axes to grind is that one city lured away another city’s front office leaders — hey there, Mark Shapiro — perhaps it’s a little early to be proclaiming the two cities rivals.
But familiarity in the sports world can, in fact, breed contempt.
Right now, few Toronto Raptors — save perhaps individuals like Cory Joseph and Thompson — really know each other. And Joseph and Thompson are more brothers than adversaries, although it should be pointed out Joseph got pushed away by his good friend Tristan when he tried to play peacemaker in that disagreement with Biyombo last spring.
What both cites are experiencing right now is a new- found pride in their sports teams, something that hasn’t always been there in either market.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey arrived in Toronto five years ago and he sees a huge difference in the sports landscape between then and now.
“A lot of times when I first got here, I felt our fans had a ‘ woe is me’ attitude,” Casey said.
“What I see now is ‘ OK, we’re Toronto’ and there’s a pride there, there should be a pride there because we have a world- class city, a world- class baseball stadium, world- class baseball team, world-class basketball team, facility, fans.
“Let’s have a little pride in that and use that as confidence.”