Blue Jays giving Raptors a chance to be fans
As they prepare for start of NBA season, players keeping close eye on diamond
The Toronto Raptors and Blue Jays are friends and fans of each other and young men in similar circumstances, which means they can bust on each other whenever they like.
That gives a guy like DeMarre Carroll license to go after a buddy of his.
“Baseball is a great sport, with a lot of money, no salary cap . . . I talk to my boy, (former Jays left-hander) David Price all the time, he’s living good right now,” Carroll was saying after the Raptors worked out Wednesday afternoon. “I wish we could have kept him here but I guess it’s good we didn’t keep him here, because he can’t win a game in the playoffs.”
Carroll was quick to set the record straight — “forgive me, David; that’s my guy, he knows I always kid around with him” — but the familiarity level he has with Price speaks to the growing bond between the baseball and basketball teams in the city.
There might not be many connections like Carroll and Price — “I knew him from Vanderbilt,” Carroll said. “It’s a long story . . . he’s a good guy” — but there is a definite bond between the players.
“In some way, shape or form all athletes aspire to be other athletes,” DeMar DeRozan said. “It makes you automatically fans of it. Think about, if you’re playing around, if we’ve got a baseball out back, we go out there and say we’re trying to be Barry Bonds or something. Whoever it may be, we try to make a comparison to a whole other sport or something.
“I’m pretty sure other sports do the same. They pick up a basketball, go in the gym, and think they’re a professional basketball player. I think that’s the one connection that anybody who plays sports has in common.”
There’s also a level of escapism that exists when athletes become spectators. It doesn’t get to the point where they’d second-guess — that isn’t how athletes react to each other — but sitting back and being entertained by a sports event is fun.
Kyle Lowry had a front-row seat on the third-base line at Sunday’s game and posted a video he took of Josh Donaldson rounding third and diving into home plate for the Jays’ ALDS-winning run.
“Sometimes you want to get out of your element of being so caught up, and stressed, over your own job,” DeRozan said. “You want to be able to cheer on somebody else’s profession, in your own city, and watch them perform instead of you worrying about the preparation, you going against your own opponent. Now we get to sit back, relax and enjoy.”
Watching a winner helps too. The Raptors know they are supported by a rabid fan base, one of the best in the NBA, but they are also at work when the fans are at their best. Being able to sit there uninvolved and to feel the energy a crazed audience can provide gives them a different perspective, and an appreciation from being in the stands, for what it can do to a game.
“It’s great for us to experience the Blue Jays winning, for the guys to go to the games and feel the passion that the fans have,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “Anything we can do to be a part of that, to go see it, to watch it, to have something to pull for, I think it’s great for us.
“There’s nothing but good that come from the Blue Jays winning and our players going and pulling for them and being part of that atmosphere.”