Oh, Canada ...

 Let's hear it out there, America, for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Let's hear it for Vlad Guerrero Jr. and George Springer and Trey Yesavage, the 22-year-old rook the Jays are sending to the bump tonight in Game 1 of the World Series. Let's hear it for Joe Carter and Jack Morris and all the boys from 32 years ago, the last time the Jays were in the World Series. 

Let's hear for poutine and Molson's and Labatt's.  For the McKenzie brothers and pond hockey and the Montreal Alouettes, by god. For the maple leaf, the Maple Leafs, and Le Habitants, lords of hockey that they are.

Come on, people. Strike up a chorus of "O Canada" -- as in, "Oh, Canada, please save us from the stupid Dodgers, because we're already sick of them."

And, yeah, OK. So maybe that's not true.

But the Trolley Dodgers are the new Steinbrenner Yankees -- the overstuffed, reek-of-money-and-privilege overdogs -- so, yeah, let's root for the underdogs. Not that there really is such a thing in baseball anymore, of course. 

The Blue Jays, after all, just agreed to pay Vladdy $500 million, so they're not exactly hanging out on a street corner with a "Will Work For Food" sign. Hardly anyone is in baseball anymore, unless they're my Pittsburgh Cruds. And my Cruds are only impoverished because their owner is Scrooge McDuck.

Still, someone has to play the scrappy over-achiever in these affairs, and this time it's the Blue Jays. They probably won't win, on account of the Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani and they don't. They'll probably lose in, I don't know, six games or something.

Which means the Dodgers would be the first team in a quarter century to win back-to-back World Series. So if baseball is its history, there at least would be a thematic resonance to that.

Because the last team to win back-to-back (actually back-to-back-to-back) World Series?

The Yankees. Of course.