WASHINGTON, D.C. (BUFFALO?) (TORONTO??) — The Blue Jays’ 2020 home opener started just like any other. A solemn rendition of O Canada gave way to a dramatic hype video on the Jumbotron, welcomed with exuberant cheers from the crowd, and the team took the field.
It was all perfectly normal unless, of course, you widened the lens a bit. O Canada had been previously recorded. The crowd did not exist; their cheers, like all baseball cheers now, had originally been produced to serve as background noise in a video game. The Blue Jays were not in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada.