When the unfamiliar think of Texas, they’re prone to envisioning a barren land, one of desert and cactus, where hard lives beget hardened people. They imagine the repressive heat of a cruel sun and ever-present dust that combine to make teeth gritty, throats dry and sweat dirty. They think of the hardships of futile toiling, where the only possible reward is oil, a black and grimy substance that’s more reminiscent of the devil’s bath water than a natural resource.
They think of mainly nonsense.
The misrepresentations of Texas in popular culture are plentiful, as it would be for any unique region for which diversity, both in terms of population and landscape, creates complications that require more than a quick glimpse and labeling to understand. In truth, Texas isn’t the less than convivial hell hole described in the opening paragraph. Texas isn’t a desert wasteland. Prairies, grasslands, swamps, hills and forests surround the cities that aren’t located along the coastline. Two-thirds of the state’s population, which is comprised of multiple ethnicities, reside near large metropolitan areas, and less than 10% of the land area of the entire state is considered to be desert.
Fans of Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays should be able to relate to ignorance breeding malformed understanding. After all, the Blue Jays find themselves in a unique situation of their own, as the only team competing at baseball’s highest level to be located outside the United States of America. While this surely presents challenges when it comes to talent acquisition, club supporters become most acutely aware of the misrepresentation this characteristic creates through outside media consistently classifying the franchise as being that of a small-market. This is the case, despite being the franchise being owned by the richest ownership group in baseball and playing in MLB’s fourth-most populated city.
It’s therefore fitting on multiple levels that the often-mislabeled Blue Jays would hire a misunderstood Texan to guide a roster largely comprised of players misjudged by their previous teams. I’d liken John Gibbons to King Moonracer, but in all likelihood, the current incarnation of Toronto’s Major League Baseball team would be outcasts even on The Island Of Misfit Toys.
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