So with the Toronto Blue Jays down 2-0 to Kansas City heading into today’s Game 3 of the ALCS, it’s fair to ask what will be the legacy of this team that has captured Canada’s hearts. The Texas triumph seemed like one for the ages at the time. Will Jose Bautista’s bat flip live in history or merely become a staple of sports cable highlight collections? Will we remember David Price’s brilliance down the stretch or his unsure performance in the postseason?

In the end it will likely depend on what they do today and tomorrow. Lose and you become a warm adjunct to the 1992/93 World Series winners— always the younger brother who could only win one playoff round when Vegas called you the best team in the game. Mount another monumental comeback — as you did against Texas — and you will be legendary.

If you think that’s harsh, consider that callers on the postgame radio broadcast Saturday were already howling for the firing of manger John Gibbons. As Steven Harper can attest, all hath no fury like a southern Ontarian scorned.

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As the network fawning heads have proven, the fine art of sports sideline reporting is neither fine nor art. It seems that a question — let alone an open-ended one — is too much to ask. So we are left with breathy hair-and-teeth demanding that an athlete “Talk about that home run (or goal or check or nose pick)…”

It’s as if the subject is a dancing dog being asked to bark on command. Some athletes bridle at the TV or radio plant asking him/ her to do all the work. Most go along to get along. Either way the viewer gets next to nothing in the answer.

Now I note that “Talk about…” has been replaced by “What can you say about…” for dimwitted sideline reporters who can’t form open-ended questions. As in “What can you say about that home run (or goal or check or nose pick)…” Equally obnoxious.

For their sake, I like to think this is merely because the Barry Davises of the world have never been taught properly. Having done the TV circuit myself I can tell this is far more the case than not. Whatever the genesis of this bloviation, let us hope that it ends before interview subjects refuse to take questions at all.

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There are sad sights in sports, but few matched the pathos of the homeless Toronto Argonauts playing their home game against Calgary this Saturday in an empty Tim Horton Field in Hamilton. The gypsy act is nothing new. The peripatetic Argos played regular season home games in Fort McMurray, Ab., Ottawa and Guelph, Ont. Oh yes, they did a play the odd game in Rogers Centre, their real 2015 home field.

With the Toronto Blue Jays occupying the concrete convertible this week during their MLB playoffs, the Argos were forced to venture down the QEW to play their game before friends and family in the lair of their bitterest enemies. Even for the CFL, the Survivor of sports leagues, it was a very bad look.

Oh well, you say, things will improve next year when the Argos migrate to cozier BMO Field. That’s what the embattled CFL and their TV sugar daddies at TSN are thinking. Not so fast, Kemosabe. Toronto FC officials are now saying that, should there be a future postseason conflict between themselves and the Argos at BMO Field, the football team will have to give. Again.

Which doesn’t sound like the solution the Argos or the CFL contemplated, does it? The Argos’ woes, Saskatchewan’s no-show, acres of empty seats in Vancouver and Montreal, injuries to many of the CFL’s few name stars, reportedly no sellout yet for the Grey Cup game in Winnipeg… it’s been disastrous CFL season by any standard.

Toronto staying a weak sister in 2016 would only make it worse. The CFL has weathered many a storm in the past, but another year like this one could present an existential threat to its place in the Canadian sports firmament.

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You may have seen where the state of Nevada, the only American state with legalized sports wagering, has shut down fantasy sites Fan Duel and Draft Kings until they apply for state gambling licenses. Nevada, which has a lot of skin in the sports wagering game, insists that the sites are gambling outlets, not fantasy sites. Thus, they need licenses.

Leaving aside the dubious image about Nevada’s licensing left by movies such as The Godfather: Part II and Casino, there is a lot at stake in the issue as to whether daily sports fantasy sites are indeed gambling. While leagues act as if gambling had nothing to do with the spectacular growth in revenues the past generation, the fact is exactly the opposite.

The underground gambling on pro sports in the U.S. is a staggering tsunami of dollars. (Canada, of course, has a national sports lottery.) The reason Draft Kings et al have thrived since their inception a coupe of years ago is that, with sports gambling banned everywhere in the U.S. outside Nevada, bettors have found a legitimate public wagering outlet to replace the bookies and shylocks of the back streets.

Vegas has noticed and is fighting back to protect its turf. Meanwhile leagues such as the NFL, NBA and NHL get to pretend they are the most virtuous people on the block.

However the Nevada action is resolved, something has to give. With marijuana legalization in the U.S., it’s just a matter of time till people demand a liberalization of rules against betting, a liberalization that would simply bring America in line with the entire western world at the moment.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy @NPBroadcaster.com

I Don't Like Mondays — October 19, 2015