Go West Gallant: The Blue Jays Move to Vancouver

Billy Grant
The Bigs Insider

Vancouver---Getting an interview with Vancouver Varmints manager Tony Gallant is only slightly less difficult than getting an audience with Kim Jong ll. You need an interpreter, a guide and a shit-ton of candy. "Gallant doesn't talk," his publicist Jacques Le Cartier said via e-mail, "unless you send green colored M&Ms and enough Coffee Crisps to put a small child in a coma."
However, once you are granted permission to see the man Northeastern Canada affectionately called, "Le Geant"(the Giant) you are mesmerized by his steely, French gaze."You feel like Paula Abdul or Sandra Bullock playing opposite Keanu Reeves," Bigs Commish Sam Kirby's wife said this week, "you just kind of melt." Managers around the league agree. "He makes you want to be gay," Habaneros manager Justin Brittle said last week, "I mean all the way gay." For Rousers manager JP Vinson, Gallant presents a bit more of a homo-erotic dilemma, "Watching Tony manage is like watching a Matthew McConaughey movie, you don't know whether to turn away or masturbate."

But Gallant is facing a bit of a publicity nightmare in Canada this season as he has moved his team to Vancouver from his home province New Brunswick. "I'd of rather him moved to the United States," Gallant's mother Donna said this week, "at least then it would have felt like less of a slap in the face."

There has long been a strained history between New Brunswick and British Columbia. In many ways it has been a rivalry much in the same vein as New York and LA. "Joshua Jackson and Matt Stairs have had a feud going on that would have made Biggie and Tupac blush," the Oregonian reporter Hank Masters said, "so as you can imagine New Brunswickers find the Bluejays move to be unforgivable." Hometown friends have gone from affectionately calling Gallant, "Johnny Utah" to a more hostile, "Scalawag Fag."

Despite a cross country move that has caused soft-spoken and famous New Brunswicker, Willie O'Ree to publicly call Gallant "a douche," the Jays hope to build on a solid first season as the Vancouver Varmints. Vancouver has welcomed him with open arms. "He's Canadian, we're Canadian," Vancouver mayor Jimmy LeMartine said, "we order our double-doubles from Tim Horton's just like New Brunswickers do." Executive Vice President of the Bigs Baseball Operations, Andy Harrison, kind of agreed with LeMartine. "That would probably be a good point," Harrison said from his yacht today, "if I knew what the fuck he meant."

But Gallant remains optimistic about the season. "We're pumped about this season," Gallant said through an interpreter, "we'll win our East Coast fans back over for sure." But it may take more than winning ballgames to win Gallant's family and friends back over. In New Brunswick Gallant's move West cuts deep.