Sports
SuperFan Nav Singh Bhatia’s Blue Turban Becomes a Talisman For Toronto’s Besieged Blue Jays
JOE WARMINGTON
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Forget the curse of Chief Wahoo and welcome Toronto’s lucky blue turban.
“I wore a blue turban because I felt something special was going to happen,” said Super Fan Nav Singh Bhatia.
He had a hunch.
“I wore a white one to the first game and it did not seem to work,” he said. “But I felt good about the blue one.”
He was right.
“I will be wearing a blue turban the rest of the series,” said the Mississauga Hyundai car dealer who’s famous for his support of the Toronto Raptors Basketball Team but is a stalwart at all Toronto team games.
He hopes it will be a long one. Fans of Canada’s baseball team -- Toronto Blue Jays -- are hoping for a comeback miracle.
As Sportsnet broadcaster Hazel Mae tweeted to her friends in Red Sox Nation: “You know what I am thinking!” She was there when the Sox clawed back from an 0-3 deficit against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS and went on to win the World Series.
The Jays took their first step Tuesday (October 18, 2016) with a hard-fought 5-1 win at the Rogers Centre. Now the series is 3-1 for the Indians and the Jays face another must-win game on Wednesday, again with a 4:08 p.m. start. If needed, Games 6 and 7 would happen in Cleveland on Friday and Saturday.
“I love the grittiness of this club,” Nav said.
There is life in Blue Jays Nation and fight in this team. There’s nothing more infectious than the roar of that Rogers Centre crowd.
Cleveland quieted the place down in Game 3, but for Game 4 the crowd snapped back to life when Josh Donaldson launched a bomb to left field in the third inning.
That 10th man is so important to the Blue Jays’ success because that collective noise and electricity make the Dome so hard to play in for visiting teams.
And Nav was one of the 49,142 doing his part from his seat behind home plate.
Cleveland have their Indians and Bhatia himself originally comes from India. He’s a proud Sikh who fled India for Canada in 1984 to escape threats on his life during the anti-Sikh government-sponsored pogrom that killed tens of thousands of innocent Sikhs.
He started out living in a Milton basement, and is now one of Canada’s most successful car dealers. Today he’s involved in many philanthropic endeavours to help people in need across the GTA (including sending hundreds of underprivileged kids to sports games every year). He knows a thing or two about hard work and overcoming challenges.
Everything he has ever dreamed of accomplishing has come true. Now he dreams that this American League Championship Series will shift back to Cleveland.
So move over, Chief Wahoo, because the Blue Jays have their own vision quest and Nav will be wearing his, and Toronto’s, lucky blue turban for Game 5 on Wednesday to help them achieve it.
P.S. One blue turban did not prove enough to turn the tide. The Blue Jays lost Game 5 and are now out of the series.
[Courtesy: Toronto Sun. Edited for sikhchic.com]
October 19, 2016