Canada Travel Guide

Baseball , with its relaxed summertime pace and byzantine rules, is generally considered an exclusively American sport - despite the first recorded game taking place in Beachville, Ontario. The Montréal Expos and the Toronto Blue Jays perform in the US's two major baseball leagues, the National and the American respectively. In 1992 and 1993, the Toronto Blue Jays became national heroes when they won the World Series twice in a row, beating America at their own game. Historically a lowlier bunch, the Expos are now awaiting the completion of a new $200 million downtown stadium to boost ticket sales - due to open for the 2002 season. However, it was they who became the first non-US team to play in a US league in 1968, eight years before the Blue Jays.

Even if you don't understand what's going on, a game can be a pleasant day out, drinking beer and eating burgers and popcorn in the sun, with friendly family-oriented crowds. Moreover, the home ground of each team is a vast, wondrous modern stadium - the Skydome in Toronto and, for the moment at least, the Olympic Stadium in Montréal. With six teams in each division, there are 81 home games each season, played from April to late September, with play-offs continuing through October; there is no set match day and games are either played in the afternoon or evening. Lasting for anything from two to three hours, baseball games never end in a tie: if the scores are level after nine innings, extra innings are played until one side wins.

Tickets for the Blue Jays are hard to come by and it's easier to get in for games in Montréal. Nothing can match the glitz of the big two, but there are other minor league farm teams , including the Edmonton Trappers, Calgary Cannons and Vancouver Canadians.