Jamie Nye: Feds were right to keep border closed to MLB

You can criticize the federal government over a lot of things during the pandemic — a slow start to move, the back and forth about masks being a benefit, the deficit, CERB … you get the point.

But over the weekend, the federal government said no to the Toronto Blue Jays playing home games in this country.

That is a decision that shouldn’t be criticized.

The Major League Baseball back-to-work plan was to have all teams play out of their own markets without much of a bubble around the players.

That means teams out of Miami, Tampa and other U.S. markets would be travelling to Toronto. The feds didn’t like taking a chance of a team from a COVID hotbed landing in Toronto and hanging around a hotel for three or four days.

Oh, and also having Toronto players travel to the States and come back north is troublesome.

When it comes down to it, the federal government told MLB “Not in my backyard” — and does it really matter where the Jays play? It’s not like fans in Toronto were going to be able to sit in the stands anyway.