Imagine this. You’re a BC native watching the world’s greatest athlete pitch a baseball game surrounded by 50,000 fans at Dodgers Stadium. It’s not just any baseball game, rather game 3 of the World Series, and both baseball teams are tied. Your natural reaction is to boo, as you are cheering for your home country’s only MLB team, the Toronto Blue Jays. But as you watch the pitcher make his way to the mound, you recognize his walk up song as a song sung by one of North Burnaby’s most talented residents Michael Bublè.
This is a scenario that actually happened to thousands of BC residents and Canadian Bublè fans during last year’s World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. As world renowned baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s walk out song is Bublè’s hit cover “Feeling good”.
The cover was released in 2004 by Bublè and was automatically a smash hit seeing over 700,0000 streams on spotify as well as over 400,0000 views on Youtube. But naturally a song that was released over 20 years ago dies out a little and won’t be seen on the charts as time progresses. That is until 20 years later when arguably the best baseball player ever in Shohei Ohtani, had his wife ask him if he could choose “Feeling Good” as his walk out song for every time he makes his way to hit or pitch.
Like many BC Bublè fans who are proud to call him our own, Bublè admits he felt conflicted when he first heard it. Yes, this great athlete is using his song to walk out but, it’s against Canada’s only baseball team in the World Series.
Would you feel conflicted? It’s okay if you do, because that’s exactly how Bublè felt himself.
“I’m a Canadian patriot, but. But, I can’t believe I am a part of the history with Shohei” Said Michale Bublè on the Stephan A Smith podcast when asked about his conflicting feelings.
Personally I think that Shohei walking out to “Feeling Good” is a very cool thing and should be celebrated by Canadians. It’s not like Shohei is a bad guy. He’s very well respected and has gained a reputation of being a class act. Not to mention that as the legend of Shohei grows and more people start watching him, that means that more people will hear an amazing song sung by an amazing BC artist who is proud of his roots.