Toronto and Kansas City Thrown Down – The Library Books
The Toronto Blue Jays will live to play another game in their best of seven series against the Kansas City Royals for the American League Championship. That’s good news for Canadian baseball fans, but as followers of the war of words playing out between the Toronto Public Library and the Kansas City Library know, the players aren’t the only ones who’ve got game.
Photos of carefully chosen titles from the cities’ respective libraries are being used to take digs at one another’s home teams. Tagging into the #bookspinepoetry trend, the Kansas City Library got things rolling Tuesday night after their team thumped the Jays 14-2.
Last night the @KCLibrary took to #Twitter to troll the @BlueJayshttps://t.co/hoeDjQkHp3#ComeTogetherpic.twitter.com/J2LvzXucj0
— blogTO (@blogTO) October 21, 2015
No doubt this unleashed a flurry of whispered “Oh NO they di’unt!” / “Oh yes they DID!” from the collections desk of the Toronto Public Library. Ready to do their town proud, Toronto showed it’s far from spineless.
Well played @KCLibrary but we’ve got a way with words too. ‘Til tomorrow! @BlueJays#ComeTOgether#GoJaysGopic.twitter.com/qED5PFp95t
— TorontoPublicLibrary (@torontolibrary) October 21, 2015
Clearly riding high on the support they were getting from the Big Smoke’s brightest bibliophiles, the Jays came back last night with a win.
Amazing job,@BlueJays!!!! That brings us to Round 2 of #bookspinepoetry @KCLibrary @BlueJays #ComeTogether pic.twitter.com/VRCg1ewZcw — TorontoPublicLibrary (@torontolibrary) October 21, 2015
But that doesn’t seem to have scared off Kansas City – librarians included – as they played it cool about losing the game that could have given them the championship.
’Tis but a flesh wound! Next game… #TaketheCrown #GoRoyals #bookspinepoetry @torontolibrary @bluejays pic.twitter.com/wg3yqoxApM — KCMO Public Library (@KCLibrary) October 21, 2015
When it comes to spined barbs, the Kansas City Library has form. “This is our second year of social media baseball trolling,” Liesl Christman, social media manager of the Kansas City Library told the Toronto Star.
When last year’s Kansas City Royals found themselves in the World Series facing down the San Francisco Giants, the Royals’ librarians had their back with a series of tweets that goaded on the Giants, and their library. While the Royals are leading the Jays three games to two, if there’s a pattern here, Jays fans shouldn’t be worried. Those Kansas City librarians talk big, but the Giants took them out of circulation.