Listen: The Santander Situation - Dodgers exec Farhan Zaidi discusses and Muslim Jays fans react - Toronto Star

This week in Deep Left Field, real life gets in the way of baseball.

Blue Jays outfielder Anthony Santander sits in the dugout during the pre-game ceremony before a MLB game against the Cleveland Guardians in Toronto on May 2, 2025. 

This week in Deep Left Field, real life gets in the way of baseball.

But first, we talk about what the Blue Jays are doing at MLB’s general manager’s meetings in Las Vegas with our own Gregor Chisholm, who tells us what he’s hearing about the Jays’ interests on the free agent and trade markets, and what their plans are looking like for 2027.

Gregor also talks about what Ross Atkins had to say to reporters about Anthony Santander amplifying vile, ugly, Islamophobic posts on Instagram, and we bring in some members of the Muslim community to get their perspective.

Farhan Zaidi, Sudbury-born and raised as a Jays fan, the former president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants and now a special advisor to Los Angeles Dodgers’ owner Mark Walter, joins us to talk about Santander’s comments from a front-office perspective.

We also get some local Muslim fans’ perspective from Mohamed Kala and Emad Ahmed of Milton, Ontario’s Brotherhood Softball League.

Also, a dip into the mailbag at deepleftfield@thestar.ca!

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Bluesky: @wilnerness