Ramsayings

While I’m eternally grateful to Brad Lidge for making Eric Hinske a household name here in Philadelphia, I feel that after two consecutive bases-loaded saves he should at least consider changing his entrance music to the Beastie Boys’ thrash track, “Heart Attack Man.”

Remember how I posted that thing about bringing the Athletics back to Philadelphia this morning? Well, it’s kind of becoming a thing. I just registered a domain for Bring Your A’s Game, a site dedicated to bringing the Athletics back to the City of Brotherly Love.

Where does this rank among my quixotic pursuits? Somewhere between my childhood wish to become President at 35 (still have two years to get that together!) and swimming in the ’96 Olympics, which is to say, it’s pretty far out there. Does this sound completely insane, yet strangely appealing to you? Be in touch!

As an aside, do you think I should start a Kickstarter account to raise the $295M to buy the team outright?

The Athletics are one of baseball’s most nomadic franchises. After originating here in the late nineteenth century and then becoming a modern club in 1901, the A’s have moved twice: first to Kansas City in 1954 and then on to Oakland in 1968, as baseball fans moved west in droves. Now the club is threatening to move away from Oakland. They’re threatening to move to — wait for it — Sacramento, of all places.

Now maybe the people of Sacramento would like a professional baseball team, but so did northern Virginia and what did they get? The Expos. How’s that working out? Have you been to a Nationals game? The crowd they claimed was starving for baseball would appear to appreciate the diet. Even with pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg the Nats struggle to draw a crowd. I have my doubts that Sacramento would be able to support a major league baseball team any better than Oakland does. Lots of love for Tyreke Evans, but even the Kings don’t rule.

Here’s my solution: let’s bring them back to Philadelphia! I’d have to double check, but I’m pretty sure Philadelphia’s the largest television market that doesn’t have two teams. Is it an impossible pipe dream? Probably, but I’m not ready to give up the slim hope that some wildly egotistical entrepreneur couldn’t embrace the romantic notion of returning the A’s to their hometown, the birthplace of professional baseball.

I’ll grant that there are many seemingly insurmountable practical concerns, first and foremost being where they’d play. Could Philadelphia even support two teams? We’re baseball rich right now, but what about when the Phillies inevitably slide? Will baseball fans retreat into their homes? Would people support both teams? How does Chicago manage?

If the A’s are planning to move anyway, why not at least try to bring them back to Philadelphia? Can’t the City of Brotherly love make a pitch to win them back?

I haven’t even finished listening to the first song on the New Pornographers’ latest album, Together, and I’m bored. This is a band that once inspired me to do that least cool of things — join the band onstage to dance — way back in 2001 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Man, that was fun. Has it already been five years since they played a preview of Twin Cinema at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA? It has, hasn’t it?

It sounds like a snide, elitist thing to say, but the New Pornographers weren’t built to last. They were that rarest of animals: a supergroup not only didn’t suck, but actually produced two classic albums and a passable third before becoming adult contemporary claptrap.

You see, it would’ve been wonderful if they never really formed a band as such, just produced Mass Romantic, toured, and then went their separate ways. Sure, Electric Version is a spectacular album and I wouldn’t want to forget how fantastic it was to see them play those songs, too, but it’s just that it’s hard to look back on those albums and see them in the same light as they were made. Together, and it’s predecessor, Challengers, are shockingly boring mid-tempo affairs that make you wonder how the New Pornographers ever packed so many hooks into “To Wild Homes.”

The pace of their career makes me think they released those great albums, split briefly, and then reunited to produce two more lackluster albums, only to disappear into obscurity. Maybe it’s for the best. That way future generations might discover the unbridled joy when they first hear Neko Case wail on “Letter From an Occupant.”