Tag Archives: Bring Your A's Game

Remember Your Passions

Some­one con­tact­ed me recent­ly to do a sto­ry about Bring Your A’s Game, my quest to bring the Oak­land Ath­let­ics back to Philadel­phia, and it real­ly sparked my imag­i­na­tion about the cam­paign again. Last sum­mer was great: the A’s came back to town for inter­league; we had fun at Mem­phis Tap­room’s beer gar­den, and we even ral­lied for a Sat­ur­day night game at the ball­park. I had a great time meet­ing peo­ple, young and old, and talk­ing to them about the A’s and base­ball and Philadelphia.

Then things stalled a bit. What do you do next? Sure, these things are long, drawn out affairs, so how do you get peo­ple to pay atten­tion to your sto­ry? The answer, at least for me, is to remem­ber the pas­sion that drove me to it in the first place. I want to con­nect Philadel­phi­a’s rich base­ball his­to­ry to some­thing in the present. I want to get peo­ple excit­ed about a crosstown rival­ry that has­n’t exist­ed in near­ly 60 years. It’s not easy.

What awoke in me as I talked about what moti­vat­ed me to start Bring Your A’s Game was the fun of it. Most­ly when I talk about it, I expect­ed peo­ple to have the kind of reac­tion Gargano did when I talked to him in the sum­mer of ’10, which is to say, com­i­cal­ly neg­a­tive. I’m often stunned when peo­ple agree that Philadel­phia not only could sup­port two ball­clubs, but that it should. Maybe they don’t all like the Bring Your A’s Game page, but it’s a good feel­ing to not be laughed out of the court of pub­lic opin­ion. So I want to do more of it.

I men­tioned last week on the long neglect­ed Bring Your A’s Game blog and now I’m seri­ous. I’d love to find new ways to con­nect to new audi­ences, espe­cial­ly those that aren’t base­ball mad. I want to wage this con­ver­sa­tion with folks who don’t know any­thing about base­ball, but who like provoca­tive, dis­rup­tive ideas. If you know of such a forum, let me know and I’ll pre­pare accordingly.

The only way to tru­ly real­ize your pas­sions is to engage oth­ers who don’t share them and invite them to join you. It’s invig­o­rat­ing and a vital way to keep the cre­ative juices flow­ing. Try it. You’ll be glad you did.

Bring Your A’s Game Blog

Ver­sion 1.0 has launched! Thanks to my man Tim Quiri­no for help­ing get it off the ground. He’s going to be work­ing with me on it as we flesh it out into a Face­book-enabled beast of a blog.

The real ques­tion: What sort of stuff should I put on there? I post­ed about our first event, but I’m won­der­ing what sort of con­tent makes the most sense for it. I’m think­ing a mix of A’s his­to­ry, plus dis­cus­sion about why I want the A’s to move back to town would make sense. What do you think?

I’m Living the Meme

Is that a t‑shirt yet? I coined it this morn­ing, which feels like months in Inter­net time. The beat goes on for Bring Your A’s Game (I promise I’ll write about some­thing else here soon), notch­ing yet anoth­er friend­ly post from Philly guy Dan McQuade over at the hilar­i­ous, awe­some Walkoff Walk.

I’ve got more in store with this. Yes, it’s verg­ing on — no, total­ly is — insan­i­ty, but I think that as sil­ly as it is, there’s too much fun to be had not to keep pur­su­ing it just to see where it goes. I’ll keep you in the loop if and when any­thing happens.

How I’m Feeling Today

I wish I were jok­ing when I said that this scene from Step Broth­ers was the inspi­ra­tion for Bring Your A’s Game. It’s been a pret­ty amaz­ing day for the project. Great write-ups at Geekadel­phia and Philebri­ty, great peo­ple reach­ing out, and even more peo­ple join­ing the cause on Facebook!

I’m amazed at the lev­el of inter­est that’s already been gen­er­at­ed. If you know any­one who loves base­ball and the City of Broth­er­ly Love, then let them know about Bring Your A’s Game!