Bring the A’s Back to Philadelphia

14 Comments

1. Pingback: Bring Your A’s Game | Kensington Blues

2. this SEO, a Google search finds this in the top ten.

3. Just bought bringyouraga.me! I’m actu­al­ly going to build this site out and
   see if I can’t turn it into some­thing! Con­tact your pals in the media!

4. Also, years of writ­ing for the web has taught me a cer­tain amount of SEO, but I also believe that writ­ing strict­ly for that pur­pose gives your site all the vital­i­ty of spam email. It helps that no one seems to be try­ing to do some­thing as hare-brained as what I’m proposing.

5. Love it! This is an idea I’ve had for over a year now; I’m plan­ning on start­ing a web­site for this pur­pose with­in the next few months. There is ZERO rea­son we could­n’t be a 2 team City again. I’ll let you know when things get up and running.

6. I’m set­ting up a web­site myself, actu­al­ly. I look for­ward to your efforts!

7. Cool, if you’re inter­est­ed we could col­lab­o­rate (with you in charge of course). I have some text worked out deal­ing with the obvi­ous issues (ter­ri­to­r­i­al rights, etc.). My email is jma72@comcast.net; I’d be hap­py to for­ward you what I’ve got.

   Cra­zier things have happened!

8. I’ll shoot you an email. Let’s talk!

   Check out the Face­book page if you haven’t already. I’ve got­ten quite
   a move­ment start­ed. Help spread the word!

9. Bring­ing the A’s back has been a lurk­ing fan­ta­sy of mine for a long time. I have an idea that might not sit well with many of you, but if you want the A’s back (to the area), this might fly. Place them in Cam­den right at the loca­tion of the present-day River­sharks park (there’s a LOT of room there to use to expand the cur­rent park). Think of the attrac­tion. Trans­porta­tion would be ide­al: a light rail that comes down from Burling­ton Coun­ty and a pro­posed one from Glouces­ter Coun­ty, the PATCO hi-speed line to bring tons of folks from Philly and oth­er parts of South Jer­sey (there’s a con­nec­tion at 8th and Mar­ket, and Broad and Locust), a loca­tion along I‑676 for motorists, and the near­by dock for the fer­ry from Penns Land­ing. And even though Cam­den is admit­ted­ly a very depressed city, the exact loca­tion is at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge and along the water­front across from the Philly sky­line, so aes­thet­i­cal­ly it’s super. Now I DON’T WANT THE STATE LINE TO BE A DIVIDER. I would want every­one in the Philade­phia area to feel “ownership”. Just as the Phillies also belong to us in South Jer­sey, the A’s in Cam­den would belong to every­one in Philly and in the sur­round­ing PA sub­urbs. (BTW, I was born and raised in Philly.) So, the name is impor­tant for every­one in the area to feel this is OUR AL team, just as the Phillies are OUR NL team. I pre­fer the Cam­den-Philadel­phia Ath­let­ics. At first, I’d like to see the A’s split time with the Phillies at Cit­i­zens Bank Park (assum­ing it’s fea­si­bly legal) – to head off the NJ gov’t balk­ing at the “twin-city” name. With inten­tions to move to Cam­den, the name Cam­den-Philadel­phia can become offi­cial. Play­ing in NJ and hav­ing the name “Camden” includ­ed is crit­i­cal in order to make this work because the NJ state gov­ern­ment would prob­a­bly insist on this if they are to be involved with fund­ing, at least regard­ing a ball park. And this address­es the crit­i­cal “viability” aspect of bring­ing the A’s back since gov’t fund­ing is an obvi­ous neces­si­ty. Tren­ton has been search­ing for decades for a way to revi­tal­ize Cam­den. A MLB team and park in Cam­den would not be a “close at 5 pm aquar­i­um” sit­u­a­tion, but rather a big-time spark for nightlife, which would then trans­late into eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment for down­town Cam­den and a devel­op­ing tax base. Anoth­er poten­tial big plus about Cam­den being in anoth­er state is that it could weak­en the Phillies oppo­si­tion in the col­lec­tive mind of MLB, espe­cial­ly if the State of NJ is sup­port­ing the idea. So, in the end, NJ finds a way to devel­op Cam­den, the city of Philadel­phia may make more mon­ey dur­ing a sea­son or two leas­ing out Cit­i­zens Park when the Phillies aren’t in town, and the Ath­let­ics can come back home so that we’ll be a two base­ball metrop­o­lis again. 

10. I’m not entire­ly opposed to this. I think there are some great regional
    oppor­tu­ni­ties here and I think that of all the unfor­tu­nate urban development
    fads Cam­den has suf­fered, adding a MLB team instead of an unaf­fil­i­at­ed minor
    league team might have poten­tial. I do see peo­ple strug­gling with the
    com­mute, at least ini­tial­ly. PATCO does­n’t serve the sta­di­um seamlessly
    enough to bring peo­ple to the ball­park with­out feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble, even if
    any­one who takes PATCO to Wal­ter Rand or City Hall knows that you’re much
    safer than you sus­pect in down­town Cam­den, even at night.

    You seem to have some ideas about this, Cas­sidy. Would you be inter­est­ed in
    shar­ing them on bringyourasgame.com? I could use a few guest blog­gers if you
    have time.

11. In a town that sup­ports a chick­en wing con­test by fill­ing an are­na with 20,000 peo­ple, 40,000 fans show up in freez­ing weath­er for 2 exhi­bi­tion games, sell­outs in Clear­wa­ter, I find it hard to believe that the fan base could­n’t sup­port the A’s and Phillies. This is a BASEBALL TOWN. aver­age 25,000 peo­ple for 81 home dates, 2 mil­lion in atten­dence. Can they make mon­ey? I don’t know but I do know the best place to build the new Con­nie Mack Sta­di­um… Broad and Pattison!

12. I per­son­al­ly pre­fer the notion of build­ing a park that has even better
    inte­gra­tion into tran­sit hubs: the site of the old Bak­er Bowl at Broad and
    Lehigh. Not only is it min­utes from my house in Fish­town, it’s got a
    region­al rail stop and the Broad St. Line run­ning beneath it. Could be a
    pret­ty amaz­ing set­ting if they could build a ball­park for, say, 30–35K fans.

    Would a deal have to be worked out with the Phillies? Sure, but that hasn’t
    stopped MLB from putting teams in TV mar­kets before.

13. I feel bet­ter know­ing that I’m not crazy. I’ve thought about the A’s com­ing back since I heard in the late 1990’s that they want­ed out of Oak­land. The A’s would draw just fine in Philly, I like your idea except for the loca­tion of the park. I say, put it where the Vet was, Broad and Pat­ti­son! The city would love the tax income, Com­cast would love the pro­gram­ming ( I mean real­ly what’s a bet­ter rat­ings draw. The UNION soc­cer team or MLB?)

14. Can’t tell you how many peo­ple I’ve met who’ve told me that they totally
    believe the A’s should move back. Feel like most of ’em have joined the
    Bring Your A’s Game cause and are sol­id evan­ge­lists for it.

    I just think hav­ing two ball­parks in S. Philly would result in leas­ing CBP
    rather than new con­struc­tion. I believe Philadel­phia could sup­port two
    base­ball teams, but the A’s would have an uphill climb. Let’s face it: they
    haven’t set the world aflame atten­dance-wise even when they had arguably the
    best staff in base­ball in the late ’00s. I got into this for the his­to­ry, so
    the thought of a ball­park in a his­tor­i­cal loca­tion real­ly appeals to me, and
    it does­n’t hurt that peo­ple could take mass tran­sit even more efficiently
    than they do to the ball­park in S. Philly.

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