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November 5, 2006
I'm good for business
Let's look at the facts:
1981: I grace the City of New York with my presence. The Yankees make it to the series that year, then again in 1996 and 1998 (and a few times after I leave). The Giants win their only two Superbowls, the Mets take the series in '86 and the Rangers win their first Stanley Cup since '40 in '94. That same year, the Knicks almost win the NBA Championship, losing to Houston in a nail-biter Then I move. The Mets, Knicks, Rangers, Giants and Jets haven't won since.
1999: I move to Baltimore. Johnny Unitas is gone, the Colts bolted in the middle of the night more than a decade prior, and the famous Memorial Stadium is being taken down piece by piece to make way for senior housing. The new football team, refugees from Cleveland, have stupid purple uniforms and little local support (the classic rock radio station was still called "The Colt"). By 2001, the Ravens, less than a decade old, won the Superbowl.
2003: I move to D.C. I'll spare you the dramatic moments of D.C. United's championship season of 2004, as we're Americans, don't hate freedom and won't bother ourselves with any pinko European sport where only one player on each team gets to use their hands. Simply put, when I got there, there wasn't even a baseball team. When I left, there was one.
2005: I move to Chicago, a city known for a strong sports culture, but little recent success, aside from the '90s Bulls, long since relegated to the scrap-book of history. The Cubs' only claim to success is that they are the best professional baseball team on the North Side of Chicago. The long-suffering White Sox, better known for Disco Demolition and godawful uniforms, had not won the World Series since 1917. Four months after moving here, they win the title.
Now the Bears have a perfect record and are off to their best start since the 1985 championship season.
Cities spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build stadiums to attract baseball teams that do badly. Low attendance negates the envisioned economic benefits of the big downtown draw. Bring me to your city for a fraction of the price of a new stadium (one-half? a third? I'm willing to bargain) and your sports fortunes are bound to turn around. I've never lived in a city that hasn't won a sports championship when I lived there.
I can make the magic happen for you.
Posted by rj3 at November 5, 2006 12:41 PM
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Comments
See what you get for posting this, though? A slaughter at Soldier Field. Pah!
Posted by: kristine at November 5, 2006 8:58 PM
I still stand by what I did for the Sox.
Posted by: rj3 at November 5, 2006 9:25 PM
