Tuesday, July 9, 2013

A Labor Day Weekend Spectacular

Charles Pierce has an idea for the Indians-Tigers match up on Labor Day weekend:
Instead of Throwback Day, when they make those poor players suit up in the old baggy uniforms so they all sweat more than Victor Mature did in Demetrius and the Gladiators, I reckoned they should make every team play a series in which they adopt one of those nicknames from out of the dim times before modern marketing made commodities out of everything from the right-field wall to the right fielder. Why, just with these two teams this weekend, we could have had the Detroit Tigers, who have always been the Detroit Tigers, playing the Cleveland Molly Maguires, or the Cleveland Forest Citys, or the Cleveland Blues, who merged with the St. Louis Maroons in 1885 and made purple, I guess. Someone explain to me how this isn't a marketing masterstroke here. There are about 50 years' worth of obscure MLB team swag on which nobody has made a buck yet. Whatever happened to my America, anyway?
My idea gets even better when you realize the Indians franchise was once named after a group that the oligarchy of another age called a terrorist organization. They did three years in the early 1900s as the Cleveland Molly Maguires. And considering that I once saw a notice on the center-field message board at old Tiger Stadium that bid welcome to something called The Eugene V. Debs Memorial Marching Kazoo Band, I think a Labor Day series between these two would be something to see. Imagine the sports anchors having to explain what the Molly Maguires were. Imagine the tsunami of terrible punditry that would ensue.
"And now, will you please rise and join Ronan Tynan in the singing of The Internationale ... "
And do I have to mention that these two teams will play what is likely to be another crucial series in Detroit on the weekend before Labor Day?
I don't think too many average baseball fans have any what he's talking about.

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