Reddit reviews Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Met's First Year
We found 3 Reddit comments about Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Met's First Year. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I think they could -- I've dreamed about it. Here's what you do:
You build a small stadium on a river -- you build it outside of town maybe 20 minutes. Me, I'm thinkin Lowell, but I'm open to suggestions. 35,000 seats, but comfortable seats -- PNC Park on the Merrimac.
The team is easy: you murder the Marlins and move them up there. You leave them in the NL, but you rechristen them the Boston Americans, in honor of the team that won the first world series. I know this is a conflict with the fact that they're in the NL, but it's a play on Boston's history in terms of patriotism, etc.
And then you position them as the workingman's alternative to the Red Sox. Don't want to drive an hour from Worcester to sit next to some tech millionaire in her pink B hat? Come on up to America's Park and root for Your Team. Do they have the fancy trappings? Do they have the 100 year history? Nope. All they have is family prices, plentiful parking, a youthful team, and all the things regular people want in a day out at the park. Let the Harvard grads have Fenway: this is the team of UMass and UNH and UConn.
And it sounds STUPID until you read Can't Anybody Here Play this Game? and realize that all the objections you have to the Americans are precisely the same ones people had to the Mets -- people are too loyal to the Yankees, the new team's gaudy and lacks any tradition, no one wants to go to Queens to watch baseball.
I'm telling you, man. My first billion dollars, that's what I'm doing with it.
edit: grammar. some of it, anyway.
I know i enjoyed this one very much, and it's a quick read: Can't Anybody Here Play This Game
The one I recommend to everyone is The Baseball Fan's Companion, it is unfortunately out of print but easy to find used. I'd also recommend:
The Glory of their Times by Lawrence Ritter
Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck
Stolen Season by David Lamb
Can't Anybody Here Play this Game by Jimmy Breslin
The Wrong Stuff and Have Glove Will Travel by Bill Lee
You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting