Friday, January 29, 2010

A (Good) Baseball Team for Brooklyn?

The "South Brooklyn" area has a rich sports tradition. Gowanus was home to the Brooklyn (Trolley) Dodgers, and the Atlantic Yards will soon be home to the Brooklyn Nets.

What many people forget nowadays is that New York City used to be home to three baseball teams. And, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense; if St. Louis, with a population of 380,000, can support a Major League Baseball Franchise, why can't New York support three, or four, or five?

Now comes some chatter from various sources that it is a (very, very remote) possibility that the Tampa Bay Rays could look to move to Brooklyn. From NBC New York:

"That would also be the case for Brooklyn, a spot where you could actually see a groundswell of support for such a notion taking hold. At least, you could have seen it taking hold before the entire Bruce Ratner/Nets mess took away a viable location and turned into a boondoggle that no one wants to live through again. Maybe it's just that faux-nostalgia again, but the idea of a team in Brooklyn could have caught fire."

And the Brooklyn Bugle:

"Brooklyn may be too much of a hot spot Alper believes due to the Atlantic Yards quagmire.  However, we say in the words of Cher in Moonstruck -- SNAP OUT OF IT!

Sure the Mets will complain and try to block.  Naturally the Yankees will try to block it as well.  But ladies and gentlemen don't tell us that you don't get a little misty when the possibility of BROOKLYN facing the Yankees or Mets in the World Series.

The team? The time? We say the Rays move to Brooklyn, change their name to something far less lame and start kicking ass and taking names.  Are you with us?"

I'm with you. Who else is? And, for the new name, how about Brooklyn's Finest? Any other nominations?