Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!credmond From: credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball Subject: Re: expansion and Washington, D.C. Message-ID: <17164@watmath.UUCP> Date: Fri, 8-Nov-85 10:25:44 EST Article-I.D.: watmath.17164 Posted: Fri Nov 8 10:25:44 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 07:12:11 EST References: <2139@umcp-cs.UUCP> Reply-To: credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 27 > > As you know, D.C. lost their team in 1971 when the Senators left for Texas. >Since then, Washington has had a label as a town that couldn't keep a team. >(I feel this is undeserved, and explained why in a lengthy article many months >ago; if anyone missed it and would like to have me try to change their mind, I >would love to go to bat for DC by sending it to you. I could even post if there >was sufficient interest). Since then, there have been various efforts to bring >another team here, with the San Diego Padres almost moving here in 1974 until >Ray Kroc bought them. There have been no franchise moves since then, we are >only now getting to the point where we can discuss expansion again, and it has >taken a while for some of the stigma DC bears to wear off. > Does anybody remember a not-very-good baseball novel a few years ago about a hypothetical team called the Washington Dudes? I believe the novel was called BREAKING BALLS, but I could be confusing it with a *different* not-very-good baseball novel. Anyway, one of the premises in the book was that baseball had (has)not succeeded in Washington in the past because it has largely been marketed to the white upper and middle class population, a large percentage of which has roots (hence, baseball loyalties) in other cities. The Dudes, by contrast, were chiefly marketed to the city's black population, whose roots are there or in southern areas without baseball, and thus became a stunning success! Any validity to that author's analysis of the Washington situation?