Skip to main content

American League Division Series, Detroit vs Cleveland

 You know what's great about this series?  Two teams from two cities in an area the coastal folks call "the rust belt" but should be better known as the Great Lakes Watershed.

Detroit has been through some really tough times in the last 30 years, you'll have that when all of your economic base leaves for cheaper labor markets.

Cleveland has been through some really tough times in the last 30 years, you'll have that when your economic base pollutes the land and waterways so badly the river catches on fire regularly.

These are major American cities, both of them degraded by decades of corporations chasing cheap labor,  lacks environmental protections, pre-1970s, that left a scarred landscape that 50 years of the clean water, clear air, RCRA, and Superfund sites has only recently started to show real improvement.  And lets not forget the trade deals that hollowed out Detroit and Cleveland for imports from China and Mexico.

Detroit and Cleveland... I think you mean the Athens and Sparta of the once great working class empire.

The last time the Detroit Tigers were good.  Chrysler was bring new production back to Detroit and running ads that said "Imported from Detroit".  Once again the Tigers are doing good and at the same time major renovation projects are revitalizing the city.  These things are not coincidental.  The people of Detroit coming together to rebuild the city, and a gritty team whos combine salary is less than some professional athletes single year salary is playing good fundamental team baseball and winning.

I don't know who is Athens and who is Sparta but I hope one of them wins it all.  Is St. Louis in the playoffs, I could have said all the same things about St. Louis.  America is strong when our manufacturing hubs are strong.  It is has been great not just to see a team I rooted for since I was a little kid winning but also to see glimmers of a resurgent working class empire.

It's hard to field a competitive professional sports team in a city where the regional economy is struggling.  We all support our local teams, but when most of the city can't afford the ticket price, the ticket prices drop, the money for player salary drops and the team is less competitive.  But here are these two teams in these two "rust belt" cities that said they wanted it and here we are.

Let's Go!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Ideas" Primary survey

I just checked the mail and behold I just got a survey from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  They really want my input on the survey to help guide policy in the coming election season.  The trouble is that when it comes to politics every word in a statement needs to be given scrutiny five times over to make sure you know the meaning before you agree to it.  As such this "survey" is mostly a questionnaire on "How much do you agree with the policy positions we have already decided on?" Noticeably absent from the survey is any mention of a Green New Deal, reforms to student loan programs and higher education to make it all more affordable, or even the medicare for all program that Bernie Sanders championed and some of the other prospective candidates for the 2020 Presidential election have supported.  This survey is more of a confirmation letter that the Democratic Party still isn't listening. I can appreciate that the Trump administration has ...
Post a Comment
Read more

American Pride: The memoir of a future President, Part 3 The trouble with tribal

 "I haven't decided if I want to be a brain surgeon or a short order fry cook." I use to hear this growing up from my grandparents, it was from the show The Beverly Hillbillies, but it was accurate to my teenage years. I learned and played the Trombone, loved the Trombone, kept playing it in college for any group that thought I was good enough to join. I also loved engineering.  There was something about taking the abstract concepts of science and math and finding practical application.  I loved solving problems too. By the time I was in high school and people start asking what I wanted to do with my life, I very seriously said I wasn't sure if I want to be a Professional Engineer or a Jazz Trombonist.  I did both for as long as I could but only one of those was a tried and true career path.  It didn't stop me from minoring in jazz arrangement.  I even wrote a disco song for jazz ensemble that I called "We're Fabulous".  When your in the your late te...
Post a Comment
Read more

American Pride, The Memoir of a Future President, Part 2 Go Planet!

 It's no surprise that I came to the book "50 Things Kids Can Do To Save The World".  The world decided for me that I was going to be an environmentalist.  Some of my first and most indelible memories are images of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.  The dead birds, fish, ect... covered in oil all from ONE  accident.   Like many young Michiganders I grew up spending many a hot summer day on the beaches of Lake Michigan.  Too see an area similar to one of my happy places turned to ruin in days... leaves a mark on your brain similar to the first time your family pet dies.  I love this and something terrible has happened to it. You have to treasure the good things in your life while you have them, and that includes the natural beauty around you.  That was something I learned early. It is also true that kids latch on to things and don't let them go.  I got in to recycling, big time.  The local community waste transfer center started...
Post a Comment
Read more