March 1884
“They can’t simply be the ‘Mudville Nine’,” said Suit #1, “And as a technicality, I think we’ve only serum enough for eight.”
“What about the Mudville Sluggers?”
“Mudville Boomers?”
“Mudville Marauders!”
That last suggestion evoked an interested ripple from the quartet of suits sitting in a well-lit, sparsely furnished meeting room until Suit #3 reminded the room that less than 20 years on from a war, “marauder” might not be a term that unifies a town.
“As well,” wondered Suit #4, leaning back in his chair slightly, waiting for the creaking wood to punctuate the space between his words, “if our aim is to concentrate their love of way of life, love of town, love of country…shouldn’t the town name be the focus?”
Suit #4 had inadvertently created one of the key components of sports tribalism, while simultaneously slowing the creation of another.*
“Plus, as it stands…we only need serum enough for eight.”
January 1884
“I don’t understand. I’m there to be a loser?”
Art Cooney had very few misconceptions about his skills as an outfielder, and even if he’d magically gotten better in the past 2 years, big teams weren’t sending scouts to the fields of Lorian, Ohio for talent. So, Art knew the gentleman sitting next to him on the park bench was at least partially full of shit. Not only that, this tale of a “baseball city” seemed quite unfeasible: huge crowds of people guaranteed at every game? A spiffy, brand new stadium? A team playing with one of the Manheim brothers?? That last consideration brought his mind back to his initial question, though by the time Art had finished his inner monologue, Suit #4 had prepared a response:
“See, every team needs…a bum. If the team is too perfect, folks get bored watching them and other teams don’t want to play them. You want a team to succeed, but always look like they can fail. And frankly…we feel like a certain anger is created towards the worst player on a team; that anger is near impossible to re-create. Art, we need you to be a lightning rod.”
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* If I said I was watching the Dolphins or the Red Sox, an individual reasonably familiar with North American major league sports teams would infer that I was, in fact, watching those teams and not water mammals and knitting. But the suits also needed to inspire jingoist fervor, which typically water mammals and knitting do not do. Geographical location, however, does. And after two hours of debate, the quartet of suits finally agreed on the Mudville Nine.
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