Re-Branding the Baby Yankees for One Year - Not Cool

I just read this article, which, if you are too lazy to click on the link, basically says that the AAA baseball team normally known as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees (to distinguish them from the major league team the New York Yankees) will be re-branded the 'Empire State Yankees' for only one year while their stadium in Pennsylvania is being rebuilt. Apparently this makes sense to someone with dollar signs in their eyes ('Just think, Pinky, we'll force them to buy all new hats and tee-shirts that we'll call 'limited edition'!), but I think it is the worst idea ever. During the one year that this team will be playing its 'home' games in other stadiums, traveling much more than usual, and getting a lot of media attention in those other towns, the team will reach thousands of new fans, create headlines in local sports sections, and...totally confuse everyone with a misleading, temporary new name, image, and logo??? Where did their marketing consultants get their degrees, clown college?

This traveling team situation, while inconvenient for the players and the fans alike, is the perfect opportunity to raise brand awareness and fan potential by increasing the time the Yanks are on the road as mobile ambassadors for themselves and for this area. The fact that the baby Yankees are even IN Lackawanna County is still new to many fans, since it wasn't that long ago that we hosted the Red Barons for Philadelphia. Scranton had the Phillies' AAA team for what, twenty years? And now that we've 'upgraded' to host theYankees, the team is encouraging them to tour under a name that totally removes any traces of NEPA from their logo? S-M-R-T!

The explanation that this temporary name change "will allow [the cities in New York] to more closely identify with the team during its temporary stay" is so ludicrous and nonsensical it barely bears repeating. First of all, people in New York already identify with the major league Yankees. That's not going to change because of anything the minor league team does, and most people will see 'Yankees' and identify the two no matter what the first part of the name is. Secondly, why doesn't the U.S. Army change its name to the Afghanistan Liberation Army when in Afghanistan and the English Ally Army when in England? Oh, of course, because changing their location does not change the make-up of the army, its mission, goals, loyalty, or home base. This might not be the best example but the American military is the American military no matter where its people go. Apparently, the same cannot be said when playing more away games than usual for a baseball team.

Honestly, I don't really care that much about sports, but this decision is such a dumb marketing and PR move that it makes me think the real reason the team is being 'temporarily' re-branded is that they have no intention of coming back to Pennsylvania at all. The situation is complex, but there have been problems with the stadium, problems with funding, and problems with local officials and their wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. Locals will understand when I say that ever since the Yanks came to this area, the feeling has been that their parent company thinks they are too good to play Scranton, and this move leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the whole team.

If the taxpayers are investing their money into this sports team for upgrades and renovations, then we shouldn't get the shaft when they go out into the world. This team is not separate or better than Lackawanna County - they are, at least for the time being, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, and that is how they should be known for this one year of away games. This is the KEYSTONE State, not the Empire State, and if they want to be known as the Empire State Yankees, then maybe they should stay in New York. It seems to me very likely that they will do so.  I'm not trying to bring more problems to this area, but reading between the lines makes this seem like a gradual way out of their association with this area. If we pour millions of dollars into renovating to their specifications and end up with no team to generate ROI for that money, it will be one more disaster that this area really can't afford to shoulder.

Also, this might be unclear writing in the original article, but it makes it seem like the Rochester Red Wings not only pushed for this decision but will reap the profits from the merchandising. Great!

UPDATE: The story gets even weirder: The Stadium Authority Board, which OWNS the franchise, apparently had no idea that they were going to change the name. Um...then who is this 'they' that is changing the name?? I think the SAB should put a stop to this immediately, but board president James Timlin said tonight on the news that the board "doesn't have a problem with it." Well, they should - nothing should be done without their approval, why aren't they making a point that they're in charge and nixing this whole plan?

Also, after reading to this article,  I think I'm right about the end of the SWB Yankees, as much as I hoped it wasn't true. " 'Right now we're in negotiations with the New York Yankees and Mandalay on whether or not we're going to have baseball in the future of Lackawanna County," said Commissioner Jim Wansacz. He added negotiations are going well, but the news of the name change came as a surprise to the county." I'm pretty sure that if the first half of that last sentence is true and things were going well, the owners of team would not be blindsided by such a ridiculous slap in the face as this name change.

Lowline NYC

This awesome project on Kickstarter is already fully funded but still accepting donations to expand the prototype phase. While I disagree that there is 'limited green space' in NYC (there is a pocket park like every 10 blocks, especially in the Village/LES), there is definitely limited SPACE in NYC, period, and this is so much more appealing to me than throwing a few trees on the roof of a building no one is allowed to explore anyway and calling it 'green.'

This idea, to not only renovate and utilize an old trolley station for public recreation but also to magically (ok, it is actually new technology but it sounds like magic to me) use fiber optic cables to inundate the space with real, underground rays of sunshine, has really sparked my interest. And also, it will be super-helpful, if not life-saving, after the Electrical/Zombie/Mayan/Republican Apocalypse. (One of those things will end us, to be sure.)

 Someday, remote skylights will be used for so many awesome things that the fact that they were invented because an architect wanted to play in an abandoned arm of Fraggle Rock will be like if the guy that invented shoes only invented shoes so he could reach the spear he kept on his top shelf without pulling out a step stool every time.



One thing that I had to know was WHY, OH WHY would they go to all of the trouble of excavating, building, decorating and later upgrading this large underground space and then close it off and abandon it exactly 40 years later? Apparently, when the trolley service across the Williamsburg Bridge was discontinued, they simply converted the trolley lanes on the bridge to car lanes and, presumably to prevent tourists, or worse, hipsters, from driving down the ramp to the supposedly awesome underground area (you know those hipsters would have turned it into an ironic barbershop-slash-mustache atelier or a bar that served nothing but tap water shots and expired cans of Tab),they blocked off the whole thing.

Dear 1948: You are wasteful, and apparently learned nothing from the motto of the Great Depression (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, duh). Also, you have greatly increased the length of time until it won't matter that I always forget to buy light bulbs by delaying the technology that will replace light bulbs by however many years it takes to finish this project. OR, has your sloth and lack of creativity actually fostered the development of this technology 64 years later? My mind is blown! In closing, 1948, say hi to my grandparents and have a nice sloe gin fizz for me!

Colors, Vegetables, Rain

Broccoli reminds me of nothing

I was chopping peppers for a salad this afternoon and something about the colors – the pale green, thick orange and bright yellow reminded of the feel of a day, years ago. Eating a burrito. At first, I thought this memory was in Philadelphia, but the more I think about walking around and the way the streets were laid out, I think it was actually Harrisburg. How could chopping colored capsicum remind me of burritos, you ask. I think it was the stark shiny colors, the way the crisp peppers settled next to the wet beauty of a sliced cucumber and an opaque artichoke heart. It reminded me of the bright strand of triangular plastic flags emphatically pointing down to the long row of fillings options, box after box of multi-colored beans, salsas, meats, onions, cheeses. The unusual and least popular options in smaller bowls near the end of the counter; shriveled bacon, raw peppers, tiny spicy tamales, sliced pickles, cucumbers, neon yellow mashed corn salsa.

                The more I thought about it, the more that day shook itself out from the folds of my shaky memory. I was with an intriguing friend and the intriguing friend of my friend. We sat outside under the watchful protection of another thick rainbow of snapping plastic flags and tried to outdo each other in sheer will-based food consumption. Our burritos must have been five pounds apiece. At that time in our lives, we all valued quantity and cheapness of the food over quality and healthiness, and those hefty Mexican food bullets delivered on both counts. Despite our best efforts at unnecessary gluttony, I’m pretty sure we all carried little lumps of tinfoiled leftovers through the streets that day.

Actual size

                Earlier that day, relaxing at the friend-of-a-friend’s house. It was beautiful and impeccable, an old farmhouse built on a scale so foreign to me that I’ll never forget my dim-witted revelation, made after ducking through every low doorway in the place; these friendly, tiny people bought this two hundred year old home because, not in spite of, the scale of the building. The low ceilings were complimented by the short chairs. The mirror, set close over the small bathroom sink, was tilted down because it was aimed toward their comfort zone. I practically had to kneel to check my face in that mirror, and I thought about the height of my kitchen cabinets, the storage space above my closet that I reach into without using a step stool. This (belated) train of thought lent a Lilliputian feel to the day, and later, as I traveled down the streets behind my friends, I looked at the spaces above their heads, feeling enormous, but not really in a self-conscious way.

                I thought about that beautiful house once later on while watching a show about actual little people and noticing the way they had modified their house to suit their needs. Tiny kitchen counters squatted so close to the floor that a person of normal height would have to sit on the ground to prepare a meal. My first thought, as a tall person, was how very inconvenient those modifications must be to their regular-sized children. Then I thought about the house in Harrisburg and realized how inconvenient everything else must be for the little people.

My actual size, and also why I stopped wearing white

                Following along the strange paths of the never-ending rabbit hole of associative memory, I thought about the other times I had spent time with these friends together. I remembered exploring Washington, D.C. in the rain, curiously examining the construction of a sideways-folding futon in her dorm room, meeting many old friends and many new friends-of-friends. Once, we ate at a Japanese restaurant with a motley crew of close friends and new associates, and the colors of a seaweed salad exploded out of the mist that covered the entire rainy day to entertain our table with its brilliant greens, blues, purples and reds. We walked what felt like miles through a raging thunderstorm to seek out an ice cream shop that ‘would change our lives.’ The purveyors of magical treats turned out to be closed by the time we swam that far down the street. I remember running across intersections, battling my broken umbrella, laughing and complaining at the same time. That jaunt ruined my favorite-ever pair of sneakers, non-sporty black Nine Wests that reminded me of sleek supermodels sprinting down New York avenues in couture dresses and sloppy sweatshirts, late for their call times during Fashion Week. I felt small complaining about the loss of the shoes, like a bad sport who would chintz out on an adventure, but I said it anyway. It is rare that I actually care about a piece of clothing, but I do feel like I’ve learned my lesson now. Run through knee-high storm-soaked streets, Elizabeth. The shoes would have worn out before this memory has, no matter what. 

My short friend's shoes were fine.

                We went into a bookstore and everyone picked up a different book. We opened to a random page and each read a line, going in a circle, trying to piece together a story from the lines we had been assigned by chance. Everyone laughed. Years later I bought the book I read from at a library sale. It was horrible. I was jolted by a pleasant recognition whenever I came across one of the lines I used, though. I could pick them out, uselessly, but I can’t remember the lines I write in my head at night without groping for a pencil.

                Later that night, just the three of us again, loping across the college parking lot with one inefficient umbrella, almost immune to the poor weather by then. My clothes were plastered to my skin like a wetsuit, and even when we got inside, my hair dripped down my glasses as if my body had internalized the rhythm of the rain. In the lobby of her dorm we shook ourselves like dogs and I caught a look that passed between them. I wondered if they were together, and if so, why I wasn’t supposed to know. When I starting paying attention, I knew they were together and felt silly for not noticing earlier. I wasn’t jealous, just annoyed at the sizable shift in dynamics so late in the game. That’s not what I remember most about that day, though. The seaweed salad floats in my mind’s eye, captured forever like a bright spiky painting, and the water licks at my calves, the dark gullies eddying around my steps, soaking my pants, ruining my shoes, stalling nearby cars, denying me ice cream.