dispatches from the new world of work

More D.C. Plaudits

Looks like Baseball will return to D.C. Hooray! My first favorite hometown team was the old Washington Senators. (The Orioles were still Bill Veeck's St Louis Browns.) My first Major League ballgame was at Griffith Stadium—and I routinely wear for summer barbequing my replica Senators #3 jersey, the uniform of my first BBall hero, 1st baseman Mickey Vernon. (Now you know.)

And then there's my favorite bookstore in the U.S.A. It's the tiny, eclectic Bridge Street Books in Georgetown. I arrange my trips to make sure I can work in a Bridge Street stop. As usual, I wasn't disappointed today—and picked up some unusual books to top up my Christmas shopping. Incidentally, their specialties are politics (no surprise), baseball, and crime—after all, what else is there to life?

Tom Peters posted this on 12/21/04.

Comments

Love that Bridge Street - I've walked to it a few times from our office in Rosslyn - but not yesterday with -5 deg. F. windchill!

Posted by Sean at December 21, 2004 1:22 PM

One of the teammate stories I kept in my back pocket when working in pro ball involved Mickey Vernon. He was vying for the 1953 American League batting title and the race went into the last game of the season. Vernon's batting average was .337 near the end of the game. In the later innings, the Senators learned that the game that Cleveland's Al Rosen--who was locked in the batting title battle with Vernon--had played in was finished, with Rosen trailing Vernon by .0011 points. If Vernon came to the plate again, he would conceivably risk losing the title (should his at-bat have resulted in an out). His Senators teammates ended up PURPOSELY making outs in their own at-bats, thereby bringing an end to the game without Vernon having to again come to bat (and, obviously, securing the batting title for Tom Peters's and "Ike" Eisenhower's favorite player).

Terrific implications for the "Real World of Work"...

Posted by Lee H. Igel at December 21, 2004 10:11 PM

The mayor of Washington, DC, and the chairwoman of the city council have battled back and forth over the finance package for the Nationals.

The councilwoman, Mrs. Cropp, is a potential mayoral candidate.

Mrs. Cropp put forth a proposal that would have defaulted on the deal between DC and MLB, thereby killing the deal and sending the team on to another deserving city.

This fist-fight has won Mrs. Cropp tens of thousands of dollars worth of free publicity for her mayoral campaign, while fraying the nerves of local baseball fans.

Mrs. Cropp better not count on my vote in the next election.

Posted by Erick Blackwelder at December 21, 2004 11:27 PM

Your gain is my loss. My poor Montreal Expos have now left the city for good.

In this time of transition, we can see mixed signals. Loss of the team a big negative, Cirque de Soleil a big positive.

It will be interesting if any Canadian cities will be able to compete against the new intellectual centers of the States (Boston, San Fran, etc.)

Posted by Steve Robert at December 22, 2004 10:24 AM