Le Pinson en Or in Prison by the Shore

-- Chris Leo


For the sake of New Jersey the Nets must go.
Them making it in Brooklyn will reduce the Knicks to forgotten Clippers status.
"The Knicks?" the shoeshiner says, "aren't they that team that always loses to the Globetrotters?"
"Exactly. And man, do you know the last team to ever beat the Globetrotters?"
"No team ever beat the Globetrotters."
"Not true. The New Jersey Reds beat the Globetrotters in 1971."
"I didn't even know the Nets existed back then?"
"Exactly."

And so who will fill this void left in Jersey once the Nets leave?

I have a remarkable suggestion that I do believe the clues have laid out for us.

The Giants football team is already a defacto New Jersey team. They've played in Jersey ever since I was born. Now dogear this thought: the Giants are also a baseball team that a) were once a New York team that aa) have a rivalry with the L.A. Dodgers that ab) dates back to when both teams were New York teams and ac) both teams left New York for California the same year, 1958; and now finally b) currently play at the opposite end of Route 80, the road that connects New York to its frontier doppelganger, San Francisco where ba) their Oakland Atheltic intercity rivals play east from them across a great bay -- not unlike the Giants would now if they were a New Jersey team, but that's going too fast because c) jackie Robinson this, Jackie Robinson that. When the Giants were in New York they faced the Yankees in six world series.

Coincidence?: The last time the Giants faced the Yankees in a World Series was in 1962, the only year they've faced off to them as a San Francisco team and the same year the Mets became a New York team.

So follow me:

Lately the Jets, who play in the Mets territory of Queens, have been acting a lot like the Bears with their hulking defense.

Baby Bears are Cubs.
Baby Cubs are...White Sox!

White Sox!
Like Mets to Yankees
you are Chicago to New York
Like Mets to Yankees
you are White Sox to Red Sox
Like Mets to Yankees
you are White Sox to Cubs

By mixing the defacto Giants at the eastern extreme of Route 80 with the long lost "third team" Giants at the Western extreme of Route 80, I do believe New Jersey's void will be filled with the true Giants at the center of the long road, the Giants who came out of nowhere to snatch the 2005 World Series --

White Sox come home!
New Jersey waits for you!

When the Nets leave New Jersey will be left with only one professional sports team, The Devils. Fine I suppose, but one could argue that the idea of games on ice is more antiquated than even baseball's knickered ye olde curly-cued 'stash icon on the Cracker Jack box. As old as that image is, it still holds relevance. Relevance neither the Yankees nor Mets have yet to balance successfully.

The Mets play good old fashioned baseball, but lack the characters to hook us in.
The Yankees stack the bench with characters, yet lack the sportsmanship to move us towards patriotism with the national anthem at the beginning of the games.
New Jersey on the other hand's got all the characters and all the Americana to back it up.

White Sox come home!

There is only one other option to save baseball in NYC, and it would take knocking it down a notch before bringing it back up:

The Mets have always struggled working the New York colors into their uniforms. It's that orange that throws things off. You can't get rid of it though. It ties us back to William of Orange, our Dutch forfather. Shea Stadium sits less than a mile from Rikers in the Sound. All the inmates there wear orange! I say the Mets mimic the inmates garb, using the blue and white (the remaining colors on the flag) for the letters on their uniforms and nothing more. If the Mets embrace their proximity to Rikers Island they'd finally get the character they need to make us pay attention. Hold that thought though, let's get the White Sox in Jersey first.