The Dream of the Saint Louis Browns Returning Home

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A New Brownie Dream for St. Louis
By DAVID BOLFING

I don’t know about you St. Louis sports fans, but when I start hearing about “Dome Authority” lawsuits to build new stadiums without public votes, I just want to stroll down St. Louis football’s most masochistic memory lane…Hey look, it’s a crabby old man in a little bow tie—and I think he’s been threatening the city! Oh, oh. Are you feeling those scurrying, scrabbling claws where it hurts? Don’t worry, that’s just Bill’s “Desert Rats” leaving town for the cash. And there’s the domed debacle! Hey, wasn’t that the publicly-financed mistake from the start that the failures who play here don’t want? And now for today’s current scam. Or, to paraphrase that whisper from “Field of Dreams” (and a much better St. Louis sport, by the way), “If we plan them a stadium they might even come--but probably not.” Repeat after me Gateway City, “We’re as mad as Peter Finch was in “Network,” and we’re not taking Stan anymore.”
O.K., great. All the billionaire vultures are gone. But before we continue, let’s remember one thing--that the voice in Ray’s corn field was surprisingly prescient. Alright baseball fans, I’m just going to say it. Let’s bring back the St. Louis Browns. Now we’ll listen to a somewhat ethereal version of my Grandpa Ibsen’s childhood hero “The Sizzler” explain…I mean, here is a list of some very good reasons:


* Why suffer through another morale-killing, wallet-searching rectal exam from the N.F.L., when Browns baseball could bring us such joy? (And such exuberance. You know, like the kind you might feel if Rube Waddell came out firing again, or if you could have another beer with your Dad).
* An American League team could be back in St. Louis (as Ban Johnson and God surely say it should be), and a game played in town every day.
* A very real and practical chance to leverage our incredible lineage as baseball’s most historically and culturally significant fan base/mecca—west of New York, anyway—to our great societal and financial advantage.
* How about the actual possibility of the first all-St. Louis World Series since 1944? It could happen. Sure the “Metro Link Series” tends a bit toward the clunky, but heck—can you imagine the thrill of a Browns-Cardinals rematch?
* So with the Browns and our new “Sportsman’s Park” now in place (in a classic old Carondelet spot for example, as opposed to a virtual wasteland), we can take yet another big step. How about a National Museum of Baseball History and Memorabilia that rivals Cooperstown in its breadth and its scope? Of course, even the icon in upstate New York doesn’t offer the world’s best collection of cards. And it doesn’t include three spectacular wings for the St. Louis Browns Hall of Fame (an absolute must), the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, or the St. Louis Negro League Hall of Fame either.

So let’s show those folks back in Dyersville,
Iowa that we have our own diamond dreams. Let’s spend some of that filthy bribe money we would’ve lost to an evil N.F.L. proctologist like Stan Kroenke, and build something gloriously and beautifully unique to St. Louis instead.
And while we’re creating the Ultimate Baseball Fan’s Dream, we might as well add a few things. Let’s start with America’s most heavenly semi-pro baseball park, right alongside the museum. And then we’ll address baseball’s cultural side, as we’ll offer great books to the fans of the game, and we’ll give them “The Pastime” theater. “C’mon everyone, let’s grab a quick dinner at “Dizzy’s” (our Baseball Fan Paradise’s restaurant of course), “The Pride of St. Louis” starts soon.”
I know fellow Browns fans, I know. Now we’ve got to convince all of the hard-hearted cynics, who aren’t hearing little 1/8 late at night.
O.K. Ebeneezers, it’s time to get saved. The Great Game was born in New York to be sure, but we are now baseball’s best town. Believe me, our genuine passion can make all the difference. Just look up at tiny Green Bay. And as the masses of fans we’ve traditionally drawn from have always exceeded our St. Louis boundaries, these are just some of their homes: Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and throughout Missouri and more. So couldn’t hundreds of thousands of fans just like these learn to love our new Browns as their own? Of course, the “bah, humbug” types often like to cite numbers, so let’s give these Scrooges a few.


Major League Baseball drew 3,540,649 fans to its games in St. Louis last year, or approximately 2,094,185 more than the Tampa Bay Rays. In fact, Joe Maddon just left for Chicago, and the Rays simply aren’t going to stay. So this is where I’d like to ask all of the National Boredom Association seeking, No Fun League addicted, typically dull-minded St. Louis skeptics to simply consider the following questions:
* As the Kansas City Royals just made a World Series appearance drawing a little over half of the Cardinals’ attendance, isn’t it apparent that an already baseball-mad St. Louis could probably buy a lot more tickets than the great Bill Veeck ever schemed for?
* Couldn’t a truly committed and focused St. Louis become an exciting new Cooperstown West? Then how many tickets could we sell?
* Why torture ourselves with more N.F.L. angst (about a billion dollars worth at last count), when we could actually have fun with the team that we’re watching?
* And speaking of watching, did you know that the Cardinals drew a larger local t.v. audience than the Cubs and the White Sox combined? So wouldn’t the most highly-rated local baseball fans in the majors probably be a pretty good bet for
the Browns, too?
* What makes more sense economically, to develop a national tourism site, or to pay off Big Football and squeal? And wouldn’t a new baseball park cost hundreds of millions less?

And what are the A.L.’s new answers for Tampa, more places with zero tradition? I know. Let’s mix some gambling and baseball in Vegas. No, wait—let’s give toasty Vancouver a try. Please. The Browns could become our most clamored-for ticket since the Blues hit the ice in the sixties. So there it is Mr. Sisler, I’ve done what you’ve asked—now let’s go root for the Browns with my Grandpa.