HoraceClarke66: What to do about the jacket?

 From the keyboard of HoraceClarke66...

The Blue Jays—a team that has wildly underperformed and played like chowderheads for so much of this season, as our Peerless Leader so ably detailed for us—have apparently come up with a solution for their lethargy:  a jacket.

Or a men’s sports coat, as they used to be called.

For all of you who already felt that the incessant gesturing, preening, swaggering, and grandstanding that ensues when somebody so much as legs out a Baltimore chop these days was already excessive…well, teams have now taken it to new depth.

 A case in point was the Red Sox giving a home-run hitter a ride in a laundry cart, or something. Now the BJs, formerly of Buffalo, have come up with a “home run jacket” they put on anyone who hits a dinger, the back of it festooned with the names of all sorts of different places and countries—Toronto being, of course, the only multicultural team in the major leagues.

 Back in the day, Bill Veeck, Jr.’s Chicago White Sox came up with a similar gimmick, introducing the very first, “exploding scoreboard.” 

 Fresh from the thrill of winning their first AL pennant in 40 years (and promptly dropping the World Series to a mediocre Dodgers team), the ChiSox for 1960 decided to add insult to injury by installing a scoreboard that emitted all sorts of flashing lights, bomb-like noises, and imitation fireworks whenever one of the Pale Hose went deep.

 On June 17^th, 1960, Casey Stengel’s last great Yankees team ventured out to Comiskey Park for a four-game series. Repeat the feat fever was running high on the South Side of Chicago, as the local crew was in the midst of a wild, five-team pennant race with the Yanks, Orioles, Tigers, and Indians.

 Going into the series, Chicago was in fourth place, ut just 3 ½ games behind the first-place Orioles. The Yanks were second, just 1 ½ games out. But despite the Bombers’ inexplicably dismal, third-place finish in 1959, everyone knew they were the team to beat.

 The Sox had visions of winning four straight, and sweeping into first. Veeck as in Wreck had the scoreboard primed to go.

 Instead, in the first game, Clete Boyer homered. The scoreboard, of course, stayed silent for this blast by a visiting player. 

 But Casey Stengel and his team lit homemade sparklers—provided by Bob O. Fishel, the Yankees PR director with a sneaky sense of humor—and paraded around in the dugout. When Mantle homered a few innings later, they did the same thing.

 The next day, Mantle, Maris, and the Moose all homered. More sparklers, more dancing around while the scoreboard—and the crowd—stayed quiet. They swept the series and soon found themselves in first, where they remained for most of the rest of the year.

 I know, I know. Times have changed. Now professional athletes making $20 million a year must celebrate their every tiny flicker of achievement.

 But I still think something as outrageous as the BJs’ jacket deserves a response. Once upon a time it might have been a fastball into the ribs of the next three hitters or so, but I realize that’s frowned upon today. Besides, those BJs are bigger and younger than our guys, and would probably beat them up in any brawl.

 But still. A little pride is called for, no? Like Casey’s boys had—not this characterless lump of a team we follow today.