Why I Feel Nostalgic About the A’s
It may seem weird that a guy in his mid 40s is nostalgic about the Philadelphia Athletics. After all, the team had left Philadelphia a good decade and a half before I was even born. I had known about the A’s from the plaques that the Phillies put up at Veteran Stadium every year. Each season the Phillies honored both a Phillie and an Athletic on their Wall of Fame. The practice of honoring a member of the A’s ended in 2004, and the A’s Wall of Fame inductees we’re relegated to a plaque on a statue of Connie Mack in the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park. Still, as a child, I knew who Connie Mack was. I knew he had an impact on the city. But I had never seen a game Connie Mack managed. I had never seen Bobby Shantz throw a single pitch. I had never even seen Jimmy Foxx hit a home run. There were something romantic about the Athletics. Perhaps it was growing up in the 1970s as a Phillies fan. To this date, I can recite starting lineup of the 1977 Phillies. I tu...