Of all things Geek. I am…
Our Team: Insights from the Publicly Owned Scraton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, is a brilliant case study. It reads both informationally and educationally like a complex short story focused on government, improvement, and a central question; “Should local government own the home team to protect the public’s facility investment?”
Now, before I go on, context is necessary, for both the book and for my relationship to the area. The book was published in 1999.
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I’ve written about it here and spoken of it on my podcast in various episodes. In high school, I was a shapeshifter. I was in marching band, jazz band, pep band, and symphonic band. I ran cross country and track. I was in a classic rock cover band and a metal band.
I did Science Olympiad and hung out with the gifted kids even after my grades kept me from officially joining. I messed around with the school paper and yearbook.
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“The Berlin Wall is demolished. Marx is dead. Try telling that to Ramon and his desperate men hiding in the jungle cradling their AK-47’s, dusting off the slabs of Semtex and dreaming of world revolution.”
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“When a down-on-his-luck basketball scout finds a potential superstar in Spain, he sets out to prove they both have what it takes to make it in the NBA.” Hustle is Rocky meets White Men Can’t Jump with more heart than you’d expect from an Adam Sandler movie, but not more than you need.
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I thought about being a rock star as an early teen as if it was that easy. I also thought about becoming a journalist for a period in my late teens, which seemed much more realistic. I even minored in journalism in college, so it was definitely in my wheelhouse.
Somehow, being a rock journalist never made the list, even temporarily, of things I want to do when I grow up.
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