At this point in the movie, you (the readers of The Vanguard) will have read all kinds of theories about the outcome of the United States elections. What if inflation, what if the consequences of globalization, what if the loss of quality of life and the discovery that “the American dream” is a hoax, what if machismo, what if racism, what if the rejection of victimhood, culture woke up and the political elites… But here is a new one, which we could call Kamala’s curse.
The candidate defeated by Trump was born in Oakland (California), on the “wrong side” of the San Francisco Bay, a city where only 32% of the population is white, with entire neighborhoods that are authentic ghettos, an emporium of crime. and drugs, and began his legal and political career in the Alameda County prosecutor’s office (to which he belongs). It is the heart of #BlackLivesMatter, and campaigns such as defunding the police, condemning colonialism and compensating the descendants of slaves.
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The last to go into exile are the baseball Athletics, who are heading to Las Vegas with a stopover in Sacramento
Harris boasts of being a “daughter of Oakland,” a working-class city, but she has renounced Berkeley, the most progressive in the country, where her parents were professors, where she spent her childhood, and which is the epicenter of American progressivism. from whom he wanted to distance himself. And maybe that’s where the curse comes from. The truth is that the metropolis has lost its three professional teams in a short time, the Golden State Warriors of the NBA, the Raiders of American football (now in Las Vegas) and the Athletics of baseball, who will be on loan for three or four years. in Sacramento, the state capital, until its transfer to a stadium-casino in the Mecca of gambling.
Blaming Kamala, whether for her affiliation with Oakland or her politically motivated resignation from Berkeley, may be a stretch because other considerations come into play, such as team owners’ pursuit of broader markets, resistance from neighbors, environmentalists and unions to the construction of a new stadium in the port area (which would have been reached by ferry), the fear of gentrification and rising rents, fan boycotts and the fact that attendance at the Coliseum (a cement monster built in 1968, with leaks and rats) sometimes did not reach three thousand fans, one twentieth of its capacity. And that, with a pass, a hot dog and a beer only cost seven dollars, a bargain for what the patio is like in the United States.
The Raiders were in that coliseum from 1966 to 1981, and then from 1995 to 2019, when they packed their bags for Las Vegas; The Warriors played at Oracle, part of the same complex, for 48 years starting in 1971, until they crossed the bay to settle in chic San Francisco; and the baseball Athletics were born in Philadelphia in 1901, moved to Kansas City in 1955, and Oakland in ’68. None of the three is now based in the decrepit Californian city. Just as the “bambino curse” haunted the Boston Red Sox since the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, the “Kamala curse” has translated into an unprecedented sporting exodus. And that’s without going into the disastrous election results…
World Series have been played in the Coliseum, Pelé has played, and Elvis, the Stones, Sinatra and Marvin Gaye have performed. Now it has been bought by a group of black investors to convert it into a stadium of removable modules that will be the home of the Roots of soccer . As Rigoletto says when he discovers that he has killed his daughter: Ah, the curse!
Lots of history, little money
From winning nine World Series to losing 112 games in one year
The Athletics are one of the historic and most traveling franchises in the Major Leagues, having participated in eleven World Series, of which they won nine. Stars such as José Canseco, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley have played in their ranks. Their decline for a few years now has meant that in the recently concluded season they lost 93 games, and last year 112 (out of a total of 162). The franchise is valued at 1.3 billion euros, but its annual operating budget is only 60 million, the lowest in the league. Their players are the lowest paid.
#Kamalas #Curse
