Mayor Dwight C. Jones wants to build a publicly-funded minor league baseball stadium in the Shockoe Bottom area, right next to a museum — to be paid for sometime later by mystery people — that will commemorate the Bottom’s historically significant past as a slave market, gallows and African-American burial ground.
I know what you are thinking.
How will all of this affect the important helmet giveaways, hot dog tosses and foul-line sack races that we’ve come to expect from the double-A ballpark experience? What will be the fate of Scandal Night, you ask, or those padded sumo wrestling fights? And won’t it be kind of tacky and, well, just downright wrong to pair America’s pastime with the documenting of America’s shame?
Worry not, compliant Tier One City taxpayer and future project attendee! On this edition of The Sevens, we find that the Richmond Flying Squirrels and slavery can coexist together, no problem. You are sure to go nuts over these:
1. New Clubhouse Gang improvements
– Fireworks displays will now include cannon fire, Civil War re-enactors and free hardtack for 200 lucky fans.
– Small children will enjoy riding the simulated “Underground Railroad Choo-Choo” in our new family area.
– Instead of “Macho Man,” The Flying Squirrel Drag Queens will clean the field to the strains of “Ole Man River.”
– Nutzy will be branded.
2. New “special guests”
Big time guests will include championship midget tossers, a Jamie Foxx impersonator, and several old wrestlers you’ve never heard of, as well as noted scholar Henry Louis Gates, who will speak at length on the African diaspora before throwing out the first pitch.
3. New food concession items:
– Bread N WaterTM
– NutzyGruel
– Devil’s Half Acre Burger
– Lumpkin’s Crab Cakes
– Slave Trail Mix
– Squirrel Gristle, cooked in a rusty pan over an open fire by an old guy named Blind Bob (seasonal).
4. New Mascots
Joining the antics will be “The Ol’ Massa,” a sure-to-be-talked-about Clubhouse Gang member who will, among other horrible things, give Nutzy his between-inning floggings.
5. New “Nights”
– A Salute to Developers Night
The well-connected and their subcontractors get in free. Everyone else pays double admission.
– A Salute to Water Country USA Night
Free floaties for those minor league baseball fans who can’t swim in a flood zone.
– A Salute to Safety Night
Mayor Jones will appear via satellite from Bistro 27 on West Broad Street to present Parker the Pig with his own $200,000-a-year security detail.
– Also coming: A Salute to Getting Me The Hell Out of Shockoe Bottom On a Weekend Night Night!
6. New Off-Season Fun
The Squirrels won’t use the new stadium for half the year, but don’t worry. City officials will still be counting attendance figures! Come out and enjoy nightly outdoor screenings on the left field wall of such films as “Major League 2” “Field of Dreams” and “12 Years a Slave.”
7. New chances for you to WIN!
Remember: If a Flying Squirrels batter slams the ball out of the park and it hits the site of one of our country’s most historic slave markets, a place where thousands of human beings were sold into bondage, free chips and queso!