2013 New YeAr’s Resolutions: #BernieLeanIn13

After the 2012 season none of us will ever see the “Weekend At Bernie’s” movies in quite the same light.  It was a phenomenon that took Oakland by storm, all thanks to Brandon Inge and/or Jerry Blevins (depending on who you ask) introducing the song “Movin’ Like Bernie” by ISA to the clubhouse.  The players started mimicking the dance from the music video, and soon thereafter the fans did the same.

The dance was popular for a while once everyone figured out what was going on, but it wasn’t until ATM & IMD’s “Bernie Lean” was brought to Coco Crisp‘s attention by our own Kevin Mendez that the dance was truly solidified in Oakland.  The rappers visited the Coliseum the same weekend Terry Kiser (Bernie himself) did, and filmed a new version of the music video featuring Athletics players and fans.

Since then we’ve seen the move imitated (or originated by if you ask Greg Papa who clearly has no clue about anything) by the Giants and called the “Melkshake,” it’s been spotted as a touchdown celebration all over the NFL throughout the season, and has become its own little piece of pop culture.  At the time this was all going on I figured that this would be a little quirky thing we’d remember about the 2012 season for the Athletics and once 2013 rolled around we would all forget about it.  But based on my own purely anecdotal Twitter evidence from numerous A’s fans, the bloom isn’t off the rose.  We all still love to do the Bernie.  Hiro Nakajima spoke about how he wanted to do the “Bernie dance with Oakland” in his introductory press conference.  Would that statement have been inserted in there if it was simply a fad that died with the 2012 season?  Methinks not.

This resolution is up to the fans to see through, we need to keep the Bernie Lean alive in 2013.  The Athletics did amazing in 2012, but they didn’t quite finish what they started.  Their mission must be to Bernie Lean back to and all the way through the month of October in 2013.  #BernieLeanIn13