(Now that he’s back from cavorting on the West Coast with effete hippies, Sterling Cooper ad executive Don Draper will write a guest column every week riffing on the world of sports. This is his first piece.)

Sports. Right. God’s gift to ad men. Whoever invented the concept of the replica jersey, well, I’d like to shake that man’s hand. I’d also like to see the Tampa Bay Rays turn things around after their ugly loss last night. Before the playoffs, I thought the Rays were more like me of any baseball team I’d seen this year. This is America. You pick a job and then become the person who does it. Those were the Rays: preternaturally talented, incredibly savvy, and if you drink like Freddy Rumsen, Evan Longoria even sort of looks like me. They went from Dick Whitman to Don Draper in less than a year. I respected that.

But now I’m starting to think the Rays are more like Pete Campbell. I like Pete. He’s getting close. But his ambition still far outweighs his ability to see it through. We all have to pay our dues eventually. Some of us never stop paying them.

There’s no question the Rays were the best story, but if we’re talking about paid dues, that’s the Phillies all over. A team like that deserves success, and so do their fans. Like the Red Sox and their fans, a World Series will destroy their concepts of themselves, but then it’s much easier to sell to someone who feels like a winner. If the Rays can’t patch up their pitching, Philadelphia will be a whole town of winners soon enough. They’ll be a whole new person, made anew, a former bumbler living at the top of the world.

Maybe the Phillies are me after all.

/spins around in chair, looks out window

I’m an ad man, but I’ve got to admit that I find some people’s approaches to the whole profession perverse. For example: Bud Light’s ‘Drinkability’ campaign.

The main complaint about this campaign has been that the concept of “drinkability” doesn’t make any sense. That’s true. But intuitive sense isn’t a prerequisite for what we do. We’re supposed to invent concepts. We’re advertisers. We sell products, not advertising.

The problem is that “drinkability” doesn’t tell me why I want a beer. People don’t drink beer just because they’re able to. If so, I’d trade my Old Fashioned’s in right now. People drink beer because they want to feel powerful, and unique, and because the bars to our self-imposed cages are always easier to see with bleary eyes. How smooth, or “drinkable,” a beer is — well, if you want me as a customer, you’re going to have to do better than “swill our swill easier than theirs.”

/smokes cigarette, looks vaguely into distance