Baseball�s return to Washington comes at a heavy price
December 10, 2004 ~ 11:41 a.m.
I have to admit, I agree entirely with what sports columnist Dayn Perry says about the new ballpark for the upstart Washington Nationals. A more frivolous waste of money I cannot possibly imagine.
The new park will cost $530 million, and the tax-payers will be footing the bill. But Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack won�t be shelling out $530 million�they�ll be providing $630 million to take into account any project overruns.
Did I also mention that although the taxpayer is putting up for this ball field�under the mistaken identity of free market capitalism�the team�s owners will reap all revenue for the stadium? For the residents of Washington, D.C. this is a case of all-give and no-get. And how about the fact that, though seven votes were required by the city council for approval of the proposed new stadium, the proposal passed with only six votes?
Long live American democracy. Didn�t we kick the Brits out for lesser crimes than this?
Don�t get me wrong. I love the game, and a good indication of the success that Major League Baseball has enjoyed is that it rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the tumultuous, strike-shortened 1994 season. But, just as Commissioner Bud Selig may have rescued the baseball chestnut from the fire, he has also approached the game with a devil-may-care callousness. If professional baseball was a homeless person, Selig would be injecting him with a booster shot of vitamins�while kicking him in the side with jackbooted feet.
First of all, you have, in Perry�s words, the �orchestrated, systematic screwing of the fans in Montreal.� Selig was determined to carry out his plans for contraction with the Expos, under the misguided assumption that the fans of Montreal didn�t care about baseball. This was simply not true. In fact, if not for the mess of ten years ago, Montreal might have had a World Series pennant to raise to the rafters of Olympic Stadium. But the Expos simply got in the way of Selig�s corporate machine gone mad. So au revoir to them.
Second of all, I cannot get excited about baseball in Washington again. Many who were fans of the Senators before they left the city in 1971 for the plains of north Texas turned to the Baltimore Orioles for their baseball; and those who preferred National League action backed Atlanta. Sure, former Senators announcer Charlie Brotman can get nostalgic about the return of the American pastime to the nation�s capital�while tackling an anti-Nationals protestor. �I�m crazy �bout the Senators, and nuts about the Nats,� said Brotman, but it is protestor Adam Eidinger�s words��this is a bad deal, people��that rings in my ears with resonance.
Thirdly, there�s no reason why the city of Washington couldn�t continue to use RFK Stadium. They could simply extend the deal to have the Nationals play at the existing stadium indefinitely. RFK�s fault is that it is a throwback to the cookie-cutter monstrosities of the �60s. But this should be the price to be paid for baseball�s return to Washington. It�d be a lot less painful�and more fair�than the current price being thrust at the taxpayers. But of course, mayor Anthony Williams is trying to fob Washington residents off with politico-inspired gibberish like, �Baseball is about our way of life. It�s about opportunity. And now with the Nationals, it�s about our nation�s capital.�
If �free-market� corporate enterprise wearing the mask of socialism is about opportunity and our way of life, I�d say we�re screwed. Just ask the fans of Montreal about it.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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