One of the most depressing aspects of Major League Baseball in recent years is the explosion of rent-a-players: Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar, Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, etc. Rooting for the home team becomes more difficult when every April we see more and more hometown favorites playing for the visiting team. Like other evils, money is the root of this.
But do the players take too much blame for what's wrong in baseball?
MLB made an agreement with the mayor of Washington, DC to bring baseball back to Washington in exchange for a baseball stadium funded entirely by the taxpayers of the nation's capital, of which I am one. Roughly, this project would cost a half-billion dollars. Every dime of it would come from the taxpayers.
As a taxpayer, I object to this. I find subsidizing third-generation welfare recipients objectionable, so why would the mayor of my city believe that I'd be okay with subsidizing Nick Johnson, Tomo Okha, and Jose Vidro? As a participant in the democratic process, I object to this. The city council, rather than the mayor, allocates money. Why didn't Major League Baseball go to them?
The DC city council has made a concessionary proposal. They've asked for private sources to fund about one-third of the costs. Is this too much to ask? San Francisco's baseball stadium is funded entirely by private sources, after all.
While the local liberal uproar has more to do with outrage over uprooting gay strip-clubs that stand in the way of a prospective stadium, one can't define one's position based on the motives of low individuals. They're right to oppose the public financing of the stadium--just for the wrong reasons. If a Catholic church, rather than a series of gay bars, stood in the way of the home of the Washington Nationals, my sense is that the DC liberals would be all for this corporate welfare. My wife got the automated calls from the shady front group for pornographers opposing the tax-funded stadium, and yet we both still agree with these weirdos.
If the third incarnation of a Major League Baseball in Washington, DC takes the field at my expense this April, I at least demand my name on the back of their jerseys as is traditionally done in little league, A-league softball, and other bush league ventures relying on sponsors. Anything else would be a fraud, as the Washington Nationals' primary source of income would not be ticket sales, a television contract, or merchandising, but my tax money--coupled with the tax money of a few hundred thousand of my neighbors.
I hear Chico's Bail Bonds is looking to sponsor a new club, however there is a string attached, Engelberg has to be the backstop.
Huh? You mean DC has taxpayers?
Dan, I think you've got this one wrong. Thomas Boswell, sports writer for the Washington Post, who has proven a extremely informed and insightful observer of the baseball scene over the years, wrote the following last week:
"Council members claim they are protecting citizen tax dollars when they know that not one cent of public money is earmarked for the Anacostia waterfront project. All funds to back the bonds to build the park will come from the team's new owners (rich), the top 11 percent of local Washington businesses (prosperous) and fans who attend games (many affluent). As for the District's pot of money collected through taxes -- called "the general fund" -- not a cent would be taken out of it.
As a bonus, more than 80 percent of Nationals fans, about two million a year, would come from the suburbs and spend tens of millions of discretionary entertainment dollars in the District.
Cropp and others on the council, like Adrian Fenty and David Catania, realize all this. They just don't want the public to figure it out. They prefer to round up cheap votes for themselves by bashing baseball rather than bringing a team back to Washington, bringing urban development to a blighted area and adding millions of dollars to the city's tax base."
