It's hard to imagine a cooler idea that sucks as much as the plans for an open-air waterfront Rays ballpark where homers could land in the bay.
Not that the baseball part of the equation is bad. The bay-view site for the possible new park, the classic spring training mecca of Al Lang Field, is stunning. I would much rather watch a game there than at the Rays' current home, Tropicana Warehouse.
The part that stinks is the cost — $450 million. That and the realization that even if locals agree to come up with that kind of cash — in the middle of a tax revolt and slumping housing market — Tampa Bay's dream of baseball transforming our community is pretty much shot to hell.
Tampa Bay never did support baseball, and it has nothing to do with the team being lousy on the field. Compared to the Bucs, the Rays have never caught the imagination of the populace.
Still, municipal leaders have chased the dream of the majors for more than two decades. St. Petersburg chose to build a "stadium" (if the Trop can be called that) in the 1980s despite being told by Major League Baseball not to. Pinellas County leaders agreed to hand over $4-$5 million annually from hotel taxes to pay for 40 percent of the cost of the domed stadium — and have pretty much regretted it ever since. That is money that could be used to bring foreign tourists (and their cash) to our beaches, fueling new restaurants and businesses rather than paying for a butt-ugly, three-quarters-empty-on-game-nights ball stadium.
The Bay area then suffered through the quest for a team. First it was the White Sox who were moving here. Then not. Then it was the Giants who were coming. Then they weren't. We finally won an expansion team, only to have it run by the biggest sports villain in Tampa Bay, Vince Naimoli, who treated even the elites here as if they were scum. The team got a crummy name (Devil Rays), a crummy logo (a manta ray) and an even crummier squad (it has managed only once not to finish dead last in the AL East).
All the while, between St. Pete sales taxes that could have been used to pay for other government services and projects and the aforementioned hotel tax, roughly $10 million a year goes down the dark hole of our baseball dream. That drain continues until the last bonds for the stadium and its myriad "upgrades" and "improvements" are retired — in 2025.
It is a classic case of good money after bad.
I Was all set this week to explore how little the recent St. Petersburg City Council elections means in the big picture, and then the ballpark news hit.
The new council that will be constituted as the result of last week's elections promises to be very different from the one that for years provided solid support for Mayor Rick Baker. Candidates viewed as Baker's "slate" (they were also the St. Petersburg Times' choices) got whipped. The winners — Bill Dudley, Newt Newton and Herb Polson — hew closer to the disaffected neighborhood leadership.
It is hard to imagine that this new council will have the stomach for finding more money for major league baseball. Or the Rays, for that matter.
Strangely quiet at the middle of this leaked proposal was Baker, whose comments (if any) were minimal and lukewarm. He did, however, pen a Monday Times op-ed bromide about why public education is important. Astute political timing.
It's clear from the way the Baker administration fought to keep the Al Lang site from being designated as open space and parkland for the past few months (see Alex Pickett's story, opposite page) that it wants to have the flexibility to make a deal. But why shrink from touting the site then?
Baker, like his counterpart Pam Iorio, has an enormous amount of unspent political capital, so much so that he was hardly even challenged in his 2006 re-election. But also like Iorio, Baker mostly has been loath to spend any of it on unpopular but necessary projects. Both politicians seem to be banking that capital for a future rainy day — or campaign for higher office.
If Baker hopes to salvage Tampa Bay's baseball dream, he'll have to dip into those personal reserves and figure out a way to make those of us who have given up on baseball a reason to care again.
He might want to wait until after the Jan. 29 property-tax reform referendum to decide how much he cares about a new ballpark — just to be on the safe side.
Check my blog, thepoliticalwhore.com, for breaking political and media news or to leave a comment about this column.
See also
Alex Pickett: Activists' fears realized
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2007.