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It's A Dump, But At Least It's Our Dump

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Daniel Ruth

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 28, 2008

There are many reasons why plans for the Tampa Bay Rays' new sandlot tanked faster than Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.

But foremost among them has to be this theory.

When the great unwashed are fearing the loss of their jobs and the foreclosure of their homes while also paying $4 for a gallon of gas and other rising costs simply to put bread on the table, isn't there something awfully unseemly about being asked to fork over as much as $175 million in public money so that a big-shot mogul can have a brand new shiny playpen that will help him become even wealthier?

By all accounts, as egomaniacal, self-absorbed snooty sports owners go, the Rays' Stuart Sternberg appears to be a fairly decent chap.

Along with Rays President Matt Silverman, the management team has spruced up Tropicana Field, which is admittedly akin to putting lipstick on a pig and calling it Mariah Carey.

As well, on a personal note, you'll be hard-pressed to find a nicer, harder-working, more able sports executive than the Rays' vice president of operations, Rick Nafe.

And on the field the Rays have become a competitive team, which has fans daring to utter the heretofore forbidden word - playoffs - for the first time in the franchise's history.

Hey, thanks.

No Chance At All

Still, it is pretty obvious the Rays brain trust analyzed the St. Petersburg political landscape and realized a proposed referendum to move the team from the Trop to a waterfront site currently occupied by the historic Al Lang Field had about as much chance to succeed as a Taliban restaurant in Fort Bragg.

For there was always a sort of "peel me a grape" air of entitlement to the Rays' efforts to build new fancy-schmancy $450 million digs, as if the St. Petersburg community would simply fall in line with precious little grumbling about having their pockets picked to contribute nearly $200 million to the project.

Delusional Field

And you knew, you just knew that by the time the popcorn and peanuts and Cracker Jack started flowing at the new Delusional Field, the public price tag would probably be considerably north of the original $175 million corporate welfare check.

And there was this little problem, too. The Rays wanted to build the new 34,000-seat park with no clearly defined parking availability. Brilliant!

So the Rays have decided to pull together a (one hopes) diverse coalition of St. Petersburg citizens (read: black people, old people, average fans), led by Progress Energy President Jeff Lyash, to consider alternative locations for a possible Rays field of dreams, which is another way of saying: That Gateway area (where the team should have been from the beginning) is looking pretty good.

This process will take awhile, and since a substantial chunk of public money will eventually be involved, it should take awhile.

In the meantime, the Rays will continue to hold forth in Tropicana Field. It may be a dump, but at least it's our dump.

And for Stuart Sternberg, perhaps he's learned a middle-class lesson about living within his means in these troubled times. Just like the rest of us.

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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