It was time to give the Washington Nationals baseball team more
support than a portion of our karma. So the other day the
Supervisor of Common Sense in our house and I took our
grandchildren to the game.
As the Montreal Expos, this team had been the Ugly Duckling of
baseball. After much negotiating, Major League Baseball (“MLB”)
moved the franchise to the nation’s capital, which hasn’t had a
team in 33 years. Scarcely had the season begun than the Ugly
Duckling, renamed the Nationals, turned into the winning swan.
On the day we saw them. they were true to form, winning 7-5 over
Pittsburgh in a nail-biter of a game. This happened on a weekday
before 37,000-plus fans. Washingtonians, despite their reputation
for cool sophistication about policy and politics, turn out to be
red-hot baseball fans. Every Nationals’ hit, every Pirates’ out,
was cheered lustily. The crowd was on its collective feet for
nearly all of the last two innings.
For the next couple of seasons the Nationals are to play in RFK
Stadium, once the home of football’s Washington Redskins. The deal
between the city government and MLB calls for the former to build a
grand new stadium along the riverfront, supposedly not at taxpayer
expense. Instead, major local businesses are to pay a special tax.
Yet business, when confronted with new taxes, usually passes them
along to its customers in the form of higher prices. Various
community groups, not being as dense as MLB seems to think they
are, understand this and have been protesting. Some politicians,
anxious to get ahead of the parade, are joining the protests.
Property owners on the land to be condemned for the new stadium are
fighting back.
MLB itself still owns the team, having not yet sold it to local
investors. Several groups of them, with dollar signs rolling in
their eyes, are bidding.
Meanwhile, back at the ball game, the Supervisor of Common
Sense, once we were comfortably settled in our seats, said, “Why
can’t they just stay here at RFK Stadium?” Why not, indeed? The
seats are comfortable. There is plenty of leg room. Sight lines are
good. The aisles are wide. There are plenty of food and beverage
stands and restrooms. Parking seems plentiful and getting in or out
is no more difficult than at most other stadiums. Public
transportation is nearby.
MLB insisted, in the negotiations with the District of Columbia
government, that RFK Stadium would not do. Whatever its merits,
they considered it “old” and “out of date.” There was talk about
the need for lavish new sky box suites (a big source of revenue to
always-hungry-for-more-revenue club owners). There wasn’t enough of
this or that at RFK, so said the MLB poohbahs. Never mind that
updating of RFK could attend to most all of the stated requirements
at a small fraction of the cost of a new stadium.
“Here’s a hunch,” I said to the Supervisor of Common Sense. “In
city after city, the taxpayers have been sweet-talked into voting
for stadium bonds they would be paying off for years. The usual
argument has been that the stadium would bring huge amounts of new
revenue to the city — which it rarely has. Opposition to the new
stadium here will only get stronger, the longer the Nationals play
at RFK.”
The Supervisor replied, “Well, with all the controversy over
this new stadium, it may never get built. What then? Does Major
League Baseball move it somewhere else?” Under the terms of the
contract with the city, MLB could do just that, but that will
happen when pigs learn to fly and shrimps learn to whistle, I
said.
With big, enthusiastic crowds and a winning team, Washington has
the ultimate trump card: Congress. Try to take their new home team
away, and the people will rise up and demand that Congress take
away MLB’s “crown jewel,” its long-standing anti-trust
immunity.
So, Go Nats! — and just let the grandees of MLB try to push
Washington around.
