You know it's gotten pretty bad when newspapers from other cities get a few digs at Florida's expense on the stadium issue. :thumbdown

 

 

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-...eball-headlines

 

Stadium funding puts politicians in hot seat

 

Chuck Culpepper

 

January 23, 2005

 

You take your encouragement where you can get it, and so even on a morning when the air seems to come straight in from Manitoba, it's still possible to laugh at Florida.

 

After all, our local stadium spat thus far simply has trailed Florida's local stadium spat in the all-important Most Farcical standings.

 

We have merely the Jets desiring a stadium perhaps with swirling winds as vicious to placekickers as Pittsburgh's, with the outside possibility of the building hosting an Olympic Opening Ceremony plus various contests between drug-addled sprinters.

 

The mayor wants it. The people don't. The mayor wants the people to pay for it. The people don't. It's pretty run-of-the-mill.

 

Well, in stadium news this past week, the president of Florida's state senate referred to the Marlins as "terrorists" in the Palm Beach Post, then backed off from that assessment to say the Marlins "put a gun to our head" in the Miami Herald.

 

You can see we have miles to go before we sleep among the peerlessly preposterous.

 

The Marlins, it seems, have played an old stadium game every bit as American as the inauguration limousine with the Night Vision infrared detection system and 10-disc CD changer, and it has peeved Tom Lee, Republican state senator from Brandon, who apparently wants to drag some sort of ethics into business.

 

I know: How unpatriotic.

 

The Marlins crave a new stadium with a retractable roof for rain delays and for alleviating "fan discomfort." If you've ever been to Miami in July and gone, say, for example, outdoors, you might consider this an act of uncommon benevolence, possibly even worthy of a tax break.

 

The Marlins will ask the state legislature for $60 million of assistance, and it's not the first time they've sought a boost. One time, they asked for some sort of tax on cruise-ship passengers, a concept Gov. Jeb Bush quashed as if cruise-ship passengers would notice any tax, having gorged themselves for seven solid days before scrambling like hyenas to the Fort Lauderdale Airport come Saturday morning.

 

It's just that this time, well, some of the Marlins' brass traveled in December to, well, Las Vegas, where they met with, well, the mayor, and they asked a bunch of questions about, you know, the city.

 

This mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, wants a professional sports team, said so in the January issue of Esquire.

 

He also said: "I am the spokesperson for Bombay Sapphire. But the truth is, by the time you get halfway through the bottle, you don't really know what you're drinking anymore."

 

He also said, "After 9/11, I suggested that in order to revive the economy here, every man should get a lap dance."

 

He also said: "I'll bet on a cockroach. About a month ago, in fact, there was a cockroach in the basement of City Hall. I put out a memo: If anybody touches that cockroach, you're outta here. We called him Lucky. I would bet people which way he would go."

 

All right, I'm beginning to envy Florida's stadium spat just a tad.

 

State Sen. Lee, in turn, felt unhappy, and said if the Marlins wanted to move, he would "help them pack."

 

He said to the Palm Beach Post, "I was very disappointed that they publicly announced the negotiations and discussions with Las Vegas, and I don't negotiate with terrorists."

 

He reneged and told other media, "Blackmail's a great word" for the Marlins' ploy, plus the gun-to-the-head remark.

 

Here's a classic American story of a business callously playing the markets, and here comes some politician trying to inject some sort of common decency into the mix? Bizarro. Doesn't he realize that while we Americans feign disdain for such shabby, disloyal treatment toward paying fans, we actually admire the fierce self-interest of it?

 

After all, let's harken back to a time when another baseball franchise might've left town if it didn't get its new stadium. The mayor of that town knew the reality and fretted publicly.

 

On Sunday, Jan. 13, 1991, some citizens formed a sort of human chain around the stadium, as if to say: We cannot let our team escape. You must vote for the tax increase.

 

The team's managing general partner and his daughters joined in the "Kumbaya" circle. Later, of course, he sold his chunk of the team for an astronomical $14-million profit on his original investment, because ... city voters had passed that tax increase by almost 2-1. They had built their spiffy stadium. They had ratcheted upward the franchise value. They had upheld the uniquely American tradition of new-stadium profit via public assistance.

 

And that owner? This past Thursday in Washington, we inaugurated him. For the second time.

Cute article.