Dear Fellow List Members:
I write to respond to Clark Griffith's post from earlier this week, in which he
stated that "I am astounded that the loss of the Twins ranks so low as to warrant
almost no comment on this list. " Clark, there would have been a comment from me right
away, but for the fact that I was in Portland, Oregon on an admissions trip without
remote access to my email. (In the interest of full disclosure, you all should know
that Clark and I are friends through Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis).
I encounter a dilemma every time I think about this issue. Major League Baseball
is my favorite sport, and it has been since I was eight years old. Personally, I'd
like Minneapolis to have a new stadium that would someday mean as much to us as Tiger
Stadium meant to people in my home town of Detroit, and Fenway Park and Wrigley Field
mean to the citizens of Boston and Chicago. When I revise the question to "what is the
best public policy," or "what is the best course for the common good of Minneapolis" I
reluctantly conclude that it is not to spend a substantial amount of public money on a
new stadium. As others on the List have already articulated, Minneapolis has too many
higher priorities for public dollars, at a time when the city's budget suffers from
"internal deficits." Moreover, the citizens of Minneapolis have made it abundantly
clear that they don't want public dollars spent on a new stadium. I have to respect
the clearly expressed will of the majority, even when it pains me to do so.
All that having been said, I share Clark's disappointment with the reaction to
the owners' vote this week. The coverage of this story by The Oregonian in Portland
and the Pacific Northwest edition of The New York Times made Minneapolis look pitiful
in the truest sense of the word. Even if you agree with our fellow List members who
articulated their contempt for Mr. Pohlad and wealthy baseball players, anyone who
loves Minneapolis and cares about its national reputation has to be troubled by this
turn of events. I find it particularly ironic that in a week in which we elected a
candidate for Mayor who ran, in part, on a pledge to promote Minneapolis more
aggressively than the incumbent, that all the folks on the List who supported the
Mayor-elect would view the likely loss of the Twins with apathy.
I can only think of one viable solution to this problem. The only cities that are
as progressive as Minneapolis and that chose to build new major league baseball
stadiums are San Francisco and Seattle. I don't endorse the Seattle method; the
Mariners rammed a voter referendum through and built Safeco Field despite clear public
preference against it. San Francisco built its park entirely with private money.
Minneapolis has to do the same. This means someone has to come up with $500 million:
$200 million to purchase the team from Mr. Pohlad, and $300 million for a stadium. In
the current environment, this seems unlikely.
I wish I had enough capital to be a part of the solution. I don't. I'm just a
higher education administrator who loves Major League Baseball, and would like to take
his one-year old son to a game someday without having to drive all the way to
Milwaukee to do it. Although I'm not a native son of Minneapolis, I love the city as
my adopted home town and I hate to see it humiliated by being perceived by the rest of
the country as being too "poor" to sustain a Major League Baseball team.
Finally, I write to remind everyone of some baseball, and Minneapolis history. As
a newcomer, I often heard older Minneapolis baseball fans state that the "glory days"
for baseball in Minneapolis were the days in which the Minneapolis Millers, a farm
team for the San Francisco Giants, played at Nicollet Park. If Minneapolis loses the
Twins, I hope we will work toward the establishment of a Class AAA farm team in
Minneapolis again (note: not the Twin Cities, but Minneapolis. Saint Paul already has
the Saints, and their success shouldn't be jeopardized.) Perhaps, some day in the not
too distant future, the next Derek Jeter will fondly recall his days playing minor
league baseball in front of enthusiastic fans in Minneapolis.
Sincerely,
Vince Thomas
Ward 13-Lynnhurst Neighborhood
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