Re: [Mpls] Re: Soucheray's column in Pioneer Press

[Brobson34]

When Ms. Nelson refers to "sans taxpayers monies" for funding a new stadium, I assume she is really saying "sans involuntary taxpayers monies," as the St. Paul proposal is certainly loaded with sales tax revenue.
As for her pat assumption that a stadium will definitely be built, I'd argue that it is still a longshot. What stadium proponents don't seem to realize is how appallingly annoying they have become over the years. I am a huge sports fan--I learned how to read by perusing the sports page of the newspaper, have made at least part of my living for the past 15 years or so writing about sports and am conversant in way too much useless trivia on a variety of athletic accomplishments. But I've got to say that the steady refusal of stadium proponents to take no for an answer has even begun to grate on my nerves.
Does anyone deny that baseball is run by a group of corrupt jerks? That the whole idea of fair competition has already been long obliterated by a good old boy's network that not only loans money to each other, but punishes peers that don't play along. The SF Giants built themselves a stadium with private money, a terrible precedent for the game's barons. Is it a coincidence that the league subsequently lent the Giants' biggest divisional competitor, the Arizona Diamondbacks, tens of millions of dollars, without which they never would have been in a position to win this year's World Series. And now we have a situation where the other owners are going to collectively run the Montreal Expos. Until and unless there is an incredible sea change in the way the game is operated--and I don't anticipate it--then I have sympathy for those in Minneapolis who don't mind seeing St. Paul saddle themselves with debt.

Britt Robson
Lyndale