Stadium Blackmail, Tacoma-Style
by guest columnist Doug Nufer
(YESTERDAY, our guest columnist wrote about Safeco Field, that tax-subsidized sports palace where the most expensive seats can be among the worst. Today, he contrasts that with the supposedly more populist ideal of the minor leagues.)
RATHER THAN BROOD like a nowhere man, I try to be a good citizen of the contemporary sports utopia.
But then, I’ve always been a sucker for outdoor baseball.
A cloudy forecast sent me to Tacoma the weekend the Yankees were in Seattle, because I’d rather spend hours in the rain than any time sitting inside a domed stadium because of a mere threat of rain.
Unfortunately, but predictably, Triple-A baseball in Tacoma is threatened by a series of factors, some of which are all wet. The Tacoma Rainiers, owned by chicken mogul George Foster of northern California, demanded $22 million from the city last winter for stadium improvements (i.e., luxury boxes).
Then, as if to facilitate an exit strategy for the 40-year-old franchise, the Pacific Coast League gave them more weekend games in April and May than in August (one weekend series).
Since Foster bought the team from a Tacoma group put together by ex-GM Stan Naccarato, he had taken some drastic and initially effective measures to deal with the utopian math of minor league attendance figures, where giveaways inflate totals but, nonetheless, fill the park with thirsty and hungry fans. He cut back on freebies and created an “on-deck club,” doling out special perks to the country-club set.
But how do you sell luxury boxes in a town that’s 35 miles away from a stadium that, except for the luxury boxes, exudes luxury? Tacoma big shots might rather spend a few thousand bucks on a season ticket plan in Seattle.
And why spend $5 to get into Cheney Stadium when that’ll get you into a Mariner game? Last year the Rainiers appeared to fall back into the Tacoma Tiger policy of having a lot of free ticket promotions. Beer is cheaper in Cheney ($4.75 for a big Grants vs. about that much for a 12-oz. Bud in the bigs), but smuggling food is legal in Seattle’s taxpayer park and allegedly illegal in Tacoma’s.
Other than that, there’s Tightwad Hill, looming over the right field wall, offering the ultimate utopia for the outdoor baseball fan, a place to smoke cigars and drink cheap beer for free.
Ballparks age, die, and get razed or imploded. Somebody has to pay for all of this destruction. Why shouldn’t it be you?
If Paul Allen buys a special election to build one football stadium on the contingency of annihilating of another one, rather than denounce this as a travesty of democracy, maybe we should appreciate the civics lesson.
It doesn’t matter that he spent more money than anyone ever did on an election, or that the people in Seattle voted against his scheme. He won.
And in the utopia of sports, winning is everything.
MONDAY: For May Day, a piece on the Way-New Left.
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