I'm just glad the damn thing is over (baseball)

Image from Associated Research. (This image reminds me of an incident with an old girlfriend, who was helping herself to my wallet. "What are you doing?" I exclaimed. "Taking your money!" I couldn't help but laugh. With Major League Baseball, "taking your money" operates at a wholly different level.)

Early this morning, the DC City Council approved an agreement with Major League Baseball. I have a great deal of issue fatigue on this and am glad it's "over." It's interesting though in the same kind of way the previous entry discusses how public participation is often circumscribed in ways that truly limit the ability to advocate.

A similar, but different, problem occured over the baseball stadium negotiations. I think what upsets so many people is that so much in the way of public resources are being directed to a relative handful of already very wealthy people, and these people, because they rarely interact with the rest of us, comparatively, poor people, they aren't used to being criticized for reaching their grubby hands into public coffers.

That Congress doesn't step in and protect municipalities from professional sports leagues is a travesty.

Anyway, to prove the point that Major League Baseball is happy to spend other peoples money, not their own, I loved this sentence from Tom Boswell's column, "Nationals' Stadium Gets a New Lease on Life," in the Post sports section today:

By last weekend, supporters of the Anacostia waterfront park thought the deal finally was airtight. Baseball even lobbied President Bush, former owner of the Texas Rangers, to include $20 million in his budget for infrastructure costs near the new park.
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Also see this blog, Capitol Punishment, for some well-chosen words about and MLB being handed assets worth $600 million, where he says (about Boswell's column):

It has multiple juicy quotes from Bob Dupuy and a quote from an early frontrunner for the asshat of the year award:"People are beside themselves. They're trying to blackmail us," said one baseball source. "We're not going to take it."

It helps to be connected and to own a professional sports team.

Index Keywords: baseball