The history of sports stadiums, one, two, three
Recently I did an article on public funding for baseball parks, football stadiums and indoor basketball and hockey arenas. Whether it’s a basketball arena in Seattle, a new baseball park in New York or a new football stadium in Minneapolis, sports venues and who pays for them is a major issue around the country.
The history of sports venue funding can be broken down into three stages - In the early 1900’s, baseball stadiums were built and paid for by teams. By the late 1960’s, new parks were springing up in most major cities. These were usually located downtown, and were built on the public dime. Owners, politicians and media often trumpeted these new stadiums as part of a downtown renaissance. That perception was proven untrue. In recent years much has been written about sports owners and the public now working together in tandem in creating spanking new sports sites.
However, the thrust of the article was that the public’s paying the freight now more than ever. And the idea that sports teams and the public are somehow partnering is only so much smoke and mirrors. The Village Voice did a fine investigative piece a year ago about the New York Yankees and Mets and their ``partnering’’ with the public on their new ballparks. While the teams build the ballparks they’re no longer paying rent on their current homes and receive all kinds of tax deductions.
The Yankees and Mets had never made much headway in getting new stadiums until 2001. Before leaving office, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani made a deal with the teams, his parting gift for the city. When asked why he didn’t put the new stadiums up for a vote, Giuliani replied, ``because they’d get voted down.’’ According to the Voice when current mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to renegotiate the original deal he wound up giving the Yankees and Mets an EVEN BETTER deal than the original.
In Seattle, when the Safeco baseball field was built the public paid $372 million for the stadium and the owners threw in $145 mil. When neighboring Qwest Field was built for football the public share was $300 million and the owners share (aka billionaire Paul Allen) only $130. Not exactly an even split.
In September 1995, King County voters had rejected a proposal for a new baseball stadium. But within two months, the Mariners baseball club began talks with local politicians on how to fund a new stadium. Despite nine different lawsuits, the publicly subsidized Safeco Field opened in Seattle in 1999.
In retrospect, Seattleites should have only been surprised that the stadium reached the ballot stage in the first place. In San Diego for example, building a baseball, football or basketball stadium has NEVER reached the ballot. In Baltimore, attempts to put the proposal for Camden Yards on the ballot in 1991 were shot down by the courts even though a citizens’ group opposing the stadium appeared to have legal precedent on its side.
At this point the question has to be asked - do public subsidies benefit the cities that house sports teams? According to objective studies the answer’s a resounding NO. Local economic benefits are overrated. If people weren’t spending money at sporting events they’d be spending money on something else. Also most stadium jobs are seasonal, part-time, low wage. People don’t make living wages selling hot dogs and programs at baseball and basketball games.
According to Roger G. Noll co-author of Sports, Jobs, and Taxes, ``there’s never been a subsidized stadium anywhere in the United States that had the effect of increasing employment and economic growth in the city in which it was built.’’
Meanwhile back in Seattle, the Sonics’ basketball team has tried to threaten, cajole and beg local municipalities to build them a new arena. If anything, the success that the Mariners and Seahawks had in getting new facilities has worked against the Sonics who received a jarring lesson in how little people care about them.
New owner Clay Bennett recently had a Howard Beale-moment as he channeled the lead character from the 1970’s movie Network with a rant about how politicians, sports talk show hosts and newspaper columnists haven’t come up with any new ideas for a Sonics area. Bennett however failed to mention the Seattle media have written columns about some of his Oklahoma limited partners belonging to anti-gay groups. The Sonics ``sister’’ team, the Seattle Storm, has a strong lesbian base.
For anyone interested in keeping up-to-date on new stadiums and arenas (and who’s paying for them) check out www.fieldofschemes.com.

This time Bill Buckner fields the ball
While the movie Pennant Fever starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon opened to considerable fanfare in 2005 (helped in part by the movie’s subject, the Boston Red Sox, actually winning the World Series while the movie was being made) the quintessential Red Sox movie may in fact be Game 6, a cheaper independent film starring Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr.
Red Sox fans surely know what Game 6 refers to- the historic game between Boston and the New York Mets in 1986; a World Series game that ended in a car wreck of a baseball game with the ball going through the legs of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. In Game 6, Keaton portrays Nick Rogan, a New York playwright who’s losing his wife, daughter and mistress, his father’s dying, and the star of his new play can’t remember his lines. Plus, there’s the specter of a New York Times critic who Rogan feels will destroy his play (and career). The entire movie takes place on Saturday, October 25, 1986 and Rogan figures if the Red Sox can win their first World Series since 1918 that night against the Mets then maybe his luck will begin to change.
The movie follows Rogan through an eventful day drawing comparisons to director Michael Hoffman’s work of 20 years ago, After Hours, a quirky, at-times scary, look at a man trying to work his way home out of a dangerous New York city. The actor who portrayed the hapless protagonist in After Hours, Griffin Dunne, produced Game 6, and appears as Keaton’s friend who had his career (or let his career be) destroyed by theater critic Downey.
Overall Keaton’s angst-ridden character resonates more with Red Sox fans than the terminally cute Fallon and Barrymore from Fever Pitch. Rogan’s temporally pulled out of his gloom by a sunny cab driver and her grandson only to be pulled into manic depression by the Mets’ miracle comeback. But the classically cynical Boston sports fan wants to believe. Nick Rogan wills himself into seeing Buckner field Mookie Wilson’s ground ball and the game continuing. It’s only after arguing with Met fans that he accidently catches a replay of what really happened.
What I liked most about the movie was that there were no references to the so-called, ``Curse Of The Bambino,’’ the curse that prevented the Red Sox from winning the World Series because they traded Babe Ruth to the arch-rival Yankees. I could be wrong, but the origin of that concept came right after the Buckner game. Game 7, the next day, a Sunday, was rained out, and the New York Times’ lead sports columnist George Vecsey had to scramble for a column for the paper’s Big Monday section. Said column dealt with how maybe it was the Bambino himself who willed one heartbreak after another on his former team.
Then it was the annoying Boston Globe scribe Dan Shaughnessy who made a cottage injury out of the curse with first a book and then too numerous columns to count that gave the spirit of George Herman power over anything that occurred on the field . Shaughnessy didn’t disappoint friends and enemies when he got a new book out about `,’the end of the curse,’ in what seemed like only days after Keith Foulke threw out Edgar Renteria for the final out of the 2004 series.
But getting back to the movie – Keaton and Dunne (who played brothers in a funny movie called ``Johnny Dangerously’’ years ago) have good chemistry together and Ari Graynor, ``Veronica Mars,’’ is a standout as Keaton’s daughter. Bebe Neuwirth ``Cheers’’ and Catherine O’Hara ``SCTV’’ and a zillion movies, are only in one scene each as Nicky Rogan’s mistress and wife respectively. If you’ve ever wanted to see Lillith from Cheers bare assed this is the movie..
How Rogan comes to terms with the loss is perhaps the weakest part of the movie (and the historical fact that the Red Sox and Mets still had one more game to play has to be downplayed for the sake of the narrative) and a few other questions come to mind. Why didn’t Nick Rogan make plans to go to the game if he’s such a big Red Sox fan? And while there are a couple of references to Johnny Pesky holding the ball too long in the 1986 World Series how come there’s nary a mention of Bucky ``Bleeping’’ Dent. Don’t true Red Sox fans hate the Yankees as much as they love their own team. Especially those living in New York.
Game 6 opened to limited release in 2005 but is now available in most video stores.

Warning! Warning! This Is A Book Review
In the 1960’s you could tell a lot about a news media outlet by how they referred to the most well-known athlete of the era. It may come as a surprise to a whole generation that boxer Muhammad Ali was still called Cassias Clay by many sportswriters and sportscasters for several years after changing his name.
When Ali fought Floyd Patterson, a Black, Patterson said, ``this fight is a crusade to reclaim the (heavyweight boxing) the title from Black Muslims. As a Catholic I am fighting Clay as a patriotic duty.’’ Ali easily defeated Patterson, chanting, ``What’s my name? Is my name Clay? What’s my name, fool?’’ as he pummeled his opponent for nine rounds.
Fittingly, Dave Zirin’s book ``What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States,’’ chronicles athletes like Ali who stood up to the status quo. It also examines the narrowing divide between the sports world and the so-called ``real’’ world. Zirin rejects the notion that anthems, military jingoism and players thanking their savior in post-game interviews be accepted, while writing about racial prejudice, sexism and athletes who speak out against the war is criticized for being too political. And is there anything more political than cities building sports stadiums for professional teams with taxpayer money? Zinin rights about that as well. All-in-all it’s good reading for anyone who thinks sports talk can be deeper than who the Red Sox fifth starter should be.
Like many budding future sportswriters, Zirin wrote a sports column for his high school newspaper. But just before he entered college, Zirin attended a college basketball game in the early 1990’s. In the midst of Gulf War frenzy a mascot ``beat up’’ someone dressed like an Arab while the crowd chanted ``USA, USA.’’ That so incensed Zirin he lost interest in sports for four years.
However, Zirin went into journalism as a career, and soon found himself writing about sports once again. In 1996, NBA player Mahmoud Abdul Rauf refused to stand for the national anthem and was buried under a right-wing bombast. Zirin told the League Of Fans website, ``it became clear our side needed a history of resistance in US pro sports.’’
HHHHThe appearance of Ali, who was stripped of his title for refusing induction into military service, on the cover of Zirin’s book is particularly important. At the time Ali explained, ``I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.’’ Contrast that to the 1990’s when basketball superstar and North Carolina native Michael Jordan refused to endorse a Black candidate running against long-time segregationist Jesse Helms. ``Republicans buy shoes too,’’ exclaimed Jordan, as much a cultural icon as Ali but a man who never met a commercial endorsement he didn’t like.
But while Jordan sells his Nike shoes and sneakers, Zirin writes that there are echoes of a new sporting resistance. Most Valuable Player Steve Nash and the Washington Wizards’ Etan Thomas are among several NBA players who are critical of the war in Iraq; Toni Smith, the center of the Division III Manhattanville College women’s basketball team, turned her back to the flag after the US invaded Iraq; former NFL star Carl Eller used his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame to chastise America for turning its back on the Black male; and former NFL defensive tackle Esera Tualo admitted he was gay (no active major league baseball, football, basketball or hockey player has ever ``come out of the closet’’)
These athletes rank as the spiritual successors to the ``radical’’ athletes of the late 1960’s and early `70’s who stood up to the institutional racism and corporate greed of the time (and with an unpopular war as a backdrop). Along with Ali this group includes U.S. Olympians Tommy Smith and John Carlos, who gave the black power salute while standing on the podium at Mexico City after Smith received the gold medal and Carlos the bronze in the 200 meter run (Black athletes had considered boycotting the Olympics); Dave Meggyesy, a former NFL star and author of ``Out Of Their League’’ which deals with how big-time sports dehumanizes athletes; and Curt Food, who challenged baseball’s reserve clause which in turn led to major league baseball (behind union leader Marvin Miller) becoming the most powerful union in sports.
In turn, Flood and other baseball players who challenged baseball’s reserve clause were the spiritual and political descendants of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson who successfully challenged baseball’s color line in 1946. Zirin writes about Robinson and Lester Rodney, forgotten by the mainstream media as a champion against segregation in major league baseball.
Rodney began as sports editor of the U.S. Communist Party newspaper, the Daily Worker (yes, the Daily Worker had a sports editor) in the 1930’s and soon began crusading against segregation (Jim Crow laws) in baseball. He also covered the Negro Leagues, unheard of in the establishment press, writing articles about their great stars like Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell.
The spiritual descendant of Rodney, Zirin’s work has appeared in publications as diverse as the International Socialist Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Pittsburgh Courier (a leading black newspaper) and SLAM Magazine, a basketball magazine geared towards younger, hipper basketball fans. ``I consider myself a radical journalist,’’ Zirin told writer Mark Schneider on the Reporters Declaration web site. ``I think the best journalist is about taking sides, consciously.’’
``What’s My Name, Fool’’ is about to go into its second printing, published by Haymarket Books. Many of the articles in the book come from Zirin’s Edge Of Sports column. Previous articles can also be read at www.edgeofsports.com. To read new Zirin columns write to subscribe@zirin.com. Zirin’s also working on a new book, ``People’s History of Sports’’ with Howard Zinn.

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We can't miss you if you don't leavr

The first time I saw the Seattle Sonics in person was the early 1980’s.The big news then was the acquisition of David Thompson, who as a college player pretty much single-handedly ended UCLA’s string of NCAA championships.
Back then the Sonics played at the city’s largest venue- the Kingdome-before the roof started collapsing. Thompson scored the game’s final points, a shot from midcourt as time ran out, beating the visiting San Antonio Spurs by one point and sending the crowd into a collective state of euphoria. If you missed the winning shot or had gone home early, you could see the tape delay of the game at least twice the next day on the all-sports channel. Back then the sports channel was mostly Sonic games.
It was a Sonics’ town back, but if Seattle loves only winners then the Sonics can’t even get a date these days. For anyone who’s been living under a rock the past few months, or just watching hockey games, Sonics’ team president Howard Schultz is demanding that the city spend 220 million to spruce up Key Arena, the team’s home venue. Once known as the Seattle Coliseum, the city did 75 million bucks of repair work less than ten years ago.
The request (demand?) also comes despite the fact that recently the team has made the playoffs about as often as most Seattleites have something nice to say about George Bush. The Sonics have even threatened to move (along with their sister team, the Storm) when their contract expires in 2010 if demands aren’t met. Seattle City Council president Nick Licata told Sports Illustrated the effects of the Sonics leaving town would be, ``on an economic basis near zero, on a cultural basis close to zero.’’
While cities have often paid the freight for baseball and football stadiums the Sonics’ situation is somewhat unique. Seattle’s NBA franchise is only a tenant in the building (albeit the major one) along with the Storm, Seattle Thunderbirds’ minor league hockey, ice shows and music concerts. The Council says its primary concern is with Key Arena itself, not to mention the rest of the Seattle Center which has grown a little long in the tooth in recent years.
Last year it appeared the Sonics may have had an ally in Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. The mayor took the team’s case (unsuccessfully) to the state legislature but in his 2006 state of the city address Nickels said the Sonics weren’t ``an immediate problem.’’ Nickels, whose biggest concern lately is to find money to build a tunnel on the waterfront added, ``we can imagine a future without NBA basketball that would be perfectly fine at the Seattle Center.’’
The Sonics appear to be victims? of a bad economy, lousy teams and Seattleites who are still torked off about the presence of Safeco Field after a majority of voters had given thumbs down to a new ballyard. However, there were people who wanted to keep baseball in Seattle – i.e. those who picketed King County Council head Ron Sims – but no one seems to be taking up the Sonics’ cause. Even bloggers who regularly write about the team and KJR, the city's all-sports radio station(which admittedly just lost the Sonics), don't show the team much sympathy.
Rachael Myers remembers cheering on the Seattle Sonics as a youngster. Her mom even had Rachael and her sister send a card to the Sonics in lieu of screaming at the TV. But today, Myers is one of the leaders of a group called ``Fine Then, Leave,'' http://www.finethenleave.com. The group, comprised of several community activists who are against welfare for the rich, say that if the Sonics are threatening to go Kansas City, Oklahoma City, or nearby Bellevue, well- ``fine then, leave,’’- and don’t let the door whack you in the wazzou on the way out.
Myers, the Director of Advocacy and Organizing for the Real Change Homeless Advocacy Project, figures that the County could spend $220 million on 2,000 units of permanent affordable housing or shelter 2,000 people for 18 years. The group hopes that the words of Bellevue developer Bob Wallace don't come true - ``I personally believe than at the 11th hour, Seattle politicians will come running and make a deal (with the Sonics).''
Recently, ``Fine, Don't Leave'' held a noon rally outside of City Hall recently. While only about 30 people braved the rainy weather, there were presentations (John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coaliton gave one Most Valuable Priorities trophy to neighborhood activist Jan Bruckner, as that's where the money should be going) people dressed in Wizard Of Oz costumes, a giant goodbye card that was delivered to the Mayor and the City Council, and plenty of cake. As of last week, a total of 883 people have signed the group's online poll stating they don't want any money going to the Sonics.
Unfortunately the Seattle Times, the city's largest daily paper didn't cover the event. A reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the city's smaller but supposedly better daily, was also in attendance. Unfortunately, her story just harped on how no one was there. None of the City Council members were in attendance, but one council member (known to be sympathetic to big business interests) was returning from lunch. When informed what the rally was about she exclaimed, ``I'd better not go over there.''
Currently, the Sonics' status is on hold, but Adam Glickman, a spokesperson for Service Employees International Union 775, says his union and other groups are considering a ballot measure this fall to prohibit using taxpayer money for an arena.