Cry Me a River

Maybe if we weren’t in the midst of Bears-a-palooza somebody might pay attention to what’s happening in Florida, which is nothing. And that matters a whole bunch to the White Sox. You see, nothing’s happening in St. Petersburg but was supposed to. The Rays were all in as part of a grand redevelopment project that included a $1.3 billion stadium for them. All they had to do was come up with their part of the funding, in the neighborhood of $700 million. Yesterday, ownership announced, no can do, without saying exactly why. The first thing to point out here is that this was the market Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move to if he didn’t get a new stadium. Folks, people may play baseball in Florida, but they won’t pay to watch it played. The inability of a MLB team to participate in this kind of venture shows just how much times have changed since the late 1980s. The public wants private skin in the game when it comes to new stadiums. The Rays got no skin. Now what? Does ownership threaten to move? Does it sell? If they move, that’s one less place for Reinsdorf to threaten to go to if he doesn’t get a new stadium in Chicago. And even if the Rays are sold to local ownership, the situation serves as a cautionary tale about big urban redevelopment projects featuring stadiums. They’re not a shoe-in to get done. Reinsdorf may have to promise to kick in more money than he’d like to in order to get what he wants where he wants. And people like me will make a point of telling the public why it’s a bad idea to give it to him. So, things could get interesting regardless how many games the Sox win.