How to Make Friends and Alienate People

"Any search for a new ballpark site needs to explore all of the Tampa Bay region. This is what we repeated to Mayor Foster today. We thanked him for his gesture, and we conveyed to him again that we will consider sites in St. Petersburg and Gateway when we are considering all potential sites in Tampa Bay." - Matt Silverman, Tampa Bay Rays Team President

With that statement, Stuart Sternberg and his team of upper managers have not only said both Tropicana Field and downtown St. Petersburg are done, but they also want nothing to do with Pinellas County at this point, as well. He and his associates have managed to insult, degrade, and belittle the team's only allies for the last 13 years. Tampa has said repeatedly that they cannot and will not pay for a stadium on their side of the Bay, yet he continues to push the issue. Why, knowing all that, would be tempted to bite the hand that feeds him?

Almost three years ago, the then-Devil Rays gave us fans two things to cheer for: a new name and color scheme, as well as plans for a new, waterfront, open-air ballpark right in the heart of St. Petersburg. It was a technological marvel, promising the freedom of open-air baseball, with fresh breezes off the Bay and air-conditioned corridors to keep the temperature in check, and the protection of a weatherproof fabric retractable roof that would blend seamlessly into the skyline and prevent inevitable rainouts. It would be built on the longtime home of Spring Training in St. Pete, Al Lang Field, a place where baseball was played for three generations. Great teams from the Miracle Mets, Ozzie Smith's Cards, eight of the Yankees' championship teams, and the 1951 NY Giants' pennant winners, not counting all the teams that played on this hallowed ground as visitors over the decades. This ballpark even experienced an actual live-birth of a new team, the Gulf Coast League Devil Rays, the necessary precursor to today's American League Rays, that first took the field in 1996 on this site.

So, it has the pedigree and it has the views of downtown and the Bay, but does it have the space for something this size? The drawings presented to the public showed that, with minimal disruption to the original footprint, the dream stadium of the Rays would fit. Yes, it would require a 600+/- square foot section of the Bay to be filled in near the dogleg on Bayshore Dr SE, but it would guarantee St. Pete would be the home of Major League Baseball in Tampa Bay for a very long time. With ample parking downtown, connection to Interstate 275 via two connecting freeways, and access to the existing bus hub in downtown - with space available in the parking lots of the St. Petersburg Times for an intermodal transit hub when rail gets going in a decade or so - what could possibly be the downside to this?

Enter 1 Beach Drive, St. Petersburg, FL, 33701 aka the Bayfront Tower.

What seemed like a surefire way for the city to get the 80 acres the Trop sits on back onto the tax roles and a permanent home to the area's "boys of summer" quickly turned awry. Betting against old, rich, blue hairs with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it is a mistake. After a year of debates, protests, campaigns for and against the proposal, and being a hot-button issue in the mayoral race, the Rays officially tabled the idea indefinitely. What seemed like the right thing for a city on the rise was now just a smoldering pile of ash. The dream stadium would stay just that: an eternal dream that would never come about.

Fast forward to June 2010, where the Rays - which had been dodging the question since their first proposal died, who insisted they're not demanding anything but "we will not be playing in Tropicana Field in 2027" - all of a sudden demanded something: a new home, and soon. But it came with a caveat: no more talk of downtown St. Pete, and probably no more talk of St. Pete as a whole. The place where the impossible dream started will no longer the be the home of the next dream. Just like a jilted lover left on his knee after his girlfriend said, "No," the Rays are doing what they can to cut ties with St. Pete, including possibly spiting them by leaving the county entirely. What once seemed like a sure thing less than 24 months prior turned into, for lack of a better word, a clusterfuck.

So, Stu has done everything right to this point: he made his case, brought forth a proposal, accepted the first defeat gracefully, plotted his next move, and pulled the trigger. Hell, it could even be argued that his refusal to accept the first (of many to come, I'm sure) compromise by the City since this all started was smart. As a good friend of mine pointed out, "It doesn't matter to me where they go as long as it's not out of state or too far out of the TB area." And despite my rage for the cavalier attitude in Stu's blatant shunning of St. Pete, he's right: we do need to do whatever it takes to keep them, as they are our team, and to let the Rays go to Portland or Charlotte because of our petty parochialism would be a PR disaster of epic proportions for the region as a whole. No one would ever want to move to such a "spiteful, ungrateful, and shameless" area; we've already gotten a black eye for - no matter if it's justified or not - our treatment of the homeless population, so we shouldn't give the national media any other reason to turn potential new residents away.

That all said, St. Pete shouldn't be sold out, either, to make the "spirit of cooperation" work. As I've said previously, we stand to lose the most should they leave our city, as we we've been the ones putting out the money to make the team viable in the area. As evidenced by their television ratings, they are definitely a team with a loyal and deep fan base, despite the accusations by know-nothings from other regions, so it's not a case of overall apathy. In fact, I think they could do just as well, or maybe even marginally better, over in downtown Tampa, though not as good as people are alluding. (Let's face it: until mass transit is up and running, people just don't like the hassle of driving and parking along with 17,000 others.)

Without some kind of guarantees in a new contract, however, St. Pete loses something more than status as a "major league city" by forfeiting the Rays to Tampa or anywhere else: they lose the revenue brought in, and in the end, that's all that should matter to the City. There's a guaranteed 81 days a year - in the middle of a summer season that's brutal for natives, let alone visitors - where people will be downtown. People are spending more time downtown since parking is harder and harder to get at the Trop, and they make more impulse purchases based on what they see when they walk by, which is what fuels areas around the county like Wrigleyville, the Inner Harbor, and the Gas Lamp Quarter.

Losing that guaranteed draw will cause irreparable harm to the overall economy of the city; the Suncoast Dome was built to get the city out of that same economic disaster in the first place. So, that's the main reason Foster needs to try and keep them in St. Pete first, but if they can't (and without a proposal by the City the team can't refuse) they need to focus on protecting our interests. Require any negotiations with other cities include a guaranteed percentage of the revenue coming to St. Pete. In return, we invest that same percentage rate into the final cost of the new stadium. We force the first cooperative effort by any of our cities since the bridges were built, which in turn could lead to more cross-Bay relationships, including mass transit, and finally bring us on-par with other metros across the country. Doing so guarantees St. Pete much-needed revenue for as long as the stadium stands, the Rays get their dream stadium in any city they want, and the new home of the Rays is still within 60 minutes of the loyal fan base it has painstakingly created over the past 13 years.

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm spoiled. I have baseball in my backyard and don't have to sacrifice much to be there; sadly, not everyone's that lucky. However, this is a very spread-out area, so getting a stadium near the vast majority of the population - like it is in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles - is near impossible. To make it all work, we all need to sacrifice something we cherish. For me, it's the stubbornness of letting them leave my grasp and following them wherever they end up. For St. Pete, it's the civic pride and bragging rights they bring. For people more than 15 miles from the stadium, it's the idea that "if it's not 5 minutes away, it's too far," and tossing that out the window.

We cannot, however, sacrifice everything for something, and when being put in an unreasonable position of "bad guy" solely for the "greater good" without any chance to ask for anything in return is unacceptable. If you'd like to be a good negotiator, Stu, next time St. Pete comes to the table with a proposal, understand the City will inevitably lose massive amounts of cash based on your move and offer them a bone in return for their cooperation. You'd be surprised how far you can go with a little empathy.

Where's Our All-Star Game, Bud?!?

Tonight - Tuesday, June 13, 2010 - the 81st Major League Baseball All-Star Game will take place at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. It's considered to be the showcase of baseball's most-talented players. Almost every Hall-of-Famer has played here in the national spotlight of the Midsummer Classic. It brings to the city - and the team - that hosts it the pomp and circumstance that goes along with it. And money - lots of money. Tourists from across the country, people who not only love their teams, but baseball as an institution more so, come to that city for two nights to soak in all that is the All-Star Game.

Now, it's St. Pete's - and Florida's - turn to share in this tradition.

I know what you're thinking: "Not until they build a new stadium should one be awarded." And I'll call you out right now and say you're naïve and wrong, and here's why:

Never has there been an All-Star Game held in the Sunshine State, and once the Diamondbacks host the game next year - unless the protesters get their way - the Marlins and the Rays will be the only two teams never to have hosted one (the Nationals hosted one while still in Montreal, but otherwise, every other team has hosted one in their current city). Right there, you put two teams that are constantly marked in the news as "poor attendance teams" at a monetary disadvantage for both the year they'd have it and subsequent years preceding and following. They don't have the right to say "Home of the xxxx All-Star Game" on their door, while the other teams can - and do. The "Luxury Tax" encourages parity in the system, but ignoring a state of 19 million - and two metros with a combined population of 9.5 million - in choosing a site for your showcase game goes a long way to calling that tax a farce.

"Why the Rays over the Marlins, then? The Marlins have more people in their metro, as well as two World Series rings." Simple: it rains in the summer in Florida. Compared with its counterpart in Miami Gardens, Tropicana Field is a 43,000-seat (with the tarps off) icebox, complete with 72˚ temperatures, a non-existent breeze, and nary a cloud in the sky. There is zero chance for a rain delay in the dome, and - as shown during the 2008 World Series - St. Pete knows how to throw a party. This time, they'd have more time to prepare to make it spectacular. That's the difference between prepping for a World Series and ASG: time. With a World Series, you have 2-3 weeks top to get the items that cost and can't be returned if you don't make it, whereas you have 3-4 years to prep for an ASG that you know is coming for certain. St. Pete shined during the World Series, so with enough time, it'll blow that away as the biggest event ever in the city.

"But domes aren't good for baseball; plus having the catwalks will make the Home Run Derby a 'disgrace'." There have been four fixed-roof stadiums to host the ASG: Houston's Astrodome (thrice), Seattle's Kingdome, the Twin Cities' Metrodome, and Montreal's Stade Olympique. Another five additional outdoor stadiums have held the festivities on what was considered to be a poorer-grade turf than the Trop has today: Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium (twice), Philly's Veterans Stadium (twice), Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium (twice), Toronto's SkyDome, and Washington's RFK Stadium (during the Senators/Rangers era), the last one as late as 1996 at the Vet. In all, that works out to 14 games (17.28%) played on similar conditions to the Trop, and a whopping 50% of the games played from 1968-1996 (first and last years on turf) were played indoors and on the fake stuff. Granted, none of them have the catwalk issue, but the point remains the Trop wouldn't be the first fixed-dome to host, as that precedent was set back in 1968, and it wouldn't be the first - or theoretically the last - with an artificial surface to host, either (1968-70, three years in a row did, and the SkyDome - now the Rogers Centre - is not planning on planting the natural stuff anytime soon, seeing as they just has a major upgrade on their AstroTurf this year). In fact, it could be a fitting sendoff to the era of domes by allowing the Trop to have the honors sooner, seeing as the lifespan has been significantly shortened recently.

And on the catwalk issue, a new precedent could, in fact, be set for the Home Run Derby. If they felt those concentric rings were "disgraceful", move the Derby to Al Lang Field. That's right: a small Minor League-sized park overlooking Tampa Bay could be the center of the baseball universe for one night, just as it had been for those 94 years of Spring Training, another homage to the past. Take some of the bleachers from the Grand Prix of St. Pete and put them as temporary seating along the outfield wall, and you've just turned the small ballpark by the Bay into the ideal spot to smash home runs all night.

"Why not just wait until a new stadium is built?" If Bud had his way, it'd have been opening next year already...somewhere else. However, our region is currently in an upheaval over whether Tampa or St. Pete - or Charlotte - should get the Rays, so based on the rate new stadiums are granted the privilege of hosting an ASG, we'd be waiting 15-20 years before we were even considered. Quite frankly, the Rays don't have that long. The Marlins have a new stadium being built on Calle Ocho, so they're not going anywhere anytime soon. The Rays, on the other hand, have a contract that can easily be bought out keeping them here. We need something that will bring this community around them once and for all, and the ASG will do that. At the rate things are going, we can't afford to wait.

So, Mr. Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, I know you'll never read this, but you need to know that St. Pete and Tampa Bay, for all we have done for baseball over the past 100 years, want, need, and deserve the All-Star Game in Tropicana Field. To continue to give it to the "haves" in baseball is a disgrace, while the "have-nots" have to fight to even keep our teams around. So we don't have the Taj Mahal of baseball; that honor belongs to the Bronx. We also don't have the ancient stomping grounds of legends past; those are in Boston and Chicago. Nor do we have the shiniest and newest of stadiums; in fact, we're the 9th-oldest. However, we have a place guaranteed to have perfect weather, a great atmosphere, a sellout crowd, and enough positive highlights to make it a game to remember. Enough with playing politics and let us just have the game that - for all the right reasons - belongs in the heart and birthplace of Spring Training, St. Petersburg, Florida.

A House Divided...

In 1990, a decades-old dream was finally realized. It started with a visionary named Albert Lang, who, way back in 1914, decided he wanted something to help bolster the tourism and appeal of the bayside hamlet of which he was the visionary mayor. Then, sixty years later, the leaders of the now-burgeoning city realized St. Petersburg's best days were behind them: crime was rampant in the southern and downtown parts of the city, and the northern reaches were relegated to nothing more than over-glorified retirement communities. The tax base was way down for even the most basic of emergency services, thereby straining the coffers to the point of breaking. "White Flight" was just as prevalent here as it was in the Rust Belt. Something needed to be done, and they had an epiphany: they needed to use the one thing that still brought the people back every spring and make it a more permanent fixture, bringing people here to spend their money in the dead of summer so they can realize it's not a bad place to live and bring their money with them full-time.

Thus, the Florida Suncoast Dome was born. Of course, like Rome, it wasn't built in a day - or a decade for that matter. But eventually, after much fighting regionally between St. Petersburg and its bigger sister across the bay, Tampa, and in-fighting within St. Pete's city limits itself, a site - and a design - was finally chosen. Fast forward back to 1990, and the builders, city leaders, and design critics all call the lopsided dome with concentric, self-supporting rings holding its roof aloft "the stadium for the 21st Century." It's the jewel of St. Petersburg - even though the then-commissioner of Major League Baseball told the city that just because they build it, they won't necessarily come - and a state-of-the-art masterpiece in all of its air-conditioned glory.

Then, Camden Yards is built....

Now, the stadium that was built only two short years prior - the year in which the dome (now renamed the Thunderdome) is inhabited by both the NHL's Lightning and AFL's Storm - is now "functionally obsolete" for the original purpose it was built, a sport that hadn't even been awarded to the area yet and won't be for another four years. Everyone "in the know" now wants their very own Camden Yards in their downtowns; apparently, what works in one city is a goldmine everywhere, or so the thinking goes.

So, with that in mind, the 9th-newest stadium in Major League Baseball when the Rays first took the field is today the 9th-oldest (soon to become the 8th-oldest in 2012 with the opening of the Marlins' new house in Little Havana). Tropicana Field, as it's now called, is a relic long before its time. By declaring his intentions on June 21, Stu Sternberg has said, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Trop is done and needs to be replaced. And, he's not mincing words, either:

“Baseball in the Tampa Bay area does not belong to Stu Sternberg, just as it doesn’t belong to St. Petersburg or Tampa, Pinellas or Hillsborough. It is a regional asset. It belongs to our fans throughout the region. For this asset to be preserved, a comprehensive process to explore a new ballpark must begin."

So, as you can see, he's trying to force "regional cooperation" in determining the next site of the Rays base of operations. Personally, I'd love to see that myself, because for far too long, Tampa and St. Pete have acted like fierce rivals in some sort of chess match for total domination of the region. However, as a St. Petersburger, I can understand why residents on this side of the water feel constantly at-war with their neighbor to the northeast.

We are not like other "twin cities" in the country, namely Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas/Fort Worth. In those regions, they work together more than just philosophically; they share tax revenue from the areas' attractions - including their sports teams - along with spending money equally for regional services. Even now, here in Tampa Bay regional transit is beginning to take shape...with each county paying its own way, but only if the citizens of those counties vote to approve it at all in their borders. We do not cooperate like the Twin Cities or the Metroplex because we prefer to act independent - and bitch about it later when we can't afford luxuries we became accustomed to anymore.

When St. Petersburg built the Suncoast Dome 20 years ago, it was with St. Pete and Pinellas County money. Tampa brought nothing to the table, nor did Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, or any other county government for that matter. Basically put: if St. Pete loses the Rays, we lose not only a team or a piece of our civic pride, we also lose the money brought to this city by them each and every year since we were the only ones to bear the financial burden. This city and county had to go it alone, and sadly, this is how pretty much any public works project goes around here, and until that mentality changes, I can completely appreciate why the city of St. Pete refuses to listen to a suit from New York tell them how to "cooperate".

However, that leaves only three options to solving this mess, and none involve the lame - and tired - argument of "enforcing the contract through 2027 via legal proceedings"; let's face it: if the Seattle SuperSonics, original Cleveland Browns, and Baltimore Colts can all get out of their contracts relatively unscathed, so too can the Rays:

1. St. Petersburg must come to the table with a kickass proposal to be located in the Trop's current parking lot - something that will satiate Stu's wanderlust - while understanding we're going to have to probably front about 67% of the costs; not doing this will cause the city to lose a massively substantial tax base and, by extension, lose even more city services,
2. Tampa and St. Petersburg - along with all the surrounding counties, as well as others in the demographic area (Polk, Hernando, Sarasota, Citrus, Sumter, Hardee, and Desoto) - need to finally put "regional differences" aside, realize we need each other to survive in the 21st Century against the Charlottes, Austins, and Portlands of the country, and start working on a regional sales tax to pay for public works projects that affect more than 60% of the metro's population base, such as public transit, tourism advertising, and (yes) stadiums, or
3. Pack Evan Longoria's bags for him to move with the team to Norfolk/Virginia Beach, San Antonio, or Vancouver (What? Canada's hungry for another team!).

That all said, we're really not left with many choices. As much as Stu Sternberg is being vilified by the region (myself included) for telling us how to run our lives, his concise assessment may actually be something that will help us all much sooner than anyone expected. He said something that needed to be said for a long time, but no one has the muscle - or balls - to say it until now: we're a broken region with our petty parochialism. It's our own fault, though, but now's our chance to shine and make up for the shortsightedness of our parents. What was seen as a good idea with "home-rule" in the '50s is holding us back from becoming the next great region today.

However, tomorrow's another day, and hopefully we'll have come a long way by then. Hell, at least our grandparents had enough foresight to fly the world's first commercial "airline", as well as build the then-world's longest bridge, all in attempt for cross-bay cooperation. Maybe we can take a lesson from them instead and put it to use in 2010....