baseball

It’s decision time. So we’ll probably be committed to something one way or another by the next time the Diamondbacks with the World Series. I read a lot of conflicting opions on whether a baseball stadium (pro, with team) would be beneficial of parasitic to our little town. This has been one of the more interesting issues to watch because the lines in the sand are totally skewed from the usual stances. If we could turn the dial to up the rabidity of the opinions then we’d really be having a lot of fun.

I’m not really a baseball fan. It’s one of the few things that you could put onto a television that doesn’t make it hard for me to focus on whatever else I’m doing (like drinking a beer). That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. But it doesn’t draw me to games. $1 beers draw me to games. or evern better, free beer. Having been to a few Beavers games, I just don’t see that Portland has the draw for major league baseball.

The biggest single reason that I hear for getting a team here is that it ‘won’t cost anything’. Which means: free jobs, new revenue, status as a ‘real city’, and baseball. The first two a super. The third, I’m perfectly happy with Portland as the Sunday stop for Lollapalooza. And fourth, baseball, sure, sounds great, maybe Damon can hit.

And reasons why not seem to include, the there’s no free lunch rule, which is probably truer than those for think and less true than the againsts want to believe. There’s the whole, well, wtf are we gonna put this thing problem. I think we should build a floating stadium on the Wilamette. Downtown parking too! And little things like parking, and the support industry to support a baseball stadium…what will all those triket stands and burger stands do a a neighborhood? And what about the glimmering success of PGE park? Just let that run down the drain?

Overall, I’m an apathetic YAY to the getting a baseball team. If we were regularly to fill PGE full of avid baseball fans, I’d be more enthusiastic. But I’m not. I just feel that the positives for our little ecosystem outweigh the negatives, and I might have some fun at a game every now and then. Emma (Oregon Blog) and Jack (Jack Bog) have both posted some interesting perspectives on this issue recently, and I recommend that you check them out.