Stadium idea dies again in Minnesota

NEW ULM -- If the Minnesota Twins really want a new stadium, they need to send state legislators to see the movie "Gladiator."

Let's face it. Nobody in history built better stadiums than the Romans, who are the "stars" of the 2001 Oscar for Best Picture. The shells of ancient coliseums are still left in Italy. The only things missing are the hot pretzel stands and advertisements above the latrines for your favorite steakhouse.

Oh, sure, there are fairly impressive stadium remains in Greece too, but the Greeks suffer from impotent marketing of their facilities. After all, when you go to a professional sports enterprise, are you more likely to buy an Italian sausage or a pita pocket?

But here in Minnesota, legislators in a House committee effectively killed a bill for a new Twins stadium for reasons based more on stubborn intractability than reason. (For you readers not from Minnesota, a political committee here consists of a group of individuals who may share the same barber, but disagree whether potluck Jello should contain bananas or marshmallows.)

While it would be a difficult argument to say a stadium should be built for the Twins on historical grounds, (although in 500 years a tour guide of the Metrodome could talk about the home runs given up by ex-Twin Scott Klingenbeck that are still orbiting the globe), it is becoming harder to argue that the Twins and the state would not be better off with a new playpen for their baseball brethren.

If one looks at all the other stadiums built for baseball (not football, basketball, or hockey) in the last five years, along with the ones in the planning and building stages, even the most ardent critic of a Twins plan cannot argue that the new stadium hasn't, isn't, or won't revitalize the area it's built in and bring in far more revenue than its initial cost.

One may point to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as an example of a failed baseball stadium, with the three-year old team already suffering from poor attendance and complaints about its location, parking, etc. Sorry, it doesn't count. Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay was built in hopes of getting a team (the Chicago White Sox) 10 years ago.

Unfortunately for Tampa Bay, the Sox got their own new stadium in 1990, and Florida was left with a bigger white elephant than you'd find in a Tarzan movie.

Twins stadium naysayers don't seem interested in the facts surrounding newer baseball stadiums such as Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Safeco Park in Seattle, Enron Park in Houston, Camden Yards in Baltimore, etc. The new ballfields not only have brought in millions of paying customers, businesses have sprouted up around them like boa feathers around Governor Ventura's neck.

Minnesota House speaker Steve Sviggum has been one of the more outspoken critics of any Twins stadium bill, although he says he is open to any plan that doesn't include "public money." Yeah, right.

If Northwest Airlines, General Mills, or 3M were to announce they were pulling out of Minnesota, ala Boeing out of Seattle, the guarantee is here that Sviggum would be first in line to offer public money, er, "state assistance" in order to keep them on our fair tundra.

The speaker reminds me of a guy who says he's open to changing his mind if he can be presented with enough facts and then, when presented with a book of facts somewhere between the size of War and Peace and the Encyclopedia Brittanica, refuses to read them because his mind is already made up.

The public, meanwhile, remains so flipped out when they hear the words "taxes" or "interest-free loans" in connection with the stadiums that they fail to see verything else -- all the other businesses in their local areas whose very existence and job creation abilities was based on the art of squeezing tax or interest concessions from local governments starved for new commerce.

Governor Ventura, who has not yet announced if the hunting season for men will occur between fishing and deer season (hopefully it's after Father's Day. No sense in aggravating the folks who make ties, hankies, and cheap cologne), has been a vocal opponent of a new stadium without having the vision of the money-making opportunities he could cash in on should one be built.

Even though Jesse has stated how Navy Seals are sworn to secrecy regarding their wartime activities, his recent tirade against an outdoors writer hints maybe he spent time in the aforementioned gladiator art of hunting men.

Personally, I don't think he could hunt down Waldo in the Sunday funny papers, although given his employment history any man in spandex tights and bleached hair is in trouble. But a new stadium would give him the opportunity to make some money on his military background.

Just put him in the middle of the field on Bat Day and tell him to run the gauntlet. With the money made from the folks in this state willing to pay to watch that, there would be enough left over for a Vikings stadium.

Column by Dave Clark, Journal sports writer