Le Palias du Couchon Makes "The Hill" Newspaper

 

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Hysterical baseball rush
Ignoring RFK enlargement

The hysterics at The Washington Post sports section are doing their job. Baseball is back. This is bigger than Joe Gibbs! Bigger than Michael Jordan! Bigger than the Capitals! This can save Washington! Has anyone noticed that the noisier the media frenzy about sports here, the more resounding the flop that follows?
 DUNCAN SPENCER Baseball’s new neighborhood: First and O streets S.E. And has anyone noticed that the city, having dished up the idea of a $450 million stadium to get the down-and-out Expos here, is stuck with a bad deal? A bondholder’s nightmare?

Has anyone noticed the litany of financial troubles of debt-burdened stadiums: 1991’s Comiskey Park, 1992’s Camden Yards, 1994’s Coors Field, 1994’s Jacobs Field, 1998’s Diamondbacks Field, 1999’s Safeco Field? These are just the most obvious cases of new stadiums struggling with debt, low attendance or emergency refinancing.

Very few of the cheering throng bothered to go to the rather bizarre wasteland of sex clubs, obscure businesses, piles of rubble, scores of panhandlers and highway grime that is to become the new home of the new team. I did, wandering from P to O streets S.E. — past The Follies at 34 O St., the Club Washington and Club Bath Chain, past Secrets at 26 O St. In all, there are 27 parcels in the area to be cleared for the new stadium — 27 possible lawsuits, compensation cases, etc. etc.

The only thing the site has going for it is splendid views of the Anacostia River. The views make the site perfect for housing or mixed-use development, not a concrete-and-steel doughnut that will be empty, let’s face it, most of its life.

The thought that keeps reoccurring: Why not play at RFK? Permanently.

When Jack Kent Cooke wanted to build a new stadium for the Redskins, using part of the vast parking area out there between Eastern High School and Kingman Island, sensible voices were raised to urge the cheaper and simpler solution. To enlarge RFK.

That’s right. A local architect, since moved to Frederick, Md., testified to the City Council that enlarging RFK would be relatively inexpensive, could be done quickly, by adding another tier of seating (a second circle around the already circular structure), and could be done without demolishing the present playing field — in a single off-season.

Mayor Anthony Williams (D) and the city fathers are counting on an average of 30,000 patrons per baseball game as a financial starting line. There is much evidence that this is an unrealistic goal. Even the most cheerful of the promoters of the new stadium deal say that suburbanites, not city dwellers, will be the backbone of the ticket buyers — just as in the case of the Redskins and the Capitals. It was hard enough to get them to come to MCI Center; without the draw of the beloved Redskins, they would not have come to RFK. Now the city is expecting these people, who have showed their opinion of the city with their feet for 50 years, to flock to 2nd and O streets S.E. And who will pay for it? Not them. Us.

Williams and the eager business crowd ought now to do what Washington does best: procrastinate. The Expos are going to play at RFK for three years at least. Let the attendance tell the tale. If baseball works for RFK, then build the new stadium, or enlarge the old one. But not before.

When Cooke, in the nine years of wrangling from 1987 to 1996, offered to pay for a new stadium in Washington, it was the city that stood in his way. Now we’re on our hands and knees begging to throw gold at one of the worst teams in the National League, offering bribes to Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, offering to build a $450 million colossus in the middle of nowhere.