Suppose that, over the last few weeks, it was baseball, not Washington, that was constantly trying to renegotiate. What if Selig had changed his demands at least a half-dozen times, always upping the ante and using brinksmanship to get his way?
What if Selig had canceled votes within baseball ownership or delayed approvals to try to muscle Washington into concessions? And what if, most outrageously, he had signed off on the deal in private, then reneged?
Bud Selig is giving the District a second chance; imagine the outcry if it was MLB using bait-and-switch tactics?
(Ben Margot -- AP)
|
|
What on earth would we be calling Selig right now? Of course, rich, powerful sports commissioners are fair game in this society. When they act badly, we call them out. But Cropp and her cohorts, who are acting in exactly the same manner as our hypothetical Selig, get off almost unchallenged .
The Council claims to be fighting for the poor of the District when it is far more likely that it is in the process of killing a development deal, with baseball as its centerpiece, that would bring significant benefits, not costs, to those very constituents.
Council members claim they are protecting citizen tax dollars when they know that not one cent of public money is earmarked for the Anacostia waterfront project. All funds to back the bonds to build the park will come from the team's new owners (rich), the top 11 percent of local Washington businesses (prosperous) and fans who attend games (many affluent). As for the District's pot of money collected through taxes -- called "the general fund" -- not a cent would be taken out of it.
As a bonus, more than 80 percent of Nationals fans, about two million a year, would come from the suburbs and spend tens of millions of discretionary entertainment dollars in the District.
Cropp and others on the council, like Adrian Fenty and David Catania, realize all this. They just don't want the public to figure it out. They prefer to round up cheap votes for themselves by bashing baseball rather than bringing a team back to Washington, bringing urban development to a blighted area and adding millions of dollars to the city's tax base.
The Council should be reminded that baseball doesn't care how Washington funds its stadium. The sport has specifically stated that if Washington can get private funding, that's okay with them, as long as it's nailed down, not pie in the sky. All the Council needs to do to solve the current mess is pass an amendment that provides the District with time to pursue the kind of private funding that Cropp espouses but, if it cannot be found, that the city will fulfill its promise to build the new park itself.
We should also remember that Washington's own mayor, not some ogre in baseball, dreamed up the current funding plan that so infuriates the Council's pols. The whole concept, and it's a brilliantly original one, came from Williams's office. Of course, Council members, especially ones like Cropp who want to be mayor, have nothing to gain by approving the successful creations of a rival politician. It's easier to destroy them, and then claim that you saved the public money.
If Cropp had not chosen the nuclear option on Tuesday night, she might have continued to badger baseball into a few frills. But now she's forced the game to take a stand or else look like a patsy in any future negotiations with anybody.
"How can we trust Cropp now? When does it end?" said a baseball official yesterday. "She has signed off, given her word, said the deal was done, more than once. Then she just changes her mind and acts like that's a normal way to do business.
"It's disgraceful. Baseball has been accused of a lot of things in the last 100 years. But never anything like this. They just went back on their word. If Cropp thinks she's going to do that and [still] get a team, she's making a horrible mistake."
The clock is ticking. The ball drops at midnight on New Year's Eve. Will the District's final hopes for baseball fall with it?
