The Jewel Box Under End-Stage Capitalism
It feels like the Rays have been trying to ditch Tropicana Field since they got there, and apparently it’s finally going to happen. The Royals are likewise pursuing plans to build a replacement for Kauffman Stadium, though the club announced Wednesday that the planned reveal of a new ballpark site was being postponed for the time being.
Both clubs want to replace their aging, arguably obsolete concrete bowls with something more modern — more glitzy. The unspoken promise is that the Royals and Rays — two small-market teams that ranked 25th and 27th in payroll this season, respectively — would turn their new taxpayer-funded playgrounds into an economic engine that would not only boost community welfare but also allow the team to compete economically with the Yankees, Dodgers, and so forth.
We all know this is bunk.
I had hoped that the electoral bloodbath that followed the construction of Truist Park and The Battery in Cobb County, Georgia, would mark the end of government handouts for stadium construction. But apparently not, as the public will pay the best part of three-quarters of a billion dollars in order to build the Rays’ new stadium complex, to say nothing of the nightmare relocation of the A’s to Las Vegas.
Stadium financing, as it’s currently done, is such a public policy disaster that I’m bored of writing about it. There is nothing new to say, as municipal and state governments continue to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to real estate developers. The Athletics’ situation is a perfect microcosm. John Fisher’s functionaries appeared before the Nevada state legislature and lied, cajoled, and evaded. And they got called on it; their interlocutors did everything short of put the Athletics’ brass in a pillory and throw cabbages at them.
Then that same legislature voted to give the A’s $380 million anyway.
If 20 years of widely publicized research and real-world experience can’t convince local and state governments to stop stepping on this particular banana peel, I’m just banging my head against the wall. The word is out, and nobody can stop it.
Fortunately, I have a new reason to be cheesed off at these bloodsucking owners and their toadies in government: I love these two ballparks, and don’t want to see them demolished.
Kauffman Stadium might seem outdated, its concrete edifice harkening back to an unfashionable time. It’s the sixth-oldest stadium in the league, counting the Oakland Coliseum, which is not long for this world. Most of the other ballparks of this vintage have been torn down.
But I love its uniquely shaped scoreboard and the swooping lines of the upper bowl. I went there for the first time while passing through Kansas City in 2014, the first year in decades that the Royals were worth getting excited about, and I remember being overawed by the noise of the crowd and the clarity of the colors around the stadium. It’s only 11 years younger than Dodger Stadium, which has cemented its place as an inviolable classic ballpark. If we let Kauffman Stadium alone a little while longer, it might join that category.
Which is probably why the Royals want to tear it down. Kauffman is situated out in the middle of a field, off a highway, with no exploitable real estate to speak of. It’s arguably a landmark already, and if the Royals let it remain so, they’ll have a harder time transferring public wealth to their own coffers in the name of real estate development.
The Trop is a harder sell. When I tell people it’s one of my favorite ballparks in the league, they look at me like they’re expecting a punchline. And I concede that the building is hideous, inside and out. It turns routine pop-ups into the climax of a Marx Brothers movie. It’s on the wrong side of the bay. It’s too small. It isn’t fit for purpose and therefore has been renovated into total aesthetic incoherence.
But I love The Trop because it’s unique. Because it’s small and inconvenient and the Rays aren’t always easy to root for, the organization has had to go out of its way to gimmick the fan experience up. At a classic ballpark in a big city, you’re going to go in through a cattle chute and pay $80 for a ticket and $18 for a beer because the club knows it has you caught in its web. Sports fandom is paypigism with brightly colored shirts, and the big-market teams act accordingly. The Rays know they have to work to draw fans, the way a minor league team does, and the experience at the Trop is better for it. It’s flawed but accessible and fun, like a Jersey Shore boardwalk. We’re all ugly and inconvenient in our own ways, and the Trop is merely a reflection of that.
Most of all, I love Tropicana Field because its flawed and slightly ramshackle nature places it in contrast to the retromodern design language that dominates baseball stadium architecture today. Camden Yards is one of my favorite ballparks, which is surely an opinion as orthodox as loving the Trop is iconoclastic. And after it debuted in 1991 to rave reviews, it’s been copied over and over.
Populous (formerly HOK) is the architectural firm that dominates MLB, having its hand in either building or renovating 20 major league ballparks and dozens of minor league and spring training facilities. I almost compared Populous to Fanatics, the monopolistic firm behind the skyrocketing prices and rapidly deteriorating variety, quality, and service in the sports merchandise industry. But that’s not fair. Populous has designed some of my favorite contemporary parks, including Target Field and Minute Maid Park. (Crucially, Populous did not design the horrendous Globe Life Field in Arlington.) But when every team decided to copy Camden Yards, it seems like nobody bothered to understand why the Orioles’ ballpark was so beloved. Making a great ballpark isn’t as easy as slapping together a steel superstructure onto some exposed brick and designing some contrived weird angle into the outfield wall.
There’s a great video series on the Architectural Digest YouTube channel in which architect Michael Wyetzner traces the design history of certain types of iconic American buildings. Sure enough, he has one on baseball stadiums:
(Wyetzner also did an equally compelling video on diners, which means he’s covered the two types of building I’ve built my entire life around.)
If you’re 1,000 words into this column and haven’t gotten bored, you’ll eat up this 19-minute video, and you should watch it in full. But I want to quote from Wyetzner’s description of Shibe Park, which he used as the exemplar of the jewel box stadium, the style that dominated baseball stadium construction in the early 20th century.
“Here’s what stands out to me about Shibe Park: It’s built into the city grid, so it’s part of the city… From [the front elevation], you would never know that there’s a ball field beyond here. It just appears to be like any other office building at the beginning of the 20th century in Philadelphia.”
This is the style that Camden Yards invoked and all of its imitators tried to copy. These ballparks were squeezed into tiny lots and had to blend themselves into the surrounding community. Every memorable design quirk from an early 20th-century park, from the Green Monster at Fenway to the Polo Grounds’ comical center field to the tiny outfields of the Baker Bowl or Wrigley Field, was the result of spatial constraints. Form follows function.
It’s still possible to build a new ballpark in this fashion. Target Field, my favorite MLB stadium constructed in the 21st century, is squeezed into eight acres in the middle of Minneapolis. It’s too big — too tall, really — to blend into its environment the way a jewel box stadium would. But its construction, with its glass and blond stone and sharper angles, reflects modernist and midwestern design language rather than aping the northeastern industrial aesthetic that’s too often transplanted into an alien context.
Minute Maid Park is guilty of this. Houston is a fascinating architectural city, partially because of the realities of its climate and the strong Latin American cultural influence in the region, and partially because it’s a nearly Chicago-sized city that sprung up almost from nothing in the past 60 years. In not-too-dissimilar circumstances in Miami, Populous erected loanDepot Park, which is heavy on glass and white steel and landscaping that reflects the local environment. Minute Maid, not so much. In a city of glass towers and Spanish colonial revival architecture, we get red brick and green steel. The materials are more Boston than Houston.
But what I love about Minute Maid Park is how its location determined its shape. It’s not really an ideal location, in a commercial-heavy neighborhood downtown, one of the more sterile locations in a city that’s bubbling over with culture. But they squeezed an entire ballpark into a lot that’s not really wide enough for the purpose. Minute Maid’s outfield dimensions are ludicrous, between the deep center field and the Crawford Boxes, which can turn a popup down the left field line into a home run, and whose abrupt end by the left field bullpen leads to the most treacherous corner in any major league outfield. The reason the outfield wall is shaped like that is the park butts right up to the road. When the roof is open, a home run can go out of the park altogether and bounce out onto Crawford Street, just as home runs out of Wrigley Field will land on Waveland Avenue or home runs out of Fenway can end up on Landsdowne Street.
Minute Maid Park isn’t quirky because of some soulless and self-consciously clever boardroom decision to make the outfield fence X feet high to honor a franchise legend. It’s quirky because that’s how much ballpark will fit on the lot — just like Fenway, Ebbets Field, and the Polo Grounds. Camden Yards gets this, with its iconic warehouse and perfectly framed view of downtown Baltimore. Almost none of its imitators can say the same.
The jewel box ballpark went out of style because the sport and the country changed. The class of stadium that followed — the modern concrete doughnuts of the 1960s and 70s — were suburban, built in parking lots for easy access by car. Whereas previous ballparks were molded by their context, these new stadiums had no context. They could’ve designed anything.
So there’s a fundamentally awkward incongruity when a retromodern ballpark gets plonked into a parking lot, like American Family Field in Milwaukee or Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. It’s like putting a high-rise apartment building on a cul-de-sac. The people who built those stadiums either didn’t realize or didn’t care that people respond to a stadium’s place in the community, rather than its building materials.
And by building Camden Yards clones everywhere, MLB teams have stultified the architectural evolution of the baseball stadium, even as the art has advanced in other sports. The same firm that built that travesty of a stadium for the Rangers gave the NFL’s Rams and Chargers a building that looks like something a particularly sexy alien race left behind. You couldn’t give an MLB team something that looks like the new Wembley Stadium or Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — a forward-thinking building that takes its lack of context as an opportunity.
It’s not that MLB owners want to keep building their parks in the middle of nowhere. They want their teams to play within a community. But rather than build a park to fit an existing community, they want to use the park as the foundation for a commercial and residential investment that they build from the ground up, and from which they extract all the economic benefit. Owners tell us they want the stately pleasure dome, when in reality they’re after the twice five miles of fertile ground next door.
As much as I’ve harped on Camden Yards being the foundation for the modern ballpark, that isn’t really true anymore. Now, it’s Truist Field. The Braves abandoned a functional (if uninspiring) Turner Field to move their team to a greenfield site in the suburbs and surround it with buildings of their own choosing and from which they could profit. That’s why the Rays, after decades of trying to move to Tampa proper, are staying in St. Petersburg. Their development site is 86 acres, almost 11 times the size of the lot the Twins built Target Field on, and will include 14,000 parking spaces, more than 5,000 residential units, a hotel, a conference center, 1.4 million square feet of office space, and 750,000 square feet of retail space.
It’s almost dishonest to call the stadium an anchor tenant or a tentpole. This is a misdirection act, an okey-doke. Because if a private real estate developer asked the public to foot the bill for condos and office buildings, they’d get laughed out of the room. But if it goes next to a baseball stadium? Here’s $730 million to develop a site the city already owns. If MLB owners thought like this in the 1970s, the Cubs and Red Sox would be playing in taxpayer-funded ballparks out in a mixed-use development in the suburbs somewhere, instead of venues that achieved legendary status because of their place within the community.
When a stadium is molded by its neighborhood, it can become aesthetically beautiful and culturally vital. The modern ideal is to pervert that process, do it backwards, and get taxpayers to foot the bill. Rather than the team and its home serving the needs of its community, now the community must serve the needs of the team.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
“And next up to bat for the Xanadu Horde, Kubla Khan.”
Terrific article.
Agreed!
Years ago, I remember Dave Cameron pointing out the fallacy that ballparks aren’t “creating new revenue”; they’re just moving business away from nearby areas and focusing it somewhere else.
This is why I hate using public money to fund a private for-profit facility. Either give the public equity in the earned revenue or build your own damn stadium.
And often it’s even worse than that.
In July of 2013 the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and as part of the restructuring they cut the pensions of public employees, eliminated cost of living adjustments, and jacked up the price of their healthcare.
Also in July of 2013? $280M in public money was approved for a new arena for the Red Wings.
Restructuring = Republican power grab
Republican power grab…in Detroit? Hasn’t Detroit been team blue for decades now?
its a hot mess and no!
Since 1994 every member of Detroit City Council has been a Democrat. Democrats has held a majority of City Council since the 60s. The mayor has been a Democrat since 1962.
I’m not a Detroit resident or have any knowledge of the local politics but that sounds like team blue to me.
That is the case with almost every major city in the country.
In this specific case, the restructure was the state government (lead by a Republican governor) taking over the finances of the city and continuing with the bond issue to publicly fund the Red Wings/Pistons new stadium despite the bankruptcy.
Yes, this is what i was referring to, thank you (didn’t see the reply initially.)
In other words, the typical Republican behavior.
Red state government hamstringing blue cities happens a lot here in Texas too. The devil is in the details for these sorts of things.
Municipal politics, at least in Texas, are hamstrung by Republican state government. Something like 40% of tax dollars in blue Travis County leaves to pay for places like Barnhart (who then complain about socialism or whatever). Harris County (Houston) gets fucked even worse.
I don’t know if it’s the same in Michigan though. Just speaking as someone who lives in a liberal area in a red state. But these “blue” cities often don’t have as much control as you’d think.
Eh, these types of power grabs have no political affiliation. And this public funding of stadiums issue has no left-right split. Which is why it’s odd that a small jab at capitalism has angered so many people. Don’t feed the nonsensical partisanship beast. Not with this anyway.
“End stage capitalism” is worthy of an eye-roll, but other than that, good article.
The crazy thing is that the public, as referenced here, is almost universally aware of the scam represented by public funding of private for profit enterprise (which goes back to my gripe with the article title, this is not capitalism, this is corporatism). The problem is that local and state governments simply don’t care what the voters think on these issues – for whatever reason, voter displeasure over stadium funding isn’t “sticky” enough an issue to vote someone out of office for it, so if you get wined and dined and made to feel important, why not spend a pile of other peoples’ money?
Same thing seemed to have happened in Vegas. My impression was that Vegas voters were NOT interested in footing the bill for an As stadium. Doesn’t seem to have mattered though!
America is a democracy in name only. Policy outcomes have very weak correlation with public opinion as defined by 1 person = 1 vote, but very strong correlation when interpreted as 1 dollar = 1 vote. The natural result of capitalism is vast wealth being concentrated in the hands of a select few, who then bend public policy to their will. The only reason I’d roll my eyes at “end stage capitalism” is that it shows no signs of ending.
This is the right reason for the eyeroll — not out of ideological disagreement exactly but terminological. The German term Spätkapitalismus or “late capitalism,” in actual theoretical writing part of a simple early/late periodization with no implied teleology, has somehow passed through a Twitter-brained game of telephone via a lot of people who don’t read books, and in doing so picked up a “stage” (I think by analogy with cancer) and then moved to an “end.” This is a “theoretical”-sounding term with no theory behind it whatsoever, and in fact because of that a pretty good poseur shibboleth.
Actually, there is a theory, in Marx in Das Kapital. Capitalism contains internal contradictions. Here’s one writer: “the rate of surplus value and the rate of profit overdetermine one another driving the movement of capital so as to equalize the rate of profit across industries and creating the illusion of capital as value-generating. The struggle to increase labor productivity simultaneously drives down the rate of profit as a result of increasing the organic composition of capital. This insight further determines the epoch of capitalism, since it is only insofar as products can be sold at a profit that capital accumulation is possible.
Nonetheless, merchant capital is at least a thousand years old and periodic war and economic crisis ensured at least the cyclical conditions for capital accumulation.”
He seemed to think capitalism persists with a kind of sword of Damocles over it’s head, a bill that could come due at any time if capitalists become unable to extract sufficient surplus value from labor and plant, and thus no longer able to accumulate wealth.
lol. The guy that thinks Walmart and The Koch brothas ruined america, and voting for Bill Clinton,Bush,Biden,Hilary,etc makes you that different from voting for Trump is a commie sympathizer. I’m shocked
Trump is abject human dog shit. Big difference there from any other normal human being, living or dead.
But honestly, Right-Winger, the one thing that can be counted on like clockwork from the minority in this country of your ilk, is the leap from citing Marx’s theory in a philosophical discussion, to the accusation that therefore I – a business owner – must therefore be a “commie sympathizer” (Hi there, Frozen 1960s Caveman Right-Wing-Guy-In-A-Can ! )
Talking loud, saying nothing, and spreading Right-Wing Anti-Intellectualism far and wide.
Keep losing elections like you did 2 days ago. I love trump trash tears.
Typically speaking, if someone says or implies we’re at the end of history, we should ignore it. This is the fatal flaw that everyone* who has drawn from Hegel has had.
—-
*including Marx, who has a lot of useful insights but has been a terrible prognosticator of future events
“including Marx, who has a lot of useful insights but has been a terrible prognosticator of future events”
I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on that one. There is no other political economist who has come even *close* to predicting the world we live in today. Which prognostications in particular are you referring to? Of course he was wrong about the revolution starting in Germany, but it is a bit hard for me to knock him for that incredibly specific prognostication.
He was wrong about where it would unfold, how it would unfold, who would do it, how it would spread, what would happen after the revolution…
Some of this is because people in his era weren’t humbled by watching famous people’s predictions repeatedly be wrong. Now that we have 200 years of watching these predictions fail since Hegel first said that history reached its final form in the proposed government of the King of Prussia, people know better. Or at least they should.
Let’s break this down.
If the German SPD makes a few different decisions we do live in a different world, but then we live in Weber’s world and not Marx’s.
All I’m saying is that now we’re much better about not making crazy predictions that have no chance of coming true, partly because Hegel and Marx and Fukuyama have been so wrong. So we get to learn from them.
Where is there Marxist-type communism in the world today? Where has there ever been? I see lots of totalitarian regimes that brought about incredible suffering and human rights violations, that in practice were virtually indistinguishable from fascist governments that likewise visited horrible abuses on their citizens.
I also see the economic miracle of hundreds of millions of abjectly poor Chinese escaping poverty the last few decades. A miracle that was wholly spurred on by allowing people to own private property and profit from their efforts. We also see the rise of income inequality and the creation of a billionaire class in China as well.
It’s easy to decide that capitalism is far superior to communism. The hard part is installing and enforcing proper and effective regulations.
Different kinds of prognostications. Was I don’t disagree that Marx’s specific predictions (like revolution in Germany) certainly did not come true— though, to be fair, certainly not for lack of trying from the German socialists, right up until the Freikorps butchered them en masse anyways.
But his prognostications about the development of capitalism and its interaction with advancing technology are sitting pretty right now. The increased momentum for a four-day workweek with the same pay, in particular, is looking remarkably like his more detailed prediction of what ‘communism’ would be to him; ever-advancing technology would lead to ever-advancing productivity from the same amount of labor by hours, thereby allowing everyone to spend increasingly minimal time actually working as necessary for the general continuation of society.
The political-economic part of communism— we are just working to keep society in good working order and improve it, not for profit— is essentially always taken as the dominant bit over Marx’s semi-utopian concept of a world wherein we ‘work’ to live perhaps 10 hours a week, and have the rest of our lives to do whatever it is that we actually want to do.
While we’re complaining about terminological precision, I’m going to jump in here to complain about the characterization of “…the result of spatial constraints. Form follows function”
No. A form-follows function approach would be from the inside-out and would ignore or minimize the antifunctional contingencies. Kaufmann Stadium and the saucer parks are “form-follows function.” Do they have nice, contextual pseudo-historical facades? No, they have highly functional spiral egress ramps.
Embracing the complexity of contextual constraints, integrating contradictions or irregularities, prioritizing a particular image through quasi-traditional facades are all postmodern hallmarks developed in reaction against functionalism’s shortfalls in communication, representation, and expression.
Municipal politics, in particular, are controlled by real estate interests.
What economic system doesn’t lead to “vast wealth being concentrated in the hands of a select few”?
Seems to me that’s an ugly feature of civilization that is turbocharged by the current fiat financial system where money is created from nothing
He will say all white Nordic countries.Or some other homogenous country.
Give it time in those places. Just as US society was somewhat egalitarian at certain points in our history and yet here we are in another polarized gilded age
Pray tell, when was US society egalitarian? That’s far too broad geographically. Perhaps, for a time, New England society was egalitarian. But the whole of the United States, which institutionalized slavery?
Probably should have used a different word. What I meant was the US didn’t have such an extreme wealth gap as it currently does during periods when the middle class was growing/prospering
The beautiful thing about free market systems is that they are good at allocating scarce resources.
The ugly thing about free market systems is that capital accumulates unless the political system regulates the market to reduce capital accumulation.
This is true regardless of what backs the financial system.
uhh false. Government creates the problem, and then makes it worse.
you are a poorly read and poorly informed ideolog.
Nonsense. The government created the free market system that you love. They guarantee property rights, personal freedom, free markets, and a fair judicial system. These are the foundations of capitalism.
I am literally parroting my Microeconomics 101 textbook.
I don’t think the political system can properly regulate in the long run. The regulators are for sale much like a politician, scientist or judge.
Back to the financial system, I think the ability to create funding out of nothing gives governments the irresistible ability to pay for things that the majority of citizens would object to if the tax was felt immediately instead of the deferred tax via inflation of the currency.
Most people save in dollars and have their savings eroded by years of inflation(deferred tax/theft). So it’s a big part of the class war currently being waged in the West where the billionaires are asset stripping the majority of us
We have inflation because it’s better than deflation, and you get to choose one or the other. Agreed that that monied class is indeed stripping everyone else’s wealth (and has been for years, though it’s sped way up in recent decades), but inflation ain’t it.
Maybe it is the lesser evil but you’re downplaying how pernicious inflation is for your average Joe. Even just 2 percent a year for a decade adds up to losing more than 18 percent of what you started with a decade ago.
The last several years have been way more than 2 percent. 3 years of 7 percent and you lose almost 20 percent of what you started with just 3 years ago.
That’s rough and encourages people to invest in the markets where they are at a disadvantage to the “monied class” who control the gov and often get to act on insider info
The US is not a democracy and never has been. ‘In name only’ really only applies to political platitudes / talking points, not fact. The system of government was specifically designed to prevent 1:1 person-to-vote democracy.
End stage capitalism is a poor term here, in large part because the issues described are representative of crony capitalism, a big driver of the issues in the article alongside many others. I’m not sure I necessarily agree that crony capitalism is the ‘natural’ end state to capitalism, but it is what we see today.
Yes. The Founding Fathers were concerned about your “tyranny of the majority” trampling upon the rights of the minority. How ironic that that very system is now responsible for our current tyranny of the minority nightmare.
To be fair, only white male landowners could vote.
Landownership was a requirement in North Carolina to vote until 1865.
Women couldn’t vote until 1920.
Criminals can’t vote under many circumstances. Given the unevenness of our justice system, that’s another problem.
Our founders had some good ideas, but they weren’t remotely against tyranny.
The United States is a republic, which is a form of democracy, specifically a representative democracy. The only form of democracy that has a 1:1 vote is a direct democracy. Man, I hate how so many people have fallen for this misconception!
Many would disagree with this. Its more aptly called a republic, not a democracy, which most would define as majority rule
You don’t think Arkansas politicians caring more about where people pee than their own quality of education is reflective of their voters? You don’t think NIMBYs driving up cost of living is a reflection of their will? Or 6 week abortion bans in certain states are reflective?
The outcomes economically might not match what the people want, but that’s because the shitty policy rural, southern, and rust belt voters vote for don’t result in good economics. The NIMBY policy liberals in San Francisco, despite what they *want*, results in higher cost of living and homelessness.
I’d like to see empirical evidence for what you’re saying especially at the state and local level. But it seems to me most places pretty accurately reflect their base.
Since corporations have existed, when has capitalism =/= corporatism?
You literally just described “end stage capitalism”
Agree on the ‘end stage capitalism’ line being eye-roll worthy. Instead, it should simply be ‘capitalism’.
This thread is worthy of it’s own post.
It’s not even capitalism. Capitalism would have meant no govt funding. It’s rent seeking bullshit.
The Giants privately financed their stadium and a neighborhood coalesced around it. It’s my favorite park.
[Loud sustained applause]
End Stage capitalism… Remember when fangraphs was about baseball?
This has to be one of my least favorite articles ever on this website. While I am not a fan of tax payer funded stadiums, to me this article was more on the author’s fondness for certain aesthetics and nostalgia.
It appeared as an opinion piece and simply didn’t move the needle for me in any way.
It’s an opinion piece because, as stated early in the article, the economics of modern stadium construction are exceedingly well known and nearly universally ignored by the municipal authorities making the decisions. You may not agree with his opinions, but what fun is it to beat a dead horse?
But the article was less about beating that horse and more about aesthetics and oneness of community a stadium brings. Its an opinion piece because those things are inherently subjective.
I liked that he brought in some expert opinion on the flaws and benefits of certain stadium designs, I’d have liked to hear more about that. One issue not discussed was the issue of transportation to and from the stadium. It’s hard enough to get out of Citizens Bank Park and back to the bridges, I can’t imagine the chaos if it was in Center City.
Exactly.
I never argued anything one way or the other about publicly funded stadiums. In fact I said that I wasn’t a fan.
I just was stating that my OPINION was that this was one of my least favorite articles ever included here, and that it didn’t move the needle for me in any way.
NOTHING about it enlightened me in any way.
NOTHING convinced me.
It seemed uninformative and gave the appearance that it totally existed so the author could share his opinions about what he likes and didn’t like.
I read it all completely, trying to see that if I approached the end of this opinion piece that it might change my mind in any way, shape or form.
It didn’t.
I stand my ground, my opinion is I didn’t like the article.
Not surprisingly, my opinion about the author’s opinion was met with dislike.
I guess not all opinions are treated equally, and that is okay.
I don’t mind being the odd one in the bunch, but it is madness if all contrary opinions keep quiet simply because they don’t want to cause waves.
We should never be such lemmings that we all run in the same direction every moment of every day.
Supposedly we value individualism and uniqueness, until it disagrees with popular opinions.
Met with dislike? Because you got downvoted? You stated your opinion and others stated theirs. Aside from the thumbs down (29 at this point), no one has called you names, hurled insults or attacked your opinion in any way. One commenter respectfully disagreed with you. What are you going on about? Are 30 people not allowed to disagree with you?
Maybe you could start with saying why you disagree with what the author said instead of just how nothing he said swayed you.
Or maybe get a clue in that the best way for people to express that they disagree with you is being used. You’re not being treated unequally because people down vote your opinion. But go on thinking you’re some special snowflake.
Furthermore, the article is about the Jewel Boxes themselves. To that end, the author is decrying the recent habit of stadiums being developed as the centerpiece of a sprawling real estate venture rather than as a part of a city’s unique cultural landscape. That’s the particular bit of modern capitalism that he’s taking issue with. The bit about government handouts to billionaires, generally, is taken as a given.
I wonder what the author thinks of the A’s plan in Vegas to build a ballpark in a confined space which appears to be too small of a footprint. And in glitzy Vegas, can they really design one blends with the “neighborhood”?
Personally, I’m excited to see what they come up with that blends into the “neighborhood.” Opportunity to get creative.
As a Cubs fan living in Texas, once that is completed I definitely see using a Cubs series there to anchor a Vegas trip.
Isn’t the firm that built Sofi and Texas a joint corporation of Jerry Jones and Steinbrenner families? I’ve only sat in the cheap seats of Sofi but they are are pretty flimsy plastic. But it was all privately financed by Kronke. Clippers new arena paid in full by Ballmer. The Braves model of mixed use residential retail and tax dollars seems to be the new standard so it’s not inconceivable maybe the Angels may move to Nashville or the Carolinas since socal and norcal residents will accept nothng less than a privately financed stadium.
To paraphrase Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others.
he said that about democracy.
Hence the paraphrasing.
Paraphrasing Chuchill is the worst way to misquote him, except for all the others.
capitalism =/= democracy
So I’m not a fan of the Trop. I’ve gone there a number of times. My default at any stadium is to be in the bleachers. The outfield bleachers at the Trop have horrible sight lines where you can not see the last 20-40ft at minimum of the outfield. It’s pretty common on lazy popups (that the roof doesn’t say hi too), to not see if they have been caught. Maybe the suspense has something to it but it’s not great. I really do appreciate the interactions of the roof, catwalks and baseballs. It’s something unique and very entertaining.
The new stadium looks interesting and isn’t a clone of Camden. It’s not as crazy as some of the earlier designs but it is something that is pretty different which is good.
Not getting in the development debate, except to agree the current paridium sucks. But even established clubs have owners buying up property around the stadium. It’s happened around Wrigley and Fenway. That’s been a huge loss at Wrigley with the roof top seats on the neighboring buildings.
Hard to see “End stage capitalism” and continue reading but I managed. I don’t think anyone would argue over the contents of the article. But it’s funny to read an argument against the public funding of a business as an indictment of capitalism.
It’s a handing over of public revenues to already incredibly successful capitalists, based on false promises of economic rewards back to the public.
Kinda the same general idea as trickle-down economics. Give the rich more money on the assumption that will somehow benefit everyone else.
Is that why poverty has decreased a ton over the years?
Is that why the average American lives better than 99.99 percent of people in human history[and most of the world]
Just because things on the whole have improved tremendously, that doesn’t mean that everything that has happened during that period is good or even related.
Between 1900 and 1950, cigarette consumption in the US increased 50-fold. The life expectancy also increased by 20 years. That doesn’t mean smoking cigarettes is good for you.
I mean, if you’re going to judge a society based on the entirety of history it’ll make any society look fantastic. Meanwhile almost every other current first world country has citizens with inarguably better lives than Americans.
“Meanwhile almost every other current first world country has citizens with inarguably better lives than Americans.”
I don’t agree. It depends where you live. Massachusetts has a HDI similar to Denmark. Minnesota, California, Washington, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey are all similar to western European countries.
Now West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, etc are like Estonia.
Long story short, saying “America is…” is like saying “Europe is…” some parts of America are certainly performing poorly. Other parts are doing just as well as anywhere else on earth.
Yep. KOCH Bros and Walton family destroyed this country. Just laid waste to it, but got real rich in the process.
If you’re a fan of unintentionally funny remarks, it’s going to be hard to beat this one.
The way I understand it, the biggest problem with the Trop isn’t that it’s ugly and depressing and turns pop ups and long home runs into ground rule doubles, it’s the location. The metro Tampa-St Pete area has about 3 million people, but only about 400,000 of them live in St Pete or Clearwater where getting to downtown St Pete is convenient. Everybody else has a long drive to and from the ball park, usually over a long bridge, often involving tolls, and the drive to the game is usually going to be in rush hour traffic. They seem to know this since the new stadium will reportedly have a capacity of only about 30,000 people.
So this isn’t going to solve the Rays attendance problems. My guess is that before the time the first pitch is thrown, Rays ownership will be covertly (or even not-so-covertly) trying to move to Charlotte or Nashville and extort public money out of some other government.
Miami has a lower attendance level. Both have struggled since they were created in drawing paying fans. The Tampa Bay Bucks routinely are at the bottom of NFL attendance figures in non-Brady years. They might see a small bump if it was in Tampa but I doubt it would be significant.
Yep. Baseball has never worked in Florida because of transplants who care about their home teams only, the humidity, and the fact that there are just lots of things young people would rather do.
The even bigger issues are all the snowbirds (who are the richest residents) who don’t live there during most of baseball season and all the retirees on mostly fixed incomes.
Miami put their ballpark in Little Havana. That just miiiiiiight have something to do with attendance being low.
I know Fangraphs readership tends to lean quite far left, and therefore sees everything as racial, but I’ll say it knowing the flood of thumbs-downs and nasty replies are coming… There is a LOT of crime in Little Havana! Would you walk around Little Havana before the game? Do you feel comfortable parking a nice car there? I sure dont.
I know this is purely anecdotal, but the White Sox had somebody get literally shot during a game and they had 20k in attendance the next day. For reference, Miami had less than 14k on the same day with the same start time. I don’t think the location of their ballpark is the answer.
The location of Miami’s ballpark is most definitely a big problem. It is a war zone around that ballpark.
Why would you need to walk around outside before a game? Do they not have public transportation or any nearby parking garages?
Well, perhaps just maybe people enjoy meeting friends for a beer before the game, or take their family for lunch or dinner before the game, or see the sights of a city they are visiting. But as far as Little Havana goes, your style of putting your car in a secure lot and going directly into the ballpark out of fear of being stabbed is the smart way to go.
Just because they may prefer to do those things doesn’t mean they’re required to do so to have a good time. If you think it’s too dangerous, just skip those parts. As far as the main point of attending a baseball game goes, it’s not very dangerous at most if not all ballparks.
Besides, you could just as easily visit the city’s sights or have lunch during the day, go back to your hotel, and then go to the game later.
Camden Yards wasn’t exactly on Park Avenue, either.
Putting the location aside, there is really only one redeeming quality of the Trop. And that is that in the summer in central florida, which is essentially satan’s butthole, it has air conditioning.
The stadium sucks. It’s built like a basketball arena but worse. When you leave the seated area, you feel like your in the lobby of a weird movie theater. It’s also not cheap or charming like a minor league experience.
I’ve been to most parks and it’s the worst. Not close. Oakland is much better.
I had to lookup what an interlocutor was. I like that this author makes me look up words in the same way Stephen Malkmus did in the 90s.
Also…
Pavement’s “Easily Fooled” includes the word “interlocutor.”
Yeah I had never bothered looking it up till now tho loooool
Music scene is crazy, bands start up each and every day. I saw another one just the other day, a special new band.
Princess with a cold killer instinct winked at me from across the ice rink.
nice. I never knew the last part of the no tan lines lyric. I had always thought it was winter moves her across the ice rink.
No clue at all what he says next though lol
reunion shows last year were lit
Yeah I managed to get to 2 of them
Good article, thank you. After watching the video I kinda want to go see the Miami stadium now.
You know the Fangraphs editor was just salivating at the opportunity to slip in a political jab in the title.
Title aside, the article was great.
I would be stunned if that title came from anyone other than Baumann himself
Trump lost. He lost because he is a literal piece of human dog feces, and there just aren’t that many lowlifes in the United States after all.
The Cobb County electoral disaster will not end free money grabs by stadiums because, as the learned professors teach, there are no economic incentives more powerful than free money. Rich people will always remain rapacious, and there will always be some dumb local politician willing to give away someone else’s money to someone else.
Loving the Trop for its idiosyncracies is a wonderful illustration of how love is blind. “I love thee not in spite of thy faults, but because of them” is wonderfully romantic, but it’s not an overly persuasive political philosophy.
That said, I retain a fondness for the old-style brutalist cookie-cutter two-sport stadia of my youth: the old Launching Pad and RFK are the two I spent the most time in, but I could find it in me to miss Shea, the Vet, Three Rivers, and all the rest of them. They used to all look like that, and now none of ’em look like that, and that’s kind of a little bit too bad.
I share your nostalgia for the concrete-dish stadiums, but then you (and I) have to remember that the spectator experience at those places fundamentally kind of sucked — you felt a mile away from the field, particularly if you were in the cheap seats. Between the vast expanses of foul territory and the way they stacked the upper tiers of seats farther and farther back (was it some kind of reaction against overhangs?), and then also the fact that most of them were designed as multi-sport stadiums, the difference in how far you were from the action, at say Citi Field vs. Shea, was absolutely huge. I’ve been in the outfield bleachers at some of the newer parks and felt closer to home plate than I did in the upper deck at Shea Stadium. What I really do miss is the sound of those stadiums when the sellout crowd got going. You never hear anything like it at one of these newfangled 40,000-seaters.
Hard to have overhangs when you’re cramming in as many luxury boxes as you can.
Well, *one* of them still looks like it…
I agree that the public funding of ballparks is not what the public should want, however, its weird to see this as an indictment on capitalism. This is really the opposite of capitalism: Its too much government intervention. If the government stayed out of it like most true capitalists would wish, then these stadiums would have to be privately funded.
Most capitalists want exactly this: the government giving them money but not regulations.
You do know that you are a capitalist. So is the author
So am I! Doesn’t mean I have to support the actions of ALL capitalists. dl80 shouldn’t proclaim to know what most all capitalists want, that’s fair. But can’t we fellow capitalists be able to call out bad-faith acting capitalists when we witness them doing bad-faith things?
I take it you aren’t too familiar with Michael Baumann
Which is funny because Adam Smith was explicitly against this in Wealth of Nations. This is from the end of book 1:
“The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by ***raising profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an ansurd tax among the rest of their own fellow citizens***. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be fully adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. ***It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same as with that of the public, who have general interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occassions, both deceived and oppressed it.***”
Asterisks added by me for emphasis
The private-public partnership for private profit, and/or tax breaks/subsidies for private profit, is as late capitalism as it gets. Your “true capitalists” haven’t met a public dollar they didn’t covet.
The libertarian free-market types showing up in these comments to betray their utter lack of knowledge and understanding of these things is really something.
Oh God forbid anyone would have libertarian views! If you are not a Marxist, you must be an imbecile.
No, you’re just an imbecile if you are libertarian. Or a child who has yet to understand how society works.
“Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don’t appreciate or understand.”
I like that quote!
Is it though? Have you ever, and I mean EVER, read anything from a libertarian tha leave you thinking they have even a shred of intelligence?
They must cheat on the IQ tests
Let’s get rid of them all.
Well, libertarians have a much higher IQ on average than libs and conservatives. I’m pretty sure you could look at any libertarian article about this, and it would explain it well
The Fangraphs crowd will have at you for saying anything other than Marxist drivel.
It is hilarious because there are numerous articles on reason.com about this topic. And if that guy calls libertarians stupid then I’m sure he calls conservatives stupid.So,basically you have to be left wing, or you are stupid
Pretty much, paul.
The Fangraphs crowd is Alt-Left. They hate conservatives.
Most “libertarians” aren’t libertarians.
The Cato Institute has a ton of good evidence based articles. But they are pro immigration and pro free trade. So most modern American conservatives would be decidedly against what they say.
Libertarians are essentially teenage boys in grown bodies.
Trump even got a few o them ducats when he directed the Secret Service to stay way out of their way at his expensive elite Scottish ranch. Forcing us to add more unwillingly to his supposed “billions.”
What a piece of garbage, you know?
It’s an indictment of modern Capitalism as it is actually practiced. Team owners do a dog-and-pony show promising tremendous economic rewards for cities that “invest” in new stadium facilities, when in reality the investment is nothing of the sort.
Government cash giveaways to corporate interests are most certainly not laissez-faire Capitalism. There will likely always be, however, a subset of people who revere the word “Capitalism” as a sort of religious iconography. To them, saying bad things about Capitalists is blasphemy, even when the bad thing they are being accused of is behaving in ways contrary to Capitalism.
There are also the folks who are such committed sports fans that they happily support whatever it takes to promote the welfare of their chosen team (or sport generally), and will gleefully buy in to whatever team ownership is selling for fear of the specter of relocation.
Its a good indictment of modern capitalism in how its practiced, but I do think the better term is crony capitalism. I disagree with the title’s implication that crony capitalism is the natural end state of capitalism
Exactly. These cronies hide behind the term capitalist. It’s a PR mask. They are simply corrupt.
Nobody who is pro-capitalism is supportive of this public funded yet privately owned nonsense.
It’s like accusing the pro marriage crowd of supporting adultery because many marriages end in infidelity
It’s more of an indictment of trickle-down economics than anything. You know, the thing Republicans and capitalists swear by. Give the rich guy more money because he’s obviously smart and hard working enough to be rich, and then when he does whatever he wants with it, hopefully maybe the poors get a few more pennies…eventually.
Well, they have a few more pennies. Poverty has been cut by an amazing amount the last 50 years.
I don’t think there’s a catch-all stat for poverty, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t true. I do know the wealth gap has increased. And that trickle down economics has been proven false. “Well, they have a few more pennies” just reads cruel, man. But hey, cruelty is maybe the point?
Poverty as defined by the world bank has been drastically reduced. As least it was when China was growing gangbusters.
But poverty as defined for Americans went up until 2021 and 2022.
In China. Not in America.
Primarily in blue states, blue counties, and western European countries. Places with a blend of capitalism and government intervention.
Rural America, the south, and the rust belt are in pretty bad shape.
This brain needs to be studied in a lab.
For any other ballpark design sickos, I highly recommend Ballpark: Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger. Expands on many of the points here, particularly about how weirdly-shaped and -sized lots can create productive constraints that generate memorable and distinctive designs. It also has some interesting discussion of urbanism in general and how ballparks can contribute to or detract from the ideal of walkable, organic, people-oriented (as opposed to car-oriented) neighborhoods.
The public financing baseball stadiums, other than the most marginal amounts, is bad. I think we can all agree on that. Baseball teams deciding that they’re going to play in a worse location and/or take more money from the public in order to help their real estate investments is even worse. That might be a little more controversial, but it’s the part of the article that I want to talk about.
It’s kind of unfortunate that the transition from baseball owner to landlord (and its resulting effects on these absurd cash-grabs teams participate in) only really got much attention near the end of the article. That’s the interesting news story. The Orioles are busy trying to renegotiate a deal where they’re going to get $600M (!!!!!) to spruce up Camden Yards because they want to be landlords. The Rays are going to stick in a terrible location and doom the team to lousy attendance for another 15 years because they want to be landlords. This stuff is ridiculous and worthy of much more scrutiny than anyone is giving them (including this article).
Love this.
The real battle shouldn’t be capital vs labor. It should be capital and labor vs landlords.
Then again, I’m a georgist.
The video is great, but there are so many factors in ballpark success beyond architecture. As great as Camden and Marlins’ Park are, they were built in such burned-out, dangerous areas of Baltimore and Miami, it is awkward and intimidating going to either place.
How do you convince teams to build downtown, human-scale ballparks when so many downtowns are inconvenient at best, and dangerous in many cases?
PNC is the perfect ballpark in my view. Sort of downtown, welcoming ballpark that seems like it was meant to be there. The area is safe, and it is not hard to get there.
As for government subsidies, I love them! Since I don’t live in a place with a stadium, I love that I can enjoy these fancy ballparks on TV (and occasional visits when I am in a MLB city) without getting soaked for the tax bill. I vote for these cities to keep subsidizing ballparks. 😂
Pittsburgh is a fairly low crime center city by US standards.
‘Downtown’ hasn’t been the ‘dangerous’ neighborhood in most American cities for a decade or two now. Stadiums still won’t be built downtown, but the reason is because the real estate is too expensive not because of crime rates.
“end stage capitalism”
This is like blaming Teaching for the reason that the Unibomber killed those people.
“end stage teaching”
If you teach kids about what communism and nazism is, they may become a horrible person like the Unibomber
_________________________
In reality, “end stage capitalism” has brought about a million times better things than the bad things like public money for a stadium. Millions less out of poverty are due to “end stage capitalism”
You partisan hack
End stage capitalism eh? Good way to know I can ignore the article in full.
Why can’t more teams do what the Cardinals did to finance their stadium with a combo of private bonds, loans, and good ol’ cash from the owners?
They probably could, but if politicians are willing to subsidize them, why would the owners say “no thanks”?
Politicians often fear the team leaving more than backlash about money.
Yes, but owners both grandstand about leaving and ACTIVELY lobby for these public funds. They’re not passively being offered this money, they’re going after it, and misrepresenting the benefit of the investment. That’s where my dislike is rooted. By your own admission, you think they COULD fund these ballparks (they can) but you don’t fault them for taking hundreds of millions of dollars that they don’t need from taxpayers. And in the end, they benefit disproportionally. It’s fair to question a system that encourages this.
Who cares if anyone “faults” owners? We all still watch MLB even though we all say we dislike the owners.
But anyway… as long as a few cities/counties/states are willing to subsidize ballparks, it will keep happening. Owners barely even need to threaten to leave anymore – the threat is implicit.
If you are a politician, you need to weigh the risk of voter anger over the expense vs voter anger if the team leaves. And you know for sure another city will make an offer.
To sum, you’re excusing reprehensible behavior…because they’ll do it anyway? For some reason you think it’s not okay when baseball owners get called out for engaging in dishonest business practices, and you give them a pass for doing it. Fine, that’s your opinion. We’re good. But don’t spout off about “Marxist drivel” and whatever else just to argue with others. If less people had your opinion, we could probably change how this works. At least, that’s how the system is supposed to function. The fact that politicians, on both sides of the aisle, continue to ignore the will of voters (and the general public good) is troubling and shouldn’t be excused. But again, you can have your opinion.
Ah, so it worked out that way in St. Louis, because there was no chance the team would skip town.
Somebody get this guy a podcast! Fangraphs Audio looks available
The Trop may be unique, but it’s in all the wrong ways. Just because something is unique doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good.
Meanwhile, there are so many ballparks that follow the basic design of Camden Yards, because it works. Yet, while they copy the basic design, they each also have some of their own unique features, as well. Also, Minute Maid Park is the ONLY one with extreme quirks due to spacial limitations like the older examples you mentioned.
Meanwhile, the multi-purpose cookie-cutter parks only became popular in the first place due how versatile they were, with many cities using the same stadium for both their MLB and NFL teams as well as other sporting events. Then the owners realized it was worth having separate facilities to avoid having to deal with those ugly, soulless, and terribly inefficient and hard to maintain ballparks.
“We’re all ugly and inconvenient in our own ways, and the Trop is merely a reflection of that.”
This is hilarious. Just think about it for one minute, divorced of everything else. This is Michael Baumann telling you both who he is as a writer and a person.
Now come back, and apply what this is to everything he writes.
“This is Michael Baumann telling you both who he is as a writer and a person.”
Can you please explain further? I’m not sure what lens you’re asking us to apply here.
Michael Baumann thinks of himself as ugly and inconvenient, and is upset by things that aren’t, because they disturb his ego.
Hence, he wants everything to be ugly and inconvenient, just like he is.
You making a lot of assumptions about the author. Him being ok with something ugly and inconvenient doesn’t mean he wants EVERYTHING that way. But you’ve also posited that people who get vaccinated and/or use masks are conformists and that some races are intellectually superior to others elsewhere on this board. So we should all probably just ignore you.
You making a lot of assumptions about the author. Him being ok with something ugly and inconvenient doesn’t mean he wants EVERYTHING that way. But you’ve been also posited that people who get vaccinated and/or use masks are conformists and that some races are intellectually superior to others elsewhere on this board. So we should all probably just ignore you.
I thought that line was a bit revealing myself
For what it’s worth, I also have a hard time taking an article seriously that argues for the virtues of The Trop. Everything about that place is terrible.
Kauffman Stadium is wonderful though and I will be sad to lose it.
Royal Stadium was considered one of the best ballparks in MLB. I’ve always enjoyed it
When I was a kid I thought it was spectacular. Dodger Stadium is fine but until Camden Yards was built I always thought of Kauffman the greatest stadium in MLB.
I guess the Skydome also had that title for maybe a year. It gets a bad rap but was incredible to me when it first opened. Kauffman was my first love, though.
The interesting part about Kauffman to me is its right next to Arrowhead.
They opened a year apart. The Chiefs are one of the crown jewels of modern NFL and Arrowhead has a reputation for their game day experience and fans. They even have this despite the misery that is Missouri fall and winter.
So how are the Royals going to say they are disadvantaged when the Chiefs are so wildly successful?
Baltimore spends over $28K per student and 13 high schools had no kids test proficient in math. I get being judicious with taxpayer funds. But where do we get value out of government spending? So my outrage is tempered.
My kids go to a private school. It costs less than $15K/year per child. And every single student at the school is far above “proficient”. Every student gets into college, a very high % of them get scholarships and attend good schools. The amount of $/student means very little. Government schools can waste $$$ and they just bill taxpayers more the next year. Private schools need to perform or they go out of business.
Sure, I know, my view is not sufficiently Marxist for the Fangraphs elites. But my kids are doing great so I can take the heat for being an evil, unintelligent conservative monster. God forbid I like capitalism.
I’m sorry, but are you here just to argue with people? Because I’m not sure this post is supposed to be anything BUT incendiary…while not really being incendiary. It’s like you want people to say something mean to you just so you can say something mean in return. Sending your kids to affordable private school is not evil nor unintelligent. And no one, literally no one, is forbidding you to like capitalism.
If you choose to dislike the actions of billionaire owners who use public money for private real estate deals, you can feel free to do so. But you don’t have to either. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, I wouldn’t go throwing around labels like Marxist and Fangraph elites. You’re only doing what you’re accusing others of doing.
Based on this article’s comments, the answer to your question is a resounding yes. Nothing gets that conservative blood running like owning the libs
I’m politically independent and agree that this site is very left leaning.
And yet if you point out the Blue Kool-Aid stains everywhere, you get many thumbs down, presumably from those with blue stains around their mouths.
Anyway, good on you for sending your kids to private school. The public school system has become a disgrace
“I’m independent, and extremely free-thinking. Unrelated – but let me explain how the use of public funds towards social good is violence against my family.”
Riddle me this, Batman:
Why is it, that if money is all that matters for educational outcomes, that the cities where public education funding is highest in the nation get far worse results than places where funding is much lower?
A: It isn’t true because you made it up without any real evidence?
Typically, higher poverty areas have lower baseline results (because of poverty) and some higher costs (again because of the endemic poverty).
If you measure by ‘adequate funding level’ there’s a clear correlation between funding above or below adequate levels and scoring above or below US average. The Adequacy of School District Spending in the U.S. (Baker, Di Carlo, Weber 2021) and the blog entry at Shanker Inst. have a great red-blue scatterplot you can find on google image search.
But even ignoring adequacy levels, more spending in general is positively correlated with better results. For example, School Finance Reform and the Distribution of Student Achievement (Lafortune et.al. 2018):
This is not true. You made this up.
Why do red states make up 8-9 of the bottom 10 in everything (poverty, teen pregnancy, maternal mortality, uninsured rate, infant mortality, gun death rate, shortest life expectancy, federal dependency)?
Why does the S&P 500, deficit, unemployment, and GDP growth end up on a better path at the end of Democrat than Republican presidents?
Why do red counties, despite representing 46% of the population and like 85% of all counties only make up 29% of our GDP?
If you’re going to use statistics as a Republican, you’re in for a bad time.
Cute reply. As a defender of modern public education, I bet you want to put more than just words into my mouth.
Sorry cowboy, I just don’t swing that way
Let’s face it though, you’d really rather prefer Betsy DeVos as secretary so that she and the AMWAY crew can hoover up some of the public funds, and maybe get Erik Prince back in the White House to finally make some real money off our bloated military budget.
Swing and a miss.
Maybe, just maybe, the primary determining factor is not the average expense per student by the school system, but the socioeconomic conditions under which those students live.
what does “elite” mean?
Also, I’m a Democrat and a capitalists. I don’t see at all how anti immigrant and anti trade modern American conservatives can call themselves capitalists.
Aside from staying in St. Pete, the part I don’t get is why, like the A’s, they’re settling for a tiny 30,000 seat capacity. True, they’ll probably have trouble filling in that many seats after the first year, but they should at least try for the possibility of good attendance. They’re basically admitting that an MLB team in Florida will never draw well, but they’d rather have the land development in the same terrible location instead of just moving to someplace like Nashville or Charlotte where the team could actually get proper support.
Why would anyone expect Nashville or Charlotte to be successful baseball cities?
Because their metro areas have grown larger than the current smallest MLB markets (and will only get larger), and their populations aren’t full of snowbirds, retirees, and other transplants.
Incredible how many people are immediately triggered when they read the word ‘capitalism’. Why are you so angry? Is this due to your lived experience – or is this due to propaganda you have been fed your entire life?
Definitely the latter
So,basically the average Fangraphs poster is Keith Olbermann.
Pasty Mayo
Extremely Angry
Doesn’t even take into consideration they could be wrong on some things
Thinks you are a bad person or stupid if you don’t think like them
Does exactly what partisan conservatives do. When something goes wrong,they already have their conclusion in their head.
I don’t know, man. You’re on here calling people partisan hacks and arguing, then want to call out when that behavior is reciprocated? Seems inconsistent.
There are bad faith actors under every economic and socio-political system out there. You don’t have to be labeled a Marxist, hack or whatever else to think the current system needs to be modified so as to benefit moneyed interests less. And it’s not an indictment against EVERYONE that benefits from that same system. The Fangraphs post clearly details a specific gripe against specific parties doing bad things. Namely, using wealth and access to garner public funds for financing private real estate deals.
I’m a capitalist who thinks there are badly behaving capitalists out there. That’s a fair opinion to have. Libs don’t have to like all libs, cons don’t have to like all cons, etc. Your posting here is as tribalistic and partisan as anyone else’s here.
Having now watched the Wyetzner video, I am kind of amused by its… architectiness (I don’t know what to call it but this — that signature aestheticized form-over-function mentality and inability to talk about buildings in economic or functional terms that seems to have come in the box with his silver Lamy fountain pen).
In reviewing each stadium he talks almost exclusively about two things, (a) the appearance of the facade and (b) the way it fits into “the urban grid,” or doesn’t. The external factors that this article is trying to gesture toward (however confusedly), the complicated problems of land-use politics and economics that dictate the latter, are almost totally invisible and forgotten, as if they’d just happened due to some invisible force like the weather. So for instance he spends a lot of time slagging off Citi Field for having a poorly executed “retro” facade that gestures toward Ebbets but at gargantuan scale (and fair enough, I guess, though you’d think he’d realize that people don’t go to the ballpark for the facade) although it’s not sited “in the urban grid” in the same way. But then he doesn’t have anything to say about the reasons Citi Field is sited where it is, amid the Willets Point junkyards that would make many New Yorkers positively welcome a Truist Park-style, Disneyfied New Urbanist potted neighborhood by contrast to what’s there now. The forces that put some stadiums in the middle of cities in the 1910s and others in the middle of a suburban sea of parking lots in the 1960s are, to me, a lot more interesting than the precise detailing of their exterior windows. And for what it’s worth I do, at least, fully agree with this article that Truist is the watershed for a new era of stadium villages.
Architects (speaking as one) have a really weird habit of significantly dumbing-down their discourse whenever addressing a broader public. It’s frustrating and generally both trivializes the work (which is completely engaged with the socioeconomic contexts it finds itself in, as you point out) and as a result rarely gets anywhere near the actual point.
Early FanGraphs was so much better than late FanGraphs.
Fangraphs without Notgraphs is End Stage Fangraphs
Hello, FIS Club at Nats Park, built by the DC for a multi-billionaire family.
I wish they were after the twelve miles of fertile ground nextdoor here in Milwaukee. The city is begging the team to take and develop the sea of parking lot to at least give some impression that public investment in the stadium will return some improvements to the City. but unfortunately, the Brewers are uninterested in the deal.
The first image I had when I read “end-stage capitalism” was Ebeneezer Scrooge saying “Hold my beer”
My own problem with all of this public funding of sports venues is that it is not pure capitalism, at least as I see it. It has been proven time and time again that government financing and granting tax breaks with the building of new sports facilities due not produce equivalent benefits for the community associated (jobs, increased tourism, etc.) with it. Sadly in my opinion, none of this will change until we vote out the politicians that support these deals. I don’t see this as a Democrat or Republican issue, but a problem with politicians vying for support and other perks. The seeming unawareness of much of the public in reference to this money is troubling. Sports surcharges in television packages for individuals not supporting teams is also not truly representative, but that is another issue. The tax dollars that governments funnel in this direction could be much better spent in other infrastructure endeavors. I love baseball, but it and other sports need to pay their own way without taxpayer support.
Wait, an embrace of a urbanism sad about the end of Kauffman stadium? Am I missing something? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kauffman+Stadium/@39.0516719,-94.485464,1742m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x87c0e4a099dca071:0xe595daf73fe0c690!8m2!3d39.0516719!4d-94.4803142!16zL20vMDF3c2Rk?entry=ttu
One tiny political jab and plum half of y’all lose your freaking minds
Nowhere near half. More like a vociferous minority.
I’m sure the other half would’ve reacted completely differently about an article titled, “Phillies Defense Is As Porous As The Southern Border”
To claim capitalism as an ideology belonging to one side of the political aisle is misguided. And plainly incorrect. There is no “other half” here. And calling out the misdeeds of a few capitalists doesn’t mean an indictment against all capitalists. Seems most of the people who are lamenting against the fangraphs post (and really the post’s title) just seem ready for a dispute. As if calling out billionaire owners is personally offensive to them because of some undefined political belief that all capitalist actors are trustworthy and act faithfully at all times. It’s weird. One commenter daring others to hate him for sending his kids to private school. Another going on a Covid rant and saying “bring in the downvotes.” Get over yourselves.
It’s a remnant of Cold War propaganda that tied capitalism to Christianity to combat the “godless commies”. Now you’ve got a generation of capitalist crusaders who pray to Ronald Reagan and think “greed is good” is the only way to run a society. Trying to interfere in the free market, or even questioning whether it works for everyone, means you’re basically Stalin.
Yeah it’s extreme and inconsistent. And maddening.
Take it up with the OP, not me.
OP referred to “half”. By definition, when there is one half (e.g. the one the OP referred to), there is another (e.g. the one I’m referring to).
I live in Texas and that’s a hilarious title
I also live in Texas. Thank God for immigrants and I hope we allow a shitload more in. The employment gap in construction, hospitality, truck driving, landscaping, and warehousing isn’t going to fix itself.
I’ve got no problem with people who legally immigrate here. However illegals don’t pay taxes despite using the infrastructure and drive down wages for the lower class by competing with them for jobs and accepting low-ball offers since they have no leverage(citizenship)
Well the southern border isn’t porous but I get your point.
https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-border-immigration-policy-still-reducing-border-crossings-illegal-immigration-0
It certainly is. The only question is how does it compare to the Phillies defense
It certainly isn’t. Unless your definition is you want 0 immigrants. We’ve had roughly the same amount as we’ve had for 20+ years. Read the Cato article.
Amen to all that.
Great, great essay. Problem that many local politician have is that he or she doesn’t want to be the person who “lost” (fill in the blanks). So, while spending on schools, libraries, cops and fireman, roads, is unpopular, stadiums bring their own built-in fans, When it comes to negotiating, billionaire owners are often a lot smarter than the people state and local officials they face off against. Really, we ought to look at our priorities. Is replacing a 20 year old stadium with a gift to private industry of many hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars really appropriate?
This happens at the minor league level as well. Here in central Connecticut, New Britain had a Double-A franchise from 1983 through 2015. Big brother Hartford, decided the city could use that franchise to hoodwink the populace into funding an urban renewal project and for a paltry $67 million got the deal going with a promise that the ballpark would be the center of a development with retail stores and dining. For all intents and purposes the entire scheme was nothing but a swindle. Contractors failed to meet every deadline, everybody was suing everybody and the opening was postponed by a full year, of course with an $11 million overrun included. The Yard Goats played every game on the road in 2016. What has happened to the promised urban renewal, zip, goose-egg, squat, nada. The park is gorgeous but the area around the park has not, to be polite, been “developed”. There is a great article at BaseballParks.com that cover the entire situation.
Why would anyone put a ballpark in an “urban grid” now? Downtowns in most cities have become crime-ridden slums, or glorified corporate office plazas that are ghost towns after 5pm.
Does anybody think for a minute if the Orioles got an offer to relocate to a nice, new, subsidized ballpark in Montreal, Nashville, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Ottawa, Louisville, Austin, or Jacksonville, they would decline to stay in Baltimore?! Baltimore has a team because it made sense in the 1950s and St. Louis could not support 2 teams. It does not make sense anymore to have an MLB team in Baltimore. The beautiful ballpark is the only thing keeping them in Maryland. But that won’t work forever. Baltimore is a sh|th0le City.
Any day now, the appeal of the 30 year-old stadium should wane.
Imagine saying that Baltimore is a hellhole, and they should move to Jacksonville or Indianapolis as a result i’m dying of laughter over here
you get a rocket ship for this one
8=========D
Most downtowns aren’t crime ridden dude. Touch grass.
The threat of a Continental League forced MLB expansion in the 1960s. Maybe it is time again!
How about a league with teams in:
Montreal, Ottawa, Buffalo, Newark, Columbus, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Vancouver, Portland, SLC, San Jose, Oklahoma City, Austin, San Antonio, Oakland, Louisville and Nashville?
But there actually will be expansion within the next few years once/assuming these (terrible) deals for the A’s and Rays become official. It’s the only good thing about them.
I feel like voters shrug off these subsidies because their fanhood gets in the way. They’d rather be ransomed than worry about their team skipping town to ransom someone else.
The author is still masking in 2023. From this, we can conclude he’s also been boosted, despite the obvious scientific evidence that the specific covid vaccine actually increases the spread of the virus. See the UK health data, the Israeli health data, etc: the more vaccinated the population, the higher the rate of per capita infection.
From that, we can conclude that he doesn’t care about data, but The Science!, and is more concerned about fitting his political opinions to match those of his friends. Because he’s a conformist.
Which is the exact opposite of what sabermetrics was always about: seeking the truth, and running against consensus agreement even when such a position is deeply unpopular.
Feed me your downvotes without arguing against me. You’re only proving my point.
Please. Sabermetrics is about uncovering value in baseball using statistical analysis. That’s it. Not propping up conspiracy theories about a worldwide pandemic that’s claimed over a million lives. Your assumptions about the author are specious and you’ve proven nothing. You’re not brave for your “beliefs,” nor are you proving others are conformist for theirs. You’re just seeking attention. “Feed me your downvotes…” Dude, please. You itching for a fight over COVID on a fangraphs message board?! Nah.
What’s to argue? People normally don’t engage with guys muttering to themselves at bus stops either.
There is nothing on God’s green Earth more “conformist” than the present-day Republican Party.
It’s literally a mob organization where grown men compete to outdo themselves in genuflecting before the lowlife mob boss in as supine and servile a manner as possible.
Nothing more conformist.
What are talking about?! The Republican party has been split between Trump supporters and Trump haters. It hasn’t been less conformist since the election of 1912 or maybe even longer!
It’s only about running against consensus when there is data.
Too many people seem to think it makes a person smart simply to go against consensus.
Most people are closer to Dale Gribble from King of the Hill saying peanuts emit toxins because they’re tired of being eaten than they are to Winston Smith fighting big brother.
But all these media carnies like Rogan, Peterson, Shapiro, Jones, etc make a killing by appealing to people’s ego that they can know the “truth” if they listen to their podcast and some non expert try to sell a book.
I am excited
Doesn’t matter that much, but Camden opened in 1992.
Can you explain what you mean by “end-stage capitalism”
I think he meant to generate clicks and comments.. Worked like a charm.
Like you, I’d also be interested in his definition
Some years ago the mayor of Kansas City said in relation to the Chiefs and Royals something along the lines of “they need a new stadium like I need a new Maserati.”
Now he’s applauding deal for a new Thunder arena in Oklahoma City that will use $850 million of taxpayer money as a “wise” idea. There isn’t a politician in this country that won’t vote in favor of handing public money to the wealthy, no matter what lip-service they might pay to the contrary.
Rising crime in liberal cities the last 3 years is also libertarians fault!
Very little is libertarians’ fault right now in the US, because libertarianism is, somehow, even more politically irrelevant in the US than socialism. Because of this irrelevance, I cannot think of a single thing that libertarians are to blame for— you have to *able* to do something, anything, to be at fault— with the exception of New Hampshire’s bear problem.
There aren’t really libertarians though. Get 2 self professed libertarians in a room and they won’t agree on a ton of things.
Cato is the closest thing to it and they’re pro immigration and against protectionism. Which is not something a lot of libertarians (anecdotally) agree with.
1. Something like 75 of the 100 biggest cities have Democrat mayors. So it’d be expected that 7 of the 10 worst (and best) would be ran by liberals. Which is basically what you see. Fort Worth, OKC, and Jacksonville are all high crime and republican.
2. If you look at all cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants, it’s cities like Shreveport, LA and Gary, IN near the top. Last time I checked Chicago wasn’t even top 15 in per capita murder.
3. Something like 7 of the top 10 states with the highest murder rate are red states. In fact, Arkansas **as a state** has like a 30% higher murder rate than new york City. In other words, throw a dart at Arkansas and wherever you go you’re more likely to get murdered than in NYC.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm
4. Murder rate is falling. Turns out a pandemic causes an increase in crime. Who knew.
Going to throw one number out: -333, which is the Oakland A’s run differential. more than 2 runs per game. The 1962 Mets had a run differential of 329. A’s owners about to soak up the free taxpayer money and land. Does anyone think they have at least a minimal obligation to put a competitive team on the field, or can they go indefinitely taking handouts from their fellow owners and the taxpayers?
You know, reading all of these comments suddenly make me like the Blue Jays park formerly known as SkyDome a bit better.
That new upstairs bar/patio thing looks fun. For a couple innings at least.
Me this morning: “Alright these political discussions are getting rabid as we gear up for a pivotal election. I’m going to check out some baseball articles on Fangraphs instead..”
Does the movement of parks to greenfield real estate at all change the calculus of the value? The logic of a Stadium being a poor investment is you’re replacing things in an economically viable part of the city. So instead of say $1B in activity in restaurants and movies it’s $1B in baseball.
But, if instead, you’re replacing a parking lot and strip mall (low economic output) with a ballpark, its theoretically possible that it’s at least not as bad as the former.
Granted, it’s not artistically sexy. It still seems like the better (I’m not saying “good”) economic option.
Also, Truist park being a sterile suburb of shitty chain bars like Punch Bowl Social and the PBR bar is a pretty good reflection of Atlanta. Something like 6M in the metro but only ~400k in the city proper. That white flight is reflected in the ballpark.
I’ll add that the Rangers being a soulless, bland, boring, sterile stadium in Arlington with similarly bland sports bars reflects Dallas as well.
These stadiums are kind of like politics. You might not like what they “elect”, but IMO they accurately reflect the community.