Before I begin, I thought I would answer a question I had in the comments. There will be 9 football preview posts because there are 8 divisions, and a post on the postseason. It all works out. Now, on to the official week in review.
ITEM ONE: People have always used tragedies or climactic events as leverage in their fight for whatever cause they have. Scott Soshnick at Bloomberg has taken the Minneapolis bridge tragedy and spun it against publicly financed sports venues, saying that that money would have been better used to improve city infrastructure. Of course, the stadium didn’t draw any money away from transportation improvements, as it will be funded by a .015% tax increase, rather than by diverted funds. Additionally, the funds for the bridge rebuilding will come from federal coffers, which were opened up because it was deemed a disaster. The stadium isn’t siphoning funds away from other projects.
Also, he decries the fact that there were no public referendums on the stadium bill. Why do we need a referendum on a .015% tax increase? Is there a threshold for this type of thing? And haven’t we had tax increases like this before? Why do stadiums come under this kind of scrutiny anyways? Personally, I would think that a venue that can attract up to 45,000 people a night would be something that should be publicly financed. We don’t seem to complain when smaller parks get supported by our tax dollars, and they attract a much smaller number of residents. Sure, the Twins will make money on the stadium, but they are also spending money on it. I’ve seen private vendors at city festivals and fairs who have to pay a nominal fee to use the land. The Twins are investing a lot more into this venue. Clearly, I’m a political novice, but the argument provided by Mr. Soshnik makes no sense to me.
ITEM TWO: The other Twins story this week was Johan Santana’s outing yesterday, striking out 17 batters. While this is a wonderful event, it put Santana back into the forefront of
baseball’s all seeing GMs. Buster Olney at ESPN (Thanks to MLB Trade Rumors, since I don’t have insider, and I assume you don’t either) thinks the Twins should trade him this offseason. Well, thanks Buster, but how do you propose the Twins try to sell that to the fans buying tickets at the new stadium which may or not be there thanks to people like Scott Soshnik?
No, the Twins need to work their tails off to try and resign Santana. We can field a roster of Morneau, Mauer and Santana with 22 rookies and it will still be worth it, because the Twins farm system is good with fundamentals, and those three will put butts in seats. The Twins need to be winners when that stadium opens, not a crapfest that has even Joe Mauer questioning his decision to stick around.
ITEM THREE: I’m so angry today! Let’s look past the festering rage today, and think about hockey. Yay, hockey! My favorite hockey blog, Barry Melrose Rocks (you can see the link over yonder on the sidebar) has done 2 great things. First, Kevin, the writer there, linked to me, in thanks for my linking to him. Second, he has already started there own wonderful team by team season preview, which is much better than anything I could ever do. So pop on over there.
ITEM FOUR: In my entirely too long Twins post a while back, I realized I’m no good with money. I added some inconspicuous ads down in the bottom left corner. Click on them, and I make money. I like money. Maybe I would stop being so angry if you click on my ads.
That’s it. I’ll be out of Victoria Times commission for a little while, but then I’ll be back with NFL Previews that someone out there has to like. Right?
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