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December 2, 2008
Giving the Mets’ New Ballpark a Bad Name
The New York Times
by George Vescey
With a mixture of rage and pride, I drove past the Mets’ new ballpark Monday and noticed that offensive name still up there.
As Citigroup grovels for a bailout from public funds, the Mets insist the name will not change. Not to give free publicity to these jokers, but as of this moment, the new stadium is still Citi Field.
My rage gave way to pride, however, knowing that we are all, in a broad sense, shareholders in the Mets. Civic benefactors. Patrons of the arts. Sportsmen and sportswomen, as franchise owners used to call themselves, before we wised up.
We are paying for the government subsidy — socialism at the top — so that this failing institution can keep its name on the Flushing skyline where Serval Zipper once stood so proudly.
...New ballparks are a source of amusement in the Bronx as well as in Queens. It was recently reported that the Bloomberg administration had bargained 250 extra parking spaces to the Yankees in exchange for a larger luxury box and free food for the high-profile schnorrers from City Hall.
This disclosure makes it easier to understand why the Bloomberg administration was so compliant about the vanishing of a neighborhood park that was so inconveniently in the way of the new Yankees playpen. The city claims it will eventually put in tiny little parklets on top of garages, but at least the Yankees respect their brand and are not selling their naming rights to some shaky financial institution.
NoLandGrab: The egregiousness of the public's forced underwriting of sports facilities owned by multi-hundred-millionaires or billionaires is made even more egregious when we have to underwrite the naming rights, too, the income from which all flows to the aforementioned filthy-rich owners, all while our term-limit-overturning mayor is horse-trading public money for luxury suites — meals included.
Posted by eric at December 2, 2008 1:00 PM