Pro Baseball in Richmond, Just Forget About It.

Forget it about pro baseball Richmond. Yes you heard me correctly; let’s just forget about the whole thing. Having spent my whole life attending Richmond Braves games, first at Parker Field and then through the life of The Diamond, this is a statement that I could never fathom making before and is a position that I never thought I could support. But, since the announcement a few months ago that the Richmond Braves, after 44 years in our city, would be departing Richmond for the Atlanta suburbs; I have been following the issue and thinking a great deal about what that means for the century plus old tradition of professional baseball in this city. During that time I have gone from pointing the finger at Mayor Wilder, to getting angry and switching my baseball loyalties away from the Atlanta Braves team that I have supported for three decades. But it is the announcement a few days ago that Minor League Baseball is recommending the Richmond area for a Single A Carolina League team that finally completely opened my eyes and has drawn me to the conclusion that we can in fact live without baseball.

The current debate of whether or not Richmond should hold out for another Triple A team is irrelevant. Some argue that the better prospects now come out of Single and Double A teams than they do from Triple A these days. That maybe true and if so would be a good point if you’re one of the few that truly follows the game, but not a point the casual fan really cares about. The reality is the guys at that level are young, unproven and not much different than watching a really good college team. Others, me included, have argued that it’s less about who’s wearing the uniforms but it’s the name of the city on them that matters. Also a good point, population wise, this city is a much better fit with it’s current Triple A brethren cities like Charlotte, Indianapolis, Louisville and Norfolk rather than the small cities and towns of A and AA baseball like Kinston, NC, Bowie, MD and Lynchburg, VA. But the reality of the matter is that the players and the cities represented by the opposing teams is not what matters at all, but rather it’s the experience in the stands that is why baseball attendance across the country has soared when the sport itself has been long surpassed in overall popularity by other sports.

It used to be that professional sports inspired civic pride, that if your city’s team won a championship it brought the entire community together and gave the fans bragging rights for years to come. But when it comes to minor league baseball, at any level, the effect is not quite the same. For example, the Richmond Braves won the International League championship this past season and the area’s 1.2 Million residents did not exactly get worked up into frenzy over the title. It’s ridiculous to think that we would actually rub a minor league (or more accurately, development league) championship in the face of our friends and rivals in Norfolk or Charlotte. The overall ballpark experience is what the game is all about now and The Diamond truly is a sub-par experience. But if that’s all it’s about then it is not the responsibility of the taxpayers to build facilities that is nothing more than another entertainment option; it is the responsibility of the team owner who is profiting from that experience the ballpark is providing. We don’t build movie theaters with public funds, why should we build ballparks?

Richmond is an area where our local professional sports teams are not a crucial part of our community. This is instead an area perfectly situated to thrive in this new century where American’s are now more likely to participate in activities rather than observing others. We live in an area where people are active in the sports they’re involved with, but as participants, not spectators. We have one of the most popular 10k races in the country; we have competitive leagues for almost every conceivable sport for both kids and adults. Heck even if you’re not all that into severe competition we have new leagues like the River City Sports and Social Club that mixes light competition with a heavy dose of socializing. We’re also surrounded by dozens of golf courses and our river and parks system creates opportunities for rowing, running, rafting, biking, climbing and even Frisbee golf that are just not found in other urban areas. We have the landscape in place already to attract the best athletic competition in the country with events like the Xterra Games, US Open cycling championship and one of the fastest marathons in the country every fall. This is what we as Richmonders should be proud of and what makes this a much better place to live, work and play in the twenty first century for our current and future citizens than any minor league baseball team ever would.

If another team does land in Richmond, then so be it, I’ll certainly make it out to a few games every year. But since it will do little to enhance the overall quality of life of the citizens of the Greater Richmond area, we should reject using taxpayer money to build a new stadium. The owners are the ones that will benefit financially from the paying customers drawn to the experience a new ballpark will provide and therefore if a new stadium is to be built, it is the new team’s owners that should build it. Otherwise we should just forget about it, avoid the public debate and use taxpayer money to better maintaining our parks and recreation facilities, to planting trees in all those empty tree wells downtown, to building better schools, to making sure the city has an infrastructure in place to handle the growth this city and this whole area is currently experiencing and ensure the overall quality of life continues to improve in Richmond as we move deeper into the new century.

Proposed Jefferson Davis Statue Absurd

The Civil War is the defining moment of our city’s 400 years of history; it is the one and only time in history where all eyes where on us. It’s easy to continue to glorify that period and build monuments that remind us of those glory days, just as other cities today hang championship banners and glorify their great athletic teams from the more immediate past. Except in this case, for Richmond there was not the thrill of victory, only the agony of defeat. Heartache for a long gone generation that was so deep and wrenching, it could only be healed by honoring those heroes that fought for this city against overwhelming odds and by glorifying their deeds and the period in history when they shined.

The truth of the matter is this though, the period we glorify the most were not our glory days at all, far from it. It was in fact Richmond's worst and tragic period ever. Conditions during the time we served as the capital of the Confederate States of America were awful. One of the first things he did was declair martial law in the city. There was severe overcrowding because of the sudden and unprepared population boom, women rioting for bread on the streets, we were largely cut off and isolated from the outside world, thousands of wounded and dying soldiers were constantly streaming into makeshift hospitals in Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill and filling up Hollywood's cemetery plots, enemy prisoners were out in the open intentionally being starved on Belle Isle, a large portion of the population still enslaved and oh yeah, a massive army only miles away with the sole mission to conquer our city always pressing forward toward us. All resulting in what you might say was a pretty lousy standard of living for the majority of Richmond’s citizens back then.


And all this happened because a man from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, decided to set up shop here and run his government from our fine town. Mr. Davis of course had no love for, or even any connections to, Richmond or Virginia; he was just using this great city because of its strategic location and industrial might. And what did his people do when they left? They burned the entire commercial district to the ground, leaving a vast stretch of downtown with nothing left but smoldering ruins. Some reward for Richmond playing the hospitable host to him and his family during their stay.

Mr. Davis’ reward for leaving Richmond in ruins has been a grand statue on Monument Avenue, a statue and prime grave location at Hollywood Cemetery, a bust in the Virginia state capital building, his former home perpetually preserved, a park and a highway that runs through our city and state named in his honor. So does Richmond need another monument, as proposed by a certain southern heritage group, to a man responsible for more damage to our city than any other person in our history? I think the answer is obvious when you think about it.

Oh yes, I know why this issue has come up, Lincoln got a new statue at Tredegar a few years ago so we have to put one there for Davis to provide “balance”. Well okay, if balance is the name of the game, let’s do it, but we better order up a new Lincoln statue to put on Monument across from Davis as well. While we’re at, can we get a Jimmy Connors statue made to put by Arthur Ashe?

But in all seriousness, this city has real issues to deal with today, the last thing we need is to get bogged down by yet another Civil War controversy that will only build division, create animosity and get us national headlines for all the wrong reasons. Let’s focus on the future of our city, instead of the past. We need to continue to improve our educational system. We need to continue to reduce crime. We need to continue to attract growth and economic development to downtown. We need to ensure there is quality affordable housing in our city. We need to improve our aging infrastructure. We need to continue to make Richmond a great place for all citizens to live, work and play. We need to replace our outgoing leaders with leaders that will lead us to the future and not bog us down in the past, leaders that will use our unique and compelling history to generate tourism dollars to build our community, rather than letting others use it to divide our citizens.

Our glory days are ahead of us not behind us, it’s time to start looking forward to those great days ahead and stop looking backwards to our defeated past.

Wilder Leaves Mixed Legacy

Having just announced he was stepping down from the Mayor's office; I respect Mayor Wilders commitment to make Richmond a better place for all of its citizens to live, work, and play.

Richmond is a great city filled with unlimited potential and Mayor Wilder saw that and accomplished many things to improve the city and position it to be great in the future during his tenure as mayor.

However, his combative style of leadership caused problems that did nothing but hurt the very people he was elected to serve; and ultimately his administration failed to live up to our -- and even his own -- expectations.

What mayor goes to war with his own city's school system? The city schools have enough issues providing adequate education to our children without having the mayor try to throw them out on the street.

This is a new Richmond and we need new leadership to unite this community and make Richmond a city where all citizens can enjoy a higher standard of living and be proud to call it home.

A version of this post also appeared in both the Richmond Free Press and the Richmond Times-Dispatch