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.