38 Days and Counting....

It all started to sink in yesterday. I met Freealonzo, Shane and Snyder at Stub & Herb's near the U campus to select our portion of the half-season ticket plan we purchased (thanks to Snyder!). In addition, our group was able to purchase tickets to the season-opener against Boston, which is now only 38 days away. It is now starting to sink in that, after a decade of watching the Legislative battle over financing and writing countless letters to the editor and e-mails to politicians, that this ballpark is really going to open.

There was a point (well, many points) that I thought it would never happen. Thank God that the calmer, wiser voices prevailed and people realized that this project could get done. Thank God that we didn't listen to the cynics and naysayers. Would we be better off without Target Field? Would downtown Minneapolis be better off? I defy anybody in Hennepin County or the state of Minnesota to show me how their finances have been negatively impacted by the building of this stadium. I am not talking about a few dollars here and there, I am talking about a serious financial impact like the naysayers predicted. I don't think anyone can.

I came across a recent editorial written by Garrison Keillor for The New York Times on this subject. Here is what Keillor had to say:

"The beauty part of my week (not that you asked) was a visit to the warehouse district north of downtown Minneapolis where, in my boyhood, I used to ride my bike past printing plants and barrelworks, small factories, a slaughterhouse, lumberyards, auto salvage yards, fascinated by the sight of men at work, and where, now, a new ballpark has arisen where, on April 12, though we are still knee-deep in snow, the Minnesota Twins will open the 2010 campaign, against the mighty Red Sox and their nation.

On Monday I snuck into the park through a door left ajar and attached myself to a group of suits on tour and got to see the whole joint, the steep left-field bleachers, the spruce trees in deep center, the skyboxes (each with a porch, so the nabobs can get fresh air), down to the locker room (with batting cage and pitching machine nearby, just like at a carnival), and to me, a skeptic when it comes to public works, this looks to be the Eighth Wonder of the World, a temple on the order of Wrigley or Fenway or the Acropolis, a beautiful little bandbox of a ballpark tucked snugly into streets of old warehouses and the Burlington railyards, with commuter trains running to its front door, a sight that fills me with unmitigated dizzy delight.

We Minnesotans have been watching baseball in a basement for 28 years, under a fabric dome on a plastic field designed for football, and come April, we’ll be sitting in sunlight, or under the stars, with the handsome towers of downtown Minneapolis just beyond center field, and we’ll mill on the great concourse just behind the loge seats and eyeball the game while ordering a steak sandwich or an old-fashioned Schweigert hot dog. Hallelujah. Wowser.

That this beauty was accomplished through public financing — $392 million of the $544 million total paid through a sales tax approved by the legislature — is some sort of triumph, and to an old Democrat like me, who believes that government can indeed do some good things right and is not a blight upon the land, this ballpark is an enormous pleasure..."

Amen. I really didn't intend to turn this post into a debate on public financing of projects. I joke that I am a guy who is "for everything" when it comes to public financing. Stadiums, theatres, trains, etc. I think these things add to the public landscape and make cities more desirable, livable places. I realize this does not make me popular with the "no tax" crowd. As I have stated in the past, I have a hard time envisioning the Twin Cities without the Xcel Energy Center, Target Field, the Guthrie, etc. But, this is a debate for another post.

For now, I'm just happy that we're down to 38 days and counting.

Jeff