Commish For A Day #10: Stadium financing, WBC

The last Commish For A Day proposal for the week comes from Lar at Wezen-ball. I had to ask Lar about the name of his blog since it was not something that I have ever heard of. His answer should give you some idea about his off-beat personality: ""wezen" is the name of a star in the constellation "Canis Major" (The Great Dog). I always liked the way it sounded, and I thought the humor involved with it was pretty funny, though admittedly quite esoteric and quite geeky (it's the star at the point where the dog's hind leg and tail meet - so it's the dog's butt)." Ladies and gentlemen, we have the first baseball blog named after the butthole of a canine constellation.

If I were CFAD, I'd focus on a couple of things that the owners probably wouldn't like. First, I'd disallow public financing of stadiums. I'd also like to require that stadiums must have retractable roofs, but that might be unfair after taking away all public money. As much as I agree that building a major league stadium in a given city creates a pact between the city and the team, I don't think that public financing works. I think it's been proven too many times now that the team owner has too much power in these negotiations, and the city and the public end up with a bad deal. Making it prohibited or, at the very least, creating some strict regulations for it should help balance things out.

Second, I'd work with the organizers of the World Baseball Classic and the owners to make sure the event had as much support as possible. I don't think it'd be fair to make participation mandatory, but there should be as few hurdles as possible. Working out the early season schedule, giving the national teams access to venues, and encouring participation among the players could all do a lot to support the event. It's good for the sport and the players to grow baseball visibility around the world.

There's probably a lot more that could be done (work with the schedule to allow for a more timely World Series, change postseason start times to give the children of today a chance to see the game, increase teams' involvement with the community and youth baseball), but those are the two that I would focus on right away.

I was wondering if anyone would address the public financing issues or the WBC. I've been critical of the Yanks public financing snafus here, in the name of Randy Levine.


For previous CFAD entries:

1. Commish For A Day #1: Territorial Rights
2. Commish For A Day #2: Best-of-7-LDS
3. Commish For A Day #3: The All Star Game, Neutral Sites
4. Commish For A Day #4: Instant Replay
5. Commish For A Day #5: Playing by the rules
6. Commish For A Day #6: 40 Man Roster
7. Commish For A Day #7: No DH!
8. Commish For A Day #8: Realignment
9. Commish For A Day #9: Balanced Schedule, InterLeague