EditorialHow Right is Baseball?
How right is major league baseball for Washington, D.C.? Those regular readers of the News-Press over years know the passion the author of this space every week has for baseball. Giving it a couple weeks to sink in, we're now ready to comment with a modicum of rationality. In short, as one who's something of an lay expert on urban development scenarios - deriving from over a decade steeped in such matters at the local governing level - this one is a “no-brainer,” notwithstanding whatever kind of pocketbook-skewed so-called think tank analyses to the contrary.It is right in every conceivable way for both the economy and population of this region. It's like a big star being placed on the top of a Christmas tree that when it is put in place, suddenly lights up the entire tree. There are jobs, there are new businesses, there is good clean fun. Going to games at RFK Stadium will be a blast, especially for anyone from Northern Virginia who can contrast the short trip either by car or the Orange Line to toughing out Beltway rush hours to get to Baltimore. But if the new stadium is built where they say it will be, it will light up D.C. at night, just what years of downtown redevelopment, including construction of the MCI Center, has sought to achieve. Every nighttime venue in the D.C. area will benefit from this new anchor in everyone's lap. That includes Falls Church as it cultivates its own modest entertainment district. Keep in mind that Washington will become the primary baseball draw for families from Charlotte, North Carolina, northward. Especially out of the mountains and valleys of Virginia, from the Shenandoah to Richmond to Tidewater, families will have their own team for the first time. For them, Washington has great daytime attractions, but little at night. Now, the overnighter or the weekend stay become fresh new options for tens of thousands to our south. By contrast, football offers limited access and a limited number of dates, and hockey or basketball not enough fans. All these new baseball fans will need reasonably-priced places to stay the night, to take in a nice meal and a smaller-venue concert in conjunction with their road trip. It presents stimulating new potentialities for a place like Falls Church, which is right in the pathway of everyone coming to D.C. from more southern origins. Making baseball work for D.C. is a team effort. Innovative, entrepreneurial thinkers in Falls Church can figure out how Falls Church can help make baseball work, and how baseball can make Falls Church work, too. This is not pie in the sky. Ultimately, economics and success are derivatives of opportunity, and more than anything else, that's the intangible reality that our new team brings to this entire region. The optimism that engenders can do more to drive revitalization than any drab accumulation of bar graphs and spread sheets. Play ball. |
