Playing Hardball in D.C.
October 11th, 2006 | by jg3 |On Monday the Washington Post ran a cover above-the-fold story — A Family That Plays Hardball — detaling the progress and hangups relating to the building of the new baseball stadium in Southeast DC.
There was a quote in there that particularly incensed me:
“These are the guys who invented hardball,” said Allen Y. Lew, chief executive of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission.
The Post article sounds as though the Lerner family is being a bit unreasonable. Mr. Lew seems to think that the Lerners should cut some slack because they are dealing with the City Government. I think the Lerners are just doing what people in business do — making agreements, writing them down, signing them, and carrying them out. Meanwhile, the City is trying to do what people in government do — delaying, underperforming, overpromising, and trying to compromise to make up the difference. If that strategy should fail, go to the press and target the blame at someone else.
The Lerners defend their style of doing business, saying they stick to their agreements and expect the same of others. “We are people who honor the deal,”…
I’m sure the hutzpah that makes a successful businessman is annoying to the slimeball that makes a successful bureaucrat. But really, if you want to see things work out differently, edit the documents before you sign them, not afterwards.
Both groups are right to be worried about this. Do a bad job of building the stadium and the area around it and most of the money spent on the project will be wasted. Do it right and the revitalization of that area will probably be wildly successful. If done wrong the attendance at the baseball games will suffer and therefore the amount of money available to the team, and eventually the team’s performance will suffer. If the performance is bad enough the team will go up for sale and, without the hope and motivation of a new stadium to entice buyers D.C. will likely lose their pro baseball team for a third time.
Filed under: baseball
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