Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

What canceling baseball means to this neighborhood

7/1/2020

0 Comments

 
It’s a rare day when this column veers into the sports world. But then, it’s a rare day when baseball cancels its entire minor league season. 
The last time that happened was never — not during the influenza pandemic 100 years ago and not during either of two world wars.
No one could have foreseen this, of course, least of all the late former Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini, who risked much of her political capital three decades ago building what now is called Smith’s Ballpark, and who lured a triple-A team to the city, now known as the Bees.
Triple-A is the highest level of baseball short of the major leagues. Before Corradini, Salt Lake had spent almost a decade with a rookie league team, the lowest level. 
That matters, but not in any way you can document in a text book.
This COVID-19 inspired pause in the game may be as good a time as any to look back on those days and the promises made. There were plenty of them. It was a contentious time.
I was a reporter covering City Hall in the early ‘90s, and I ended up devoting much of my life at the time to studying minor league baseball and economic development, when I wasn’t following Corradini around and keeping up with the protests. Twenty-seven years ago, I wrote a six-part series on the construction of the stadium. You may take it for granted today, but its location was anything but an easy political decision.
Corradini wanted to build it downtown, in Pioneer Park. 
She saw that as an economic gold mine. The stadium would spin off money in all directions. It would create a synergy with what now is called Vivint Smarthome arena. In those pre-Olympics days, she hoped to build a speed-skating oval across the street from the stadium to complete a sports corridor.
But Corradini quickly ran into trouble. The nearby Greek Orthodox Church objected, saying it wanted neither the traffic nor the noise. Advocates for the poor protested, worried about the homeless who used the park. Others didn’t want to develop a park that had been an original settlement for early pioneers.
And then, most surprising of all, came the protests from people who lived around the old stadium, known as Derks Field; the people who had to put up with all the cars and traffic every summer. They said their neighborhood, already teetering economically, would suffer an identity crisis if the stadium left.
It made little economic sense to build on the corner of West Temple and 1300 South. But once it became clear that the pressure was too great to resist, Corradini began to shift her promises to that neighborhood. 
She told me eventually there would be shops and restaurants nearby. “I envision 10 years from now the stadium will define the south end of downtown,” she said. 
A quarter-century later, the  neighborhood around Smith’s Ballpark looks about the same as it did all those years ago, with the exception of a few new high-density housing units. I don’t see many restaurants; no corporate headquarters or popular shops. Salt Lake City is growing faster than it has in years, and yet no one would confuse the stadium with downtown.
But maybe that’s OK.
I quoted a lot of experts back then who predicted this would be the case. If minor league ball offers any economic benefits, they said, it is when it locates downtown. But generally, it doesn’t offer a lot of tangible benefits anywhere.
If you think I’m being critical of Corradini, you’re wrong. I may have known her better than any reporter at the time. Like most humans, she was complicated. She later became embroiled in a scandal that nearly derailed her. But she was smart enough to change course when faced with new information. Without her, Salt Lake City might not have any baseball today.
Which of course, it doesn’t right now, anyway. 
News reports say the loss of a season may destroy some minor league teams.
As the folks who live around the stadium understood all those years ago, it never really was about money. What the city built on the old Derks Field site has been hailed as the most beautiful minor league stadium in the country, with spectacular views of the Wasatch Mountain range. 
But beyond that, a baseball team and its stadium can become the heart of a city, even in an old neighborhood away from downtown. 
For the sake of that neighborhood, the people who work at the stadium and the thousands who enjoy seeing those mountains above centerfield on a warm summer night, we need to root for a 2021 season.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.