"Whenever new stadiums have been built, the promised lavish economic benefits have failed to materialize. Publicly financed ballparks make teams richer and cities poorer."
-- "Baseball Between the Numbers" pub. 2006, by Baseball Prospectus

When the mayor was agitating for a west side stadium, I wrote a paper, and gave a speech at a City Planning Commission hearing, advocating for a combined-use (football & baseball) stadium to be built over the Sunnyside Rail Yard. The advantages were numerous: plenty of mass transit, potential for a new commuter rail hub, and -- most importantly -- not one dime of public funding needed. Since I didn't have a power base, it didn't happen, and we're now stuck with not one, but two new stadiums being built with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars.

Meanwhile, the city's budget is in major distress.

Our schools are still crumbling, our police force is dwindling, our electricity is failing, our jobs are disappearing, and Mike Bloomberg's answer is to go to a ball game. But with ticket prices rising (because those new stadiums are soooooo expensive!), how can we afford it?

When Bloomberg took over as mayor, the ashes of the World Trade Center were still smoldering and the city was facing an enormous deficit. He took the reins and got things done. Not perfectly, but overall he did an excellent job. Unfortunately, that early success seems to have gone to his head; ever since then, most of his initiatives have been incredibly wrongheaded -- from rezoning for overdevelopment to his mania for baseball stadiums to Joel Klein. As time went by, even an initiative that, properly planned and properly handled, could have worked (congestion pricing), fell prey to Bloomberg's impatience and inflated ego.

Meanwhile, thanks to the interest sparked by the new baseball stadiums, as I write this the Yankees are three and a half games behind Tampa Bay and the Mets have a losing record. Great job, Mr. Mayor!