Monday, June 13, 2005

Oh, heavens, NO

NEW YORK -- (AP) In a last-ditch effort to land the 2012 Olympics, the city will substitute a planned baseball stadium for the football stadium rejected by state leaders earlier this month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday.

Noooooo, no no no, not another publicly-owned athletic palace boondoggle, and especially not in the pursuit of the Olympic friggin' Games. Once people started boycotting the things back in the 80's the bloom was off that rose. Once the athletes turned into chemical factories, paid for their services, there was nothing left but thorns. "Dream Team," my hindmost.

The article claims that the stadium will be privately funded by the Mets, and built whether or not the Olympic bid succeeds. If so, why is Mr. Bloomberg suddenly so keen on the idea? And if so, why was the west-side football stadium such a big deal for the bid? Were they going to hold all sorts of track and field events there? Boy, the Jets would have loved that. Something isn't adding up here.

On the bright side, the current Shea Stadium is rather a blecchy place to take in a ball game, and the sooner they crater it, the better. Hopefully they can use the highly-combustible Met bullpen as primer cord.

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