The success of a vision

Friday, May 2, 2008

We agree that the potential is there for all three of those boons to come to pass with the arrival of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, but it is also true that millions of taxpayer dollars have been, essentially, gambled on the success of a vision.

In that vision thousands and thousands of baseball fans will be visiting Waldorf every year to see a baseball team made up of players who either have not yet been selected by Major League Baseball teams, or who, having been selected, are no longer required by Major League Baseball teams.

The Southern Maryland Blue Crabs are not affiliated with a major league team. Who knows how much of the success of the Bowie Baysox can be attributed to Orioles fans who come partly out of loyalty for the local ballclub?

This is not to say that we don’t support the Blue Crabs.

Our coverage of the home opener in the new Regency Furniture Stadium has been enthusiastic; Southern Maryland Newspapers is a member of the Crustacean Nation sponsor club; we will blanket the stadium with reporters to convey the excitement that the new fans will surely feel and the Blue Crabs are most certainly creating.

But we would raise a caution amid the euphoria: The success of the Blue Crabs for Southern Maryland and the rest of the state lies not in the opening and the hoopla surrounding the opening, not in the well-deserved adulation for Orioles Hall of Famer and Blue Crabs owner Brooks Robinson, not in how much fun all the kids and their parents will surely have at the brand-new, glittering ballpark.

Success for the governments and the taxpayers who paid two-thirds of the cost will lie in the timely payback of the bonds for the stadium, in the realization of the promise of greater tax revenues from the stadium and associated businesses; in short, in the ultimate financial success of what is a private venture reaping huge amounts of upfront money from the public purse.

We, of course, hope it does succeed, and actually, we believe that it will.

Plenty of people from Southern Maryland now travel farther to see Bowie Baysox games, and the thirst for high-quality, inexpensive, family entertainment in the area, especially among young people, is palpable.

But for the Charles County government and the state government, which each kicked in close to $9 million, the bottom line for the success of the stadium will be the bottom line. That game is not even in the first inning yet.