Sunday, February 03, 2008

Go to bat for Omaha


We're in the middle of an epic debate here in Omaha, the kind that only comes around every decade or three. We're trying to decide how to best keep the College World Series in town.

Do we build a new baseball stadium downtown? Or do we completely redo 60-year-old Rosenblatt Stadium . . . which lies Not Downtown.

HERE'S A FEW WORDS of wisdom to ponder before we proceed to disemboweling one another: You don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't spit into the wind.

You don't put lipstick on a pig, and you don't do yet another patchwork redesign of a stadium. Omaha has done that once -- remember the Civic Auditorium remodel? -- and we still ended up building the Qwest Center Omaha arena and convention center.

And a good thing we did.

Now, we're supposed to think fixing up old Rosenblatt Stadium is the way to go to keep the College World Series in Omaha forever and ever, amen. That probably would work OK if we didn't have to worry about a few things.

One, that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is a demanding mistress. A very, very demanding mistress. You give her a Buick, and she's gonna want a Mercedes as soon as she can get away with demanding another new car -- which, in the case of the NCAA, would be when the new "extended" contract is up for renewal in 15 years or so.

Just like when it's time to buy a new home computer, buying less than what you need never is a wise long-term decision. And for so many reasons, losing the CWS is not an option for the Big O.

Another consideration -- a big one -- is economic development. Where is the boost to the region's economic development in fixing up Rosenblatt Stadium?

Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ?

THE FACT IS, there is no boost. Renovating Rosenblatt and keeping the College World Series down on 13th Street -- assuming that fixing up the old stadium can keep the CWS down on 13th Street for the long term -- is, at best, a status quo proposition economically.

The prospects for economic development down on South 13th lie not in an old municipal baseball stadium, but instead in the nationally acclaimed Henry Doorly Zoo. There, we find the state's No. 1 paid attraction hemmed in by the old ball yard -- unable to expand and short of parking when the CWS is in town.

For the average fan seeking to kill time before, after or between CWS games, there is no shopping or sit-down dining within walking distance of the stadium. Hotel rooms are few near the venue.

You do have a couple of bars, a beer garden and some otherwise vacant old houses turned into whatever for two weeks out of the year. Parking, naturally, is a nightmare, and South 13th isn't exactly a mass-transit hub for the greater Omaha area.

Nor could it be made into a mass-transit hub, assuming anyone wanted to. And why? For two weeks a year?

Building downtown . . . even building downtown at twice the cost of renovation, you have the probability of collateral development and business growth far outpacing the extra money the city shells out. I think someone once dubbed that phenomemon "You gotta spend money to make money."

The impact on downtown Omaha would rival that of replacing a century-old lead smelter with a riverfront park and the Qwest Center Omaha. A new stadium would be a natural anchor for new retail and restaurant development, while serving as a boost to existing downtown businesses.

And a lot of visiting fans who formerly had to load up the car and drive to the Series would instead walk out of their hotel, saunter down the street a ways and walk in the stadium gate. As would a lot of people already downtown . . . because they work there.

SPEAKING OF DOWNTOWN, how'd you like Omaha's "King Corn" image from the recent American Idol episode taped here?

With the CWS at Rosenblatt, ESPN's exterior shots on game broadcasts can center on a congested 13th Street lined by repurposed, semi-dumpy old houses. Or you can get a shot or three of the zoo. Or fans grabbing some burgers and malts at Zesto's.

Perhaps a nice shot of fans milling around the parking lot.

Did I mention the zoo and Zesto's?

How, pray tell, does that advance Omaha's "branding," shifting it toward the cosmopolitan and away from cows and corn? Or corn and cows?

Short answer: It doesn't.

The easy, natural visuals from downtown would belie the stereotype, no matter how hard network crews might try to perpetuate it. Every wide shot would include Omaha's growing skyline.

And surrounding the new stadium, within range of roving camera crews, would lie the spruced-up Missouri River landing. The towering new pedestrian bridge across the Missouri. The charming Old Market. The emerging North Downtown (NoDo) entertainment district, including Saddle Creek Records' Slowdown club, with all its indie-rock cred.

What else could the TV cameras show the nation, without crews much breaking a sweat?

How about street musicians, pub crawlers and people solving the problems of the Free World at cafes and coffee shops?

The green space and lagoon of the Gene Leahy Mall. Horse-drawn carriages filled with young lovers and smiling tourists. Century-old Central High School.

The Joslyn Art Museum and the Durham Western Heritage Museum.

An emerging cosmopolitan city.

No cows. No corn.

Unless, of course, the Nebraska Cornhuskers made it to college baseball's big dance. Then you might see a few "cornheads."

I think most marketing types would call a downtown stadium's PR value to Omaha a "home run."

I CAN ENVISION a new stadium somewhere in NoDo giving the whole district a big dose of NoDoz. Imagine a stadium busy year round because it would have "storefront" eateries and retail incorporated into its design. A public plaza, too. And a Zesto's.

Picture Johnny Rosenblatt Field at . . . Cabela's Stadium. With a scaled-down Cabela's as the anchor storefront retail tenant, specializing in jerseys, fan apparel and basic sporting goods. Like balls, bats and gloves.

Imagine the marketing tie-in potential . . . and the growth potential for a Nebraska corporation. As in "Official Retailer of the NCAA's Men's College World Series."

Not too bad, eh? Or if Cabela's didn't want to go there, "there" being far afield from the "outdoorsman" thing, what about Dick's? Or whatever?

Being that Omaha now has a choice to make, it's useful -- necessary, actually -- to give the possibilities of What Might Be equal consideration to the nostalgia Rosenblatt backers Wish Still Was.

BUT HERE'S THE THING. The College World Series of Mom, apple pie, hot dogs, the "Twizzler Man" and a big small town has been all but killed dead by the Two Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Progress and Money.

Yes, I know you THINK there's supposed to be a full Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But when you have Progress and Money on the horizon, riding at you, any more would just be overkill.

So, trust me. The CWS my father-in-law helped bring to Omaha, the one he tirelessly promoted for more than three decades . . . that CWS is part of Omaha's history. Already, it's been written out of this city's future, Rosenblatt or no Rosenblatt.

Long gone are the days when my wife and her siblings helped her dad put up CWS posters in store windows and big promotional signs in hotel lobbies.

There is no more "Dingerville," the ad-hoc summertime small town of recreational vehicles, cold beer and good cheer. Its mayor, die-hard Louisiana State fan Glenarp Allmendinger died some years back, and what was left of his "municipality" got relocated and, finally, evicted for good.

Likewise, the Twizzler Man now roams the left-field bleachers only in our memories. Only in our sweet dreams of bright June afternoons do we still hear his credo, recited by all after another of his dozens of bags of red Twizzers had been passed among the sunburned baseball faithful:

"Share with your neighbor, and don't be stingy."

SEE, you can't bring food into the stadium anymore. Not even Twizzlers. Cops search your stuff to make sure. That, and to make sure you're not toting a "dirty bomb" in this post-9/11 world.

And bottled water is three bucks. That's enough to make a person stingy.

It's also enough to make clear that what we loved about the College World Series, and Rosenblatt Stadium, hasn't existed for some years now. At least not within the NCAA-governed confines of the old ballpark. What we have inside the concourses and below the grandstands has come to more closely resemble the big-time, big-money, Big Media worlds of college football's BCS Championship Game and college basketball's Final Four.

There, there's no room for the Twizzler Man. No accomodation for a Midwestern city's nostalgia for the more innocent days of a cherished local institution.

My father-in-law -- Mr. CWS if ever there was a Mr. CWS -- died before my alma mater, LSU, won the second of its five national titles in 1993 . . . an eternity ago. There are no more signs in hotel lobbies, and my wife slapped her last CWS poster in her last storefront window more than three decades ago.

Money and Progress are telling us, in all likelihood, that we can hold on to the relic that is Rosenblatt or we can hold on to the College World Series. The NCAA can't take the memories we hold so close to our hearts as Omahans, but it can pack up the series and move it to Money's new favorite getaway.

It's time to do what we must. Let the College World Series become what it's bound to become, but let it do it at a shiny new home in cosmopolitan downtown Omaha. As opposed to cosmopolitan downtown Indianapolis . . . or wherever.

The venue may change, but that can't stop Omahans from still being who they are, or from making brand-new memories in a brand-new ballyard. Memories, one hopes, just as sweet as the ones we have from the old place, back in the day.

Just different.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Using your logic, no matter what we build, the NCAA will want MORE when a new contract comes up. That line of reasoning seems to support keeping Rosenblatt.

The Mighty Favog said...

That's lame. And not very logical.

My logic supports not putting lipstick on a pig. It's pretty clear the NCAA wants a new stadium, and they want it downtown . . . which, by the way, is just the smart place to build the thing.

I love how you seize upon my "logic" while ignoring the actual detailed argument put forth in the other seven-eighths of the post.

Anonymous said...

The Mighty Favog? Where the hell are Skred and Ploobis?

Nice article, nicely done. I think the key here is whether or not Omaha is going to decide whether they want to grow up and be a real city, or they want to be seen as a cowtown (as you've pointed out) and stay where they are.

$120M or $150M for a new baseball stadium sounds like small beans when you compare it to other stadiums being built around the nation.

Get off your asses, Omaha, or say good bye to the CWS. You lose it, you won't get it back. You want to take that chance?

Scott said...

I'm from Omaha, but live way out of town now... thanks for this post. Well done... well received.
Can you tell me... do people really think that the NCAA won't move the CWS? They will. 100% sure thing if there isn't a downtown stadium. Not to mention all the other positives. I can't believe there are really people opposing the downtown stadium.

The Mighty Favog said...

Yes, some people really do think the NCAA won't move the CWS. Others don't care if it does.

Unfortunately, at least two people in the won't-move camp are on the City Council. And MECA (arena-convention center governong body) is vowing to sue the city if it chooses to build a new stadium where two Qwest Center Omaha parking lots are now.

This despite the fact that the city owns it all.

The people in South O (and their councilman) are apoplectic about a downtown stadium. I think what they're really apoplectic about is losing the money they make from gouging CWS fans to park in their yards.