Wilder and city establishment strike out and lose Braves. Predicament shows just how hopelessly dysfunctional Richmond’s leadership really is.
Three years ago, I was sitting in the skyscraper office of a large Atlanta real estate firm listening to Thomas D. Bell Jr., CEO of the firm, talk about how Atlanta was trying to deal with its problems. Atlanta’s political and business officials had mobilized a regional task force to address the Dixie Dynamo’s major issues including clogged roads, dire shortages of drinking water, lack of affordable housing and uncontrolled sprawl.
I was there on assignment for a national business magazine and I was struck by how the Atlantans seemed to have it together. The Georgians don’t dither around about petty regional jealousies and the black-white playing cards. They seem to have gotten beyond those issues long ago. And while there are elements of Atlanta that I don’t go for, I appreciated their can-do attitude, realizing that this has made them the most important city in the Southeast.
How unlike Richmond, I realize. My current home town once was the capital of the South but that moniker proved very short lived. Both Richmond and Atlanta were largely destroyed by the Yankees but Atlanta roared back in ways that left Richmond in the dust.
And now, Atlanta has outflanked Richmond again. The Triple-A Richmond Braves have one season left to play here. They’re being herded out of town by their owner, the Atlanta Braves who got fed up with indecision and stupidity in Richmond. They got tired of having to kiss Mayor Doug Wilder’s behind again and again as he came up with screwball alternatives to renovate the badly-outdated Diamond, such as the hapless Fulton Gas Works. They got frustrated that no one else in Richmond’s establishment could break the ice and get Wilder off the dime. And, I guess, they got tired with the same old nonsense about how historic and wonderful Richmond is supposed to be when the truth is that it is a dysfunctional, leaderless place.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in love with the Atlanta Braves, whom I consider a rather bloodless crew. To be sure, there are limits to be put on public funding for the benefit of the huge and well-oiled corporation that owns the two Braves teams.
But the Diamond? Come on. The stadium, only 23 years old, is a shameless dump. The Atlanta Braves are correct to expect a lot better. Norfolk managed to build a beautiful, waterfront park. As for the Diamond, before my father died three years ago, he used to come up from North Carolina for the games he loved. He couldn’t walk that well. I don’t know if many of you have elderly parents or handicapped relatives, but have you ever tried using the elevator at the Diamond? It fits maybe four people, is very slow and has walls that are all put beaten out. Big lines form of people in wheelchairs or crutches waiting to fit in the tiny box.
So as Wilder’s typically abrasive personality prevailed, and no one else in the establishment had the guts to confront him, the Braves got frustrated over the acidic local politicking over various new stadium venues. They said, “screw it” and quietly began talking with officials of Gwinnett County, Ga., an Atlanta suburb in October. Commerce-minded Georgians don’t mess around and on Jan. 15, the Braves announced the new home for their Triple A team.
In Richmond, of course, Henrico and Chesterfield want to go their way and Richmond doesn’t know which way it wants to go on any number of important issues, from regional transit, to corporate recruitment, to growing disparity in incomes to controlling sprawl. Instead of taking meaningful action, the city and region hire the same old consultant who writes pretty much the same old report that they all read 15 years ago.
For baseball teams, Atlanta’s switcheroo follows a pattern that Major League Baseball teams are trying to locate their farm clubs closer to home. The relatively new Washington Nationals, their new DC stadium almost ready, have a Triple A club in Columbus, Ohio. It would be an extreme long shot if the team could move to Richmond. But it sure would be a great replacement and would follow the close-to-home trend. Of course, Wilder would have to be somehow kept on ice as Richmond proceeded with plans to rip down the Diamond and put a better stadium nearby.
I’d like that very much. Dad would have, too. After all the first game he ever took me to was Griffith Stadium, home of the Senators, back in the late 1950s. Now that was an old firetrap.
— Peter Galuszka
(Photo cutline: The Diamond, stadium of the Richmond Braves. Photo credit: Nationals Nation.)