It’s a New World Order…for Baseball

Nobody Wins

It was on the local news last night: Downtown St. Louis bars and restaurants, many already suffering from the poor economy, were laying off people, and most of hose businesses won’t make it.

The New Ballpark Village is so exciting and new, no one will be able to compete. The dead downtown is getting a new shot in the arm. And that’s a good thing, right?

St. Louis is a great baseball town. We have the perfect weather for baseball: the summer is long, the nights are hot, and there is nothing else left to do for the middle class. To sit outside, on a summer night, drink a cold beer, have a hot dog, and watch the game…it’s a good life.

I was a baseball junkie back in the 1980’s, and as I drove my yellow Firebird into the city to watch Hertzog’s team, I felt excited by the life of the city: the malls, the shops, the bars. Sure, there were certain streets you didn’t go into, but the city was thriving.

No longer. It’s dead. Full-blown comatose. The only reason to go downtown now, is for the game.

Daddy Busch built my favorite stadium, that big beautiful Roman Coliseum., bought the team, rode his famous Clydesdale on opening day, waved his cowboy hat, and the city was his. If you got bored, you could walk around the whole stadium and just look down at the game from all over. It fit the Arch perfectly. Flying over the Arch into the city at night, the stadium was breathtaking.

And then, the old man died. His son could care less about owning a baseball team, so it was sold to some good friends of George W. Bush, who by the way, had ties to St. Louis. Prescott Busch, his grandfather, used to have his business not far from the old stadium

The new owner, William DeWitt Jr, who bought them in 1995 for $150 mil, decided just to tear a perfectly good stadium down….they wanted their own stadium, more fit for the NEW economy: Yes, the new stadium is filled with more boxes for the rich, and the poor, can only afford to sit way out in center filed.

To his credit, William Dewitt has made it into a huge money-making deal for…him. Owning a ball club can bring you riches you can’t imagine. Just ask George W. Bush, who made much of his wealth that way.

(but, back on subject)

The people who went to the ballgames could no longer afford to go. In other words, the rich investors who own the Cardinals, made a new stadium, where the rich have private parking, and will never run into the low life below them. Restaurants were all around the stadium, where the “middle” class could sit inside air conditioning and have any kind of food you can imagine, and watch the game on TV. In other words, many of these new stadiums have ways to “protect” the rich from the poor, and now, the ‘poor’ can’t even afford to go.

And when I heard about more people losing businesses downtown due to “progress” it was just another “change” I can’t even relate to.

Anyone who grew up in St. Louis, has seen the slow death of downtown, and this is nothing new, but this Ballpark Village was suppose to have individual bars, privately owned, by many families, but now the news is out:

The construction of Ballpark Village represents the culmination the Cardinals vision for their investment in downtown St. Louis that began with the opening of the new, privately financed $411 Busch Stadium in 2006.

The Cardinals are developing Ballpark Village in partnership with The Cordish Companies.

Okay. The rich guys not only own the stadium, but they own the Ballpark village. It’s the New World Order, where thousands of small businesses will go under, and no one will be able to compete with the big boys who have the monopoly.

Because that’s what ballpark village is: A monopoly.

Nobody Wins with crony capitalism but the rich.

On the good side– If you can’t afford a ticket to the game, you can sit at the bar and watch the big giant screen. But you will still pay $10 for a beer.

On the bad side?

When the rich got together with their crony politicians, and decided to take manufacturing out of the country, and then decided America was going to be a service economy—Nobody ever dreamed who we’d all be serving. So…have a beer!

Or two…or three…or four….trickle up that ten dollars (500 percent markup) right to the top.

June 18, 2014 - Posted by Joyanna Adams | baseball, New World Order, Uncategorized | Baseball, New World Order