By Jonathan Walters

I just figured out what kind of people support bald eminent-domain land grabs and government-funded stadiums in the name of luring a sports franchise to town: People just like me. Since, in theory, I’m against bald eminent-domain land grabs and government-funded stadiums in the name of luring a sports team to town, I suppose a little explanation is in order.

Just over the state line from where I live in upstate New York is the city of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Pittsfield has a number of virtues: It’s small. It’s smack in the middle of the Berkshires. It has a great microbrewery. It even has regularly scheduled if rarely on-time Amtrak service. And it has the Single-A Pittsfield Mets. At least it had the Pittsfield Mets, until big bad Troy, New York, just to the northwest, lured them away.

A trip to a Mets game was a throwback experience. Tickets were $2.25. Beer was a couple bucks. And you could get a great sausage sandwich for $2.50. In other words, for the price of a single major league baseball ticket, you could take the whole family out to a P-Mets game and stuff them full of ballpark food, and have a pop or two yourself. Plus, on any given day you saw the best or worst baseball being played anywhere in the world, and all from just a few feet away.

It was great ... until the Mets announced they were leaving, lured away by a town that was willing to build them a fancy new ballpark, naturally.

But Pittsfield is now fighting back. Early this month, the Pittsfield city council voted to create the Pittsfield Civic Authority to assemble a parcel and build a ballpark, all at the cost of a mere $18.5 million — $8.5 million which will come from state bonds, $3 million from civic authority bonds and $7 million from private investment.

Yet a group of local gadflies who view this as just another in a series of Pittsfield’s hapless, fiscally ruinous excursions into big-time economic development are currently collecting signatures to oppose the authority. Which is when I realized just what type of people support bald eminent domain land grabs and taxpayer-funded sports stadiums: People whose land won’t be touched and who won’t risk a dime of their own tax money should the whole deal go south: That is, people just like me. Go, Civic Authority!

Jonathan Walters is a staff correspondent for Governing.

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