D.C. Baseball Update

Recognizing that a growing number of its residents are passionately opposed to hosting a baseball stadium, the Board of Arlington County, Virginia told the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority that they would resist any attempt to place a stadium in the county.

For those of you unfamiliar with Washington, D.C. geography, Arlington sits opposite the District of Columbia on the other side of the Potomac River. A number of the sites that were under consideration for a stadium in the county would have provided some excellent views of the monuments on the National Mall.

The decision is hardly surprising, given the fact that Northern Virginians have proved particularly adept at foiling large scale development plans that don't suit their tastes. Back in the 1990s, the late Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke was prevented from building a Football stadium with his own money in the Potomac Yards section of Alexandria, Va. -- a site just a few minutes South of one of the proposed Baseball stadium site. In addition, community activists further West near the site of the Civil War battlefields near Manassas blocked Walt Disney from building a theme park.

The Stadium Authority has vowed to fight on, but the fact of the matter remains that the most attractive sites were all in Arlington, a bedroom community where local Democrats dominate politics. The only alternate sites ever mentioned for a Virginia stadium were near Dulles Airport in Western Fairfax/Eastern Loudoun Counties; or in Springfield in Southern Fairfax County near I-95. Neither area is well served by public transportation, meaning roads that are already overloaded at rush hour would have to accomodate thousands more locals rushing to a ballgame.

Baseball in Virginia was always a long-shot proposition. Now it's a no-shot, just like Washington's prospects.

Eric 11:37 AM

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Posted by: at July 22, 2003 06:58 PM

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