David Brussat, Dr. Downtown: The Red Sox and the PawSox

David Brussat, Dr. Downtown: The Red Sox and the PawSox

Pawtucket’s Triple-A baseball team was a feeder of talent to the Boston Red Sox during most of the Curse of the Bambino. Now that the Bosox actually have an ownership stake in the PawSox, the quality of its minor-league spigot in Pawtucket gets more attention from Boston, especially since Fenway Park has become a money-printing plant. Owner John Henry can afford to pump and prime the Red Sox fountain of youth to the max.

A robust minor-league franchise can help the mother ship land more frequently in the World Series. If I were a young player of recognized talent looking at my options, I would rather play in Providence than in Pawtucket, just as most major-leaguers would rather play in New York or Los Angeles than in, say, Houston or … well, you get the picture.

Providence and Pawtucket

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

So while I would rather see the PawSox remain in Pawtucket, the allure of Providence is understandable, assuming the new owners don’t buckner the deal. Deciding whether to support or oppose the move means going out on a limb in either direction. My heart says stay, but “stay in Pawtucket” may mean “leave Rhode Island” unless it means “move to Providence.”

The question is whether the economic and spiritual hit to Pawtucket is greater or less than the potential economic and spiritual gains for Providence and Rhode Island. The answer pits a known against an unknown. The sad fact is that the spiritual outweighs the economic in the scale for Pawtucket. But whether a stadium would benefit Providence is harder to know. Rhode Islanders must await various assurances to reduce the uncertainty. But we cannot wait long.

It would be fair to seek some sort of ironclad commitment that the team will not cost more for parking and seats than it does in Pawtucket. To boost the experience beyond the means of the average working-class family would be a deal breaker. Many families with greater means will prefer to go see the Red Sox in Boston. A minor-league team is a local allure. If the Providence baseball experience is priced out of reach, the city may look forward to a stadium that runs on empty much of the time. The new owners will poll this question, of course, and the numbers will be unknowable, undependable and hence meaningless. It’s a crap shoot.

The public sector and the private sector

It would also be fair to demand a minimum of public subsidy for this project. The Red Sox are now part of the ownership, and they can afford what most minor-league owners beg for the city or state to pay. The city and the state should tell the team to take a hike. That includes free land on the real estate intended for a public park. If new owner Jim Skeffington cannot get Bosox CEO and fellow PawSox owner Larry Lucchino to shake that Fenway money tree, he can hardly expect Rhode Islanders to wring blood from their state’s fiscal stone, at least not in the wake of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios fiasco. Once built, a stadium is hard to pull the plug on.

Since Parcel 28 recently fetched $2.7 million from a private developer, the state can expect to ask $10.8 million for the proposed five-acre public park west of the Providence River. The state can and should wiggle out of any mandate that other land in the district be set aside for a park. 

Parks line the new waterfront, and nearby there are India Point Park, Roger Williams Memorial Park, Burnside Park and State House Park. A new park will be built on 195 land east of the Providence River. A park west of the river (thus far of ugly design) should not be allowed to nudge aside acreage devoted to high-tech redevelopment and job creation. Baseball could make new development on the 195 land more attractive than it has been so far.

The name of the game

A sea of parking around the stadium would be another deal breaker. The team should have fans park for free at the Port of Providence and take ferries or fake trolleys down to the stadium. Jim Skeffington and his pals can almost certainly get the rubes in Washington to fork out for that. It is called congestion mitigation, and the feds love it. The Waterplace project received a 100 percent federal match for pedestrian walkways and bridges.

So the cost of parking and tickets should remain low, the subsidy should be little or nothing, and the design model should be Fenway Park and Lansdowne Street, not Alien Space Ship. With these provisos, a deal for a stadium in Providence might work, but it cannot work and must not be accepted without them. Oh yes, one more thing: a hard one-hour ceiling on a limited number of stadium rock concerts is an absolute must.

Finally, the name should remain the same. Just as we still celebrate holidays that have relocated to Mondays, we can call the team the PawSox even though it relocates to the nearby state capital. Providence owes that, at least, to the Bucket.