Old-timers tell us in the mid-1950's that when Saint Paul's movers and shakers built Midway Stadium in the area east of Snelling Avenue between the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad tracks, they seemed to think that the stadium would bring Saint Paul Major League Baseball. We are still waiting. But we did get a usable stadium which lasted until 1981 [the demolition is pictured here] and likely could still be used had not thecity, under the leadership of Mayor George Latimer, figured that the site had better uses as part of the Energy Park development.
We like the new Midway Stadium, built to provide a venue for local amateur and collegiate games and since expanded to accommodate the Saints, but we are not sure that it is any better than the one we had. But we now have a newer stadium which provides very serviceable for our professional team and can also be used by high school, college, and other local teams.
Demolition of Midway Stadium, 1981.
Exclusive Cacaphony photo by Ray Sammons.
But it seems that our movers and shakers still have not given up on the idea of bringing Major League Baseball here. To say that there is public resistance to the concept is an understatement. We could not get it then when established franchises sold for a few million dollars and the best players made in the neighborhood of $50,000 per year. But even though our city is now home to fewer people and expansion teams are selling for hundreds of millions of dollars and the mimumum player salary is approaching $200,000 and the maximum salary is approaching infinity, they seem to want to give it one more try.
We admit that we can be seduced by the idea of our city being the home to a major league team in a major team sport. It has never happened. [Purists may note that there was a Saint Paul team briefly in the Union Association in 1884 and that statistically this was considered a major league, but a closer examination reveals that that team never played a home game. We have had major league teams in lesser sports such as the Norsemen in slow-pitch softball and the Wilds in ice hockey.]
But that opportunity for seduction should be closely examined. The people who tried to get us a team in 1955 and 1956 were hoping to give Saint Paul either a team from a city which likely had two teams already, or maybe an expansion team [although there was no history of expansion at that time]. The people trying to get us a team this time are trying to raid one from one specific city, Minneapolis.
We didn't get a team when we were trying to get one of several and baseball seemed financially stable, but somehow we think we can get one when there is only one we are trying for and baseball's financial house is out of order has it has never been before. What kind of sense does that make?
And what kind of sense does it make to raid Minneapolis of its team? With new legislative districting the enemies of both cities will be increasing their clout while the cities lose theirs. This is the time when the Twin Cities and smaller cities need to really start getting together to combat this growing influence of suburbs. How will raiding a pseudo-baseball team from Minneapolis help that.
Of course, the Twins should have no problem with liveable wage matters.
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