Sunday, May 28, 2006
I, STADIUM Part 8: This Is Not A Stadium Post, or, Sweet Jesus, I Hate Sid Hartman!
Kate Parry is their reader representative. In her column today , "Hartman column was wrong about Sen. Ranum", she writes:
It's a dangerous thing for anyone to assume the motives of another person. No one can read another's mind or look into their heart.
For a journalist to do that and print the assumption without checking it out is beyond dangerous. It's unprofessional, risky behavior that can damage the newspaper's credibility.
Last Monday, in an ebullient column just after the Twins stadium bill passed, sports columnist Sid Hartman included this paragraph on Hennepin County senators who opposed it:
"Voting no [on the stadium bill] were Linda Berglin, Scott Dibble, Larry Pogemiller and Jane Ranum. Most of them don't know the difference between a baseball and a hockey stick. The heck with doing the right thing, they were only worried about being reelected."
The problem is, anyone who's spent much time at the Capitol this year knows Ranum sent her constituents and DFL colleagues a letter in January announcing she was not seeking reelection so she could care for her husband. Jim Ranum is ill with a degenerative brain disease.
So clearly Ranum wasn't worried about being reelected. Hartman made an assumption, didn't check it out and got it wrong. A correction ran on Wednesday.
Parry:
Even after [being told he was wrong] Hartman was unapologetic. When I sought to interview him for this column, he would say only, "I was referring to the whole Legislature. I think I'm right. You write what you want." At that point, he cut off the interview. He later apologized for "being gruff," but stood his ground about [his] column.
I'll leave it to readers to look at that paragraph and decide whether they think it refers to the four legislators listed or the whole Legislature. My read is that it's about the four.
I didn't get a chance to ask Hartman if he checked about the other three legislators' motives before putting them in his column.
"Voting no [on the stadium bill] were Linda Berglin, Scott Dibble, Larry Pogemiller and Jane Ranum. Most of them don't know the difference between a baseball and a hockey stick. The heck with doing the right thing, they were only worried about being reelected."
Apologize to Ms. Ranum and her husband, Sid? The heck with doing the right thing.
Parry:
[Hartman's statement on Ranum seeking reelection is what] I consider the most unequivocal error in Hartman's column. It's a study in how a careless assumption can result in inaccuracy and unfairness. In [Ranum's] case, this hit at a particularly difficult moment.
Eight years ago, her husband was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a rare disease often mistaken for Alzheimer's.
[This past January], Ranum sent [a letter to her constituents] explaining Jim's condition now required more time than the demand of the Legislature would allow.
The Twins stadium bill was one of her last vote. "I have consistently voted against it," Ranum said, "even though I'm a sports fan."
As for Hartman, Ranum offered this civil observation about his assumption of her motives: "Any good reporter needs to check out why they're saying what they're saying."
"We REGRET THE ERROR," managing editor Scott Gillespie said. "We expect columnists to be factually correct."
[With regard to Ranum], Hartman should own up to such an obvious error and apologize to her for assuming the lowest of motives and getting it wrong.
Sid Hartman is a crusty, old and bitter man. One of the reasons he is bitter is because some politicians and most taxpayers don't want to play his game of being the bank for his precious little baseball team, the Minnesota Twins and its owner BILLIONAIRE Carl Pohlad. Hartman has been a shill for Pohlad and publicly financed stadiums for decades.
Crusty, Old and Bitter: Sid "The Pinhead Shill" Hartman
Stating vast, unchecked and non-factual assumptions is what Sid The Shill does best. In his column today he reasserts an assumption that he wrote two weeks ago:
[That] if the Twins [could] get a roof on their stadium, it will mean [you won't need] as much security [downtown Minneapolis because big crowds help solve and prevent crimes from taking place].
And if what you say is accurate and true, then tell me, why over the last two decades, has the city of Minneapolis experienced so much crime?
Why let facts get in the way of writing your "factual assumptions"? The heck with doing the right thing, you're just concerned about your precious baseball team and its BILLIONAIRE owner.
Sid The Shill continues:
If the Twins do get a roof on their stadium, it will mean the chance to bring various indoor events to downtown Minneapolis, and [Mayor] R.T. Rybak, you won't need as much security when there are a lot of people downtown.
I believe if you held a referendum on whether the new baseball stadium should have a roof or not, if the right questions were asked, it would be a winner.
But the heck with doing the right thing, you're just concerned about your precious Twins team.
And by the way, don't the Twins already have a roof...in the Metrodome? Huh, how about that!
Now, I'm no fan or supporter of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I don't live in Minneapolis, so, for the most part, what Rybak and the Minneapolis City Council does or doesn't do, does not dramatically affect me or my life.
But Sid The Shill, crusty, old and bitter man that he is, just doesn't like anyone or anything that doesn't agree with his "beliefs" or his pinhead "assumptions":
Mr. Rybak, your do-nothing city council stood by and did nothing to save baseball in this area. It did make the Shubert Theater and an $11 million contribution from the Legislature its top priority. And before that, the do-nothing city council appropriated some $5 million to move the building.
Mr. Rybak, make sure you have enough security downtown to protect those people who will sit in the Shubert Theater, with a capacity of 1,000 seats.
Apparently Sid The shill doesn't take into consideration that there is a group of people who may prefer the arts rather than sitting around and watching a group of steroid injected, multi- millionaire athletes hitting a little white ball with a stick of wood!
Nor does Sid The Shill consider that arts and humanities has contributed more to the world and society, as a historic whole, than all of the sporting world combined.
Nor does Sid The Shill consider that perhaps the mentality of Mayor Rybak and the city council was one of letting private enterprise and its billionaire owner pay for their own home with their own money.
The heck with doing the right thing.
Doing the right thing means having an objective outlook on what is best for the largest group of people, of taxpayers and of those less fortunate. None of this enters into your myopic, baseball-centric mind though, does it Shill Boy?
Sid says damn those facts, polls, research and feasibility studies. He thinks he's right, even when all prevailing facts and data prove him shockingly and disturbingly wrong:
"Voting no [on the stadium bill] were Linda Berglin, Scott Dibble, Larry Pogemiller and Jane Ranum. Most of them don't know the difference between a baseball and a hockey stick. The heck with doing the right thing, they were only worried about being reelected."
Why is that, Sid?
"I think I'm right."
"I think I'm right."
©2006
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The Shills' Column is located Here, free registration required.
If you think THE SHILL should apologize for his factless column, e-mail him and tell him so: shartman@startribune.com
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Previous Posts On The Stadium Issue:
I, STADIUM Part 7: Did You Have Enough To Eat?
I, STADIUM Part 6: No Voter Referendum, Welfare for Billionaire Pohlad, Session Closed
I, STADIUM Part 5: Why Sid Hartman Is A Dumbass
I, STADIUM Part 4: Enter "THE LIAR"
I, STADIUM Part 3: Failed Arguments For Taxpayer Assisted Ballparks
I, STADIUM Part 2: Senate Bill S.F. 2297
I, STADIUM
Minnesota Twin Stadium: Why Should Carl Pohlad Pay His Fair Share?
Labels: I Stadium, Kate Parry, Sid Hartman
The problem usually lies in the contracts with the primary user and what kind of contract the city can manage with the team owners. I am not against the city building the stadiums provided the teams pay the right rent on it.
But, for the most part I am in favor of the team owners building their own gotdam stadiums--especialy baseball which has been ripping off the public for years. They have forgotten that without the fans there would be no pro baseball and a day at most ball parks it out of reach for the average American today. No way am I going to fork over a 100 bucks for a day at the ball park to see a bunch of overpaid, steroid beef guys in baseball caps miss a Texas league popup. Pitching sucks and and hitters who thirty years ago could bat their weight are now hitting fifty homeruns a year. It ain't baseball anymore..it is a legalized extortion and the fans are the ones getting robbed.
I agree with the idea of a city building a stadium and then letting the rent pay for itself, however, this is not the case for the MN Twins.
Twins owner Billionaire Pohlad could have easily paid for the stadium out of pocket, but I guess that's not how he accrued his wealth...is it?
The Twins organization is kicking in 1/3rd of the cost of the stadium. The taxpayers of Hennepin County are ponying up the other 2/3rd's. Does that seem equitable to you...it sure doesn't to me.
When the Twins were denied their taxpayer funded stadium in years past, the Twins and MLB Kommissar Bud Selig used threats of contraction to move the team elsewhere a few years back to get what they wanted. I don't take kindly to threats.
Any politician with a spine should have replied, "see ya later."
You're right, it isn't baseball anymore, it IS legalized extortion.
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