Run races, not bases

A coincidence sparked this Friday post. First, Betsy (My Whim Is Law) pointed Rob Salzman (AboutItAll: Oregon) to Roses and Raindrops, a new blog by Jon Croix, where I read this post in which he argues that Portland should pursue NASCAR racing instead of major league baseball.

Second, my most recent comment here was from "NASCAR Girl," suggesting that at least one reader here likes the car races. By contrast, no one has commented here under the name of "Baseball Girl," which I take to be a sign of market preference.

Third, the Genial Old Codger with whom I had lunch today told me that he was taking his grandchildren to the Beavers' baseball game tonight, but that he found baseball as exciting as (in Red Smith's famous phrase about yacht racing) watching paint dry.

I was never a baseball fan. I see the chase for an MLB team as civic "me-tooism": an urge not to be particularly good or distinctive but to be one of the crowd. We're never going to be the dominant baseball town in the Northwest. NASCAR racing would be something else entirely: Portland could become the dominant car-racing town in the Northwest and bring a lot of clean, but noisy, dollars in the process.

Comments

[The One True b!X]

"I was never a baseball fan. I see the chase for an MLB team as civic 'me-tooism': an urge not to be particularly good or distinctive but to be one of the crowd."

I've always been a baseball fan. But I see the chase for an MLB team in the same way, and don't support bringing it here. Go figure.

[Shelley]

After Jon's post, I started thinking about NASCAR seriously. NASCAR in Portland makes a kind of sense - and it sounds as though it would bring more fan dollars to local businesses than MLB could. Not a bad idea at all.

[E. Rigby]

Yikes.