* By all appearances, the city of St. Petersburg is moving ahead on its master plan to keep the Rays where they are. By the end of the month urban planners will have submitted their visions for transforming 85 Trop-and-parking-lot acres into an economically synergistic and vibrant market-magnet that includes a new baseball facility. Finished plans, vetted by city council, will be due by the end of summer, and the Rays will be able to see a final vision by the end of the season. At some point a Plan B, Trop development sans a stadium scenario, will be included.
And this just in. City officials have just announced that Rick Mussett, who retired in 2014 as city development administrator, will be the point man for the city’s “Baseball Forever” campaign. In effect, he’ll be the liaison between the city and the Rays. Musset played a key role in helping bring baseball to St. Pete in 1998. He knows the issues, and he knows the Rays.
Only one problem. Plan B makes more sense. The Rays need a realistic, Tampa Bay regional stadium site in this hybrid, asymmetrical market. And St. Pete needs a new-urbanism, development catalyst to make its Trop-site commercially viable.
* The Sportatorium, once a well-known, TV-wrestling venue, was back in the news last week because it was auctioned. I’m not exactly nostalgic for the days of Championship Wrestling from Florida–hosted by Gordon Solie–by I do have a memory.
I was prepping for a (Tampa Bay Magazine) piece I was to do on wrestling night at Ft. Homer Hesterly Armory in the mid-1980s. In short, what was that like? In brief, weird. But now I know the roots of Donald Trump rallies–although Dusty Rhodes was less blustery. I also remember Wahoo McDaniel, a former NFL linebacker, and Abdullah the Butcher (from “Parts Unknown”) being on the card.
Back to the Sportatorium on North Albany Avenue near Kennedy Boulevard. While waiting for Solie, I took the liberty to look around the cramped quarters. Wrestlers would work out and practice here. I peered into the ring area and looked on for a few minutes before being asked to peer somewhere else. I can understand why.
I was watching a rehearsal. Of course, they rehearse–otherwise a participant could get seriously hurt or look seriously, unintentionally silly. Why mess with mystique? Why allow access behind the Oz curtain? I get it.
But a sport? With fans who root and yell and care who wins and channel personalities? I never got that–until the Trump presidential campaign.
* Thanks nationally to the University of Connecticut and locally to the University of South Florida, we’re paying more attention to women’s basketball. And we’re seeing an interesting pattern. The female players are increasingly like their male counterparts. The talent level, the recruiting coups, the media coverage and the, uh, flair.
Celebratory female chest bumps are weird.