by Jim Bouton
“Are you afraid of lawsuits?” friends have asked. Not really. The manuscript was reviewed and approved—with minor changes—by Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC, which specializes in First Amendment law. And the best defense is the truth. The most damning events occurred in plain view, especially the first time around. You’d have to be blind, or working for the Berkshire Eagle, not to see what was happening.
What’s more, the most incriminating comments came from the most unimpeachable sources—mayors, councilors, commissioners, lawyers, and newspaper executives. Who needs Deep Throat when there are so many loose lips?
And I have Chip as my witness.
“Unless you go south on me,” I said to him the other day.
“It all depends,” Chip said with a grin, “on what kind of an offer I get from the other side.”
In any case, I had no choice but to write this book. Like Arundhati Roy, I had stumbled upon a silent war. And I couldn’t unsee it.
www.foulball.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without Paula there would be no book. Even though she had her doubts about what she now refers to as “the mid-life crisis known as Wahconah Park,” she was the best partner a man could have.
In a good example of the Stockholm Syndrome, Paula was also the perfect in-house editor. I had only to walk into the next room to see how the story was coming. The sound of giggles and penciled check marks meant I’d written something good. Long silences punctuated by pencil scratches across the page meant I had just wasted five hours. Paula, who writes her own column for Berkshire Homestyle magazine, is not your typical hand-holding editor. Instead of margin notes that say “open this up a bit,” or “please explain,” she’s more likely to write, “Boooring,” “Out!” and “NO! NO! NO!” Her “YES!” was like getting a gold star.
Next I have to thank my other partner, the one without the curves. The multi-talented Chip is also a great proofreader—a Herculean task with the self-published hardcover book. To give you some idea, when I forgot to show Chip the acknowledgments page, in which I credited his proofreading skills to his mother the English teacher, I spelled English with a small “e.” So don’t blame Chip or Maggie.
What would we have done without Cindy Elitzer, the cash management whiz who never got credit for spending the entire July 3rd game underneath the stands, juggling coupons and stacks of small bills. And who, like Paula, is now dealing with a shortage of funds. Asked why she had declined to buy the priciest tickets to a recent fundraiser, Cindy explained that “the Boutons and the Elitzers have each made an involuntary six-figure charitable contribution to the city of Pittsfield.”
I also want to thank Jim Charlton and Marty Goldensohn for their guidance and support. Daniel Elitzer for his important early editorial suggestions. Eric Lincoln, Dave Potts, Tim Gray, Jack Guillet, Tim Wiles and Andy Zimbalist for help with research. Terry Kinnas, Joe Guzzo, Anne Leaf, Dan Valenti, Jonathan Levine, and Tim Zwingelstein for the local history. The accuracy is theirs. Any mistakes are mine.
I’m grateful to Cheryl Raifstanger of Kwik Print for those last-minute copies, Maeve O’Dea for transcribing tapes, and Marjorie Wexler for proofreading and research. I want to thank Alex Bloomstein, David Kaufman, Michael Martin, and John Thorn, for their wisdom and generosity.
The cover painting is by Arthur K. Miller. Jamie Akers did the Wahconah Park renderings. The Bouton and Elitzer photos at Wahconah Park were taken by Eric Lincoln.
This was a team effort.
DOCUMENTS
To reduce the incidence of back strain and hernia, most of the documents connected to this story—our original Proposal for Wahconah Park, the Bid Protest Decision by the Massachusetts Attorney General, our Revised License Agreement, Bill Moyers’ and my response to lawyers from General Electric, MediaNews Group, and publisher Peter Osnos, our Op-Ed pieces, and letters to the editor, etc.—can be found at www.foulball.com.
For story continuity and ease of reference, a number of documents have been included on the following pages.
2001
FEB 11 Letter to Andy Mick, Publisher of the Berkshire Eagle and President of Berkshire Sports & Events
MAR 21 Second Letter to Andy Mick
JUN 22 Open Letter to Mayor Doyle and the Pittsfield City Council
JUL 10 Letter to Clifford Nilan, Parks Commission Chairman
JUL 17 Open Letter to Parks Commission, Mayor, and City Council
AUG 13 Proposal for Wahconah Park (Summary)
2004
AUG 13 Bid Protest Decision (Excerpt) from the Office of Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly
SEPT 10 Report and Request to Mayor, City Councilors, and Parks Commissioners
OCT 7 Chip’s Email Thanking Investors
Cash Flow Summary of Wahconah Park, Inc.
Geographical Breakdown of Investors
FEBRUARY 11, 2001
Letter to Andy Mick, Publisher of the Berkshire Eagle and President of Berkshire Sports and Events
Dear Andy:
Jim Bouton and I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and your BS&E colleagues last Wednesday. You have obviously been thinking a lot about the objectives of your ambitious undertaking, and we were impressed with the clarity of your statement that the focus is economic development. In effect, baseball is a means, not an end.
We share your primary objective—economic development—and also your secondary one: keeping baseball in Pittsfield. After consulting with our own group, we believe that we can free BS&E to maximize its primary objective by eliminating any uncertainty about the secondary one. We are prepared to state, without qualification, that we can bring a Northern League team to Wahconah Park beginning with the 2002 season, without any cost to the taxpayers. If environmental hurdles can be surmounted, then we will construct improvements to the ballpark; if not, then we will still build a team that fans will enjoy watching, and create a “must-see” entertainment experience at an historic ballpark that will keep them coming back from all over the Berkshires and beyond.
We believe that the logic of building an indoor arena on the new site instead of an outdoor stadium is compelling for several reasons:
1. Bring a second major professional sport to Pittsfield. Our group is prepared to state unequivocally that we will provide a United Hockey League franchise to serve as BS&E’s anchor tenant beginning with the 2002-2003 hockey season if the arena is ready in time.
2. Create a year-round facility that will be truly multi-purpose: conventions, trade shows, rock concerts, circuses, ice shows, graduation ceremonies, professional sports (in addition to hockey, other possibilities are arena football, indoor soccer, indoor lacrosse, and wrestling), amateur sports (skating, basketball, track, volleyball), and various regional and statewide tournaments at both the high school and the college level.
3. Many of the uses of an indoor arena, such as conventions and trade shows, would bring visitors to the Berkshires for several days at a time during the “offseasons,” significantly leveraging the assets of hotels, restaurants, and other local businesses that have been overbuilt to meet the capacity demands of the summer season.
4. A $22 million, 6,000 seat, 12-month arena ($3,000/seat plus $4 million land acquisition and site development costs) would be more cost effective than a $18.5 million 3-month stadium. Least feasible would be building a new stadium, subsequently acquiring additional land (a fear of some Civic Authority opponents) and then building an arena, for a total cost of at least $40.5 million ($18.5 + $22).
Assembling the centrally located site that you have is a tremendous accomplishment. It is more than that: it is a public good. For that land to be used for any purpose other than its highest and best public one would represent an irretrievably lost civic opportunity.
In our view, the sole rationale for building a stadium instead of an arena (in effect, “no new stadium, no baseball”) is flawed for two reasons: (1) it contradicts the primacy of the economic development objective, which is clearly be
tter served by an arena, and (2) it presumes that the only baseball worth watching is an affiliated minor league team. We, on the other hand, believe that an independent league team offers more advantages:
1. Team continuity from year to year instead of musical chairs.
2. Local ownership with fans of the team owning stock.
3. Superior quality of play (compared to affiliated “single A”) with recently released major and high minor league players.
4. Greater possibility of players going straight to the majors.
5. No conflict of allegiance for local fans of particular major league teams (Yankee fans having to root for Red Sox or Astros farm teams).
6. Favorite players returning from year to year.
7. Greater possibility of local players (Great Barrington’s John Raifstanger, retired last year from AA ball, for example).
8. Reduced likelihood of future demands on Pittsfield (such as the NY–Penn League standards that threatened to turn Wahconah into a ghost park).
Finally, we want to address the politics of the proposed referendum. We believe that BS&E would not be well advised to wait until after a vote on the Civic Authority before considering and—hopefully—adopting our “Plan B”:
1. If the referendum passes before any public announcement is made of BS&E’s support for Plan B, then BS&E is virtually locked into the stadium project, which is clearly inferior to the arena as an economic development tool. Any major ex post facto change of plans would be viewed by many voters as “bait and switch.”
2. If the referendum fails before any announcement is made of the arena, then it will be practically impossible to return to the voters anytime soon with Plan B. That would be a sadly missed opportunity, because the creation of the Civic Authority is a prerequisite for the construction and operation of any large public facility in that space. By announcing Plan B well in advance of the vote, a potentially critical number of opponents (not all, but certainly the “Save Wahconah” crowd and the people who oppose a “white elephant” in the heart of Pittsfield) could be converted into proponents.
Andy, as you know, we’re an all-Berkshire group with a strong set of managerial, promotional, and financial skills. With your group’s endorsement of Plan B, we’re prepared today to begin the process of generating enormous support from baseball and hockey fans (including many who don’t know that they’re about to become rabid fans) from as far north as Williamstown and North Adams, to as far south as Great Barrington and Sheffield. Pittsfield is the geographic heart of Berkshire County. It can be the emotional and economic heart as well.
Jim and I look forward to meeting with you and your group again at your early convenience.
Sincerely,
Donald B. Elitzer
cc: T. F. Murphy, M. E. Callahan, Jr., J. S. Pomeroy, M. Thiessen
MARCH 21, 2001
Second Letter to Andy Mick
Dear Andy:
Thank you for making the trek south with Mick Callahan to meet with Jim Bouton and me last Wednesday. Although we believe that the arguments in favor of two professional sports teams for the price of one and a year-round arena instead of a 3-4 month stadium are compelling, you clearly do not. We also believe that our plan, if proposed publicly, would bolster rather than threaten a favorable Civic Authority vote, whereas you would prefer us not to “confuse the voters.”
After considerable soul-searching—not to mention alternating with each other several times in the role of devil’s advocate—Jim and I have decided to respect your wishes and remain silent through the referendum. Your group has invested a lot of time, effort, and money in getting this far, and we cannot be cavalier in taking action that you believe would jeopardize that investment.
We will call you on June 6, either to congratulate you or to suggest serious reconsideration of “Plan B”.
Sincerely,
Donald B. Elitzer
cc: M. E. Callahan, Jr., J. A. Cunningham, Jr. [President of Berkshire Bank], T. F. Murphy, J. S. Pomeroy, M. Thiessen
JUNE 22, 2001
Open Letter to Mayor Doyle and the Pittsfield City Council
Gentlemen:
Following our open proposal of June 11th for keeping professional baseball in Wahconah Park and bringing a minor league ice hockey team to a new arena on the downtown site, we have been asked to describe how we plan to proceed with our primary and immediate interest: baseball at Wahconah.
1. Acquire a long-term lease (or its equivalent) from the City. Proposed term: 30 years, subject to cancellation if we fail to provide a professional baseball team to play in Wahconah Park. (An important component of financing later-stage improvements will be long-term debt, which we will only be able to obtain with a long-term lease. As anyone with a home mortgage knows, a 30-year loan is a lot easier to service than a 15- or 20-year loan.)
Proposed annual rent or fee: $1.00, subject to our maintaining the Park at no cost to the City and making capital improvements exceeding $25,000 annually.
Other uses: Because the City would remain the owner of the Park, we would welcome its continued use by Pittsfield, Taconic, and St. Joseph’s high school football, and by other civic, educational, and recreational groups, consistent with its primary mission of hosting professional baseball.
2. Negotiate the acquisition of an independent league franchise. It will be a Northern League or an Atlantic League franchise. There are currently three dormant Northern League franchises and at least one active franchise whose owners might consider selling. With the long-term commitment for a permanent home (Wahconah) in hand, we will take advantage of a “buyer’s market” and purchase a franchise on the most favorable terms possible.
3. Invite the citizens of Pittsfield and Berkshire County to be our partners. We will sell substantial ownership in the ball club to individuals and businesses, so that fans can truly say that it is their team. Widespread local ownership will also make it difficult if not impossible for anyone to ever move the team to another city. Although it is premature to describe the terms of the actual offering, our preliminary thinking is that we would offer 25% to 50% of the team to investor/fans. The proceeds would be used to help build the team and finance initial improvements to the ballpark.
4. Improve the ballpark. Capital improvements would be implemented on a gradual, multi-year basis and would be prioritized according to four sets of considerations: (1) ensuring safety and sanitation, (2) improving comfort and convenience for fans and players, (3) complying with environmental regulations, and (4) economic viability.
Prior to the 2002 season, after fixing unsafe conditions, if any, we would replace the orange-and-blue color scheme with a fresh coat of paint (probably forest green). Our capital project list would include bigger and better restrooms, food concessions, and locker rooms, and abatement of flooding conditions in the parking lot, to be accomplished in phases over several years. After at least two operating seasons, we would expect to have a clear, prioritized list of other capital improvements that would have a major beneficial impact on the fans’ baseball experience. At some point, we would also like to add a walkway museum and Hall of Fame to commemorate and market our historic ballpark.
Our partnership group brings over 15 years of experience in building and running successful minor league sports franchises. Of 14 professional teams currently or previously owned (7 of them baseball), 12 are enduring assets in their original cities. The other two are thriving in new homes after being forced to relocate by affiliated minor league stadium requirements.
Gentlemen, we look to you now for help in achieving the first step: securing a long-term lease on Wahconah Park. Although we could wait until Labor Day and probably still make the 2002 season, we would benefit greatly from a decision while most of the 2001 season still remains to be played.
Sincerely,
Jim Bouton
Chip Elitzer
Eric Margenau, President
United Sports Ventures
JULY 10, 2001
&
nbsp; Letter to Clifford Nilan, Parks Commission Chairman
Dear Mr. Nilan:
Based on my conversation with Bob Mellace late last week, I’m assuming that the next meeting of the Board of Park Commissioners will be on Monday, July 23, and that the fate of Wahconah Park will have a prominent place on the agenda.
Given the independent league franchise opportunities that must be pursued before the end of the current baseball season, my partners and I respectfully request that the Commissioners come to that meeting prepared to vote on our proposal for a long term lease or license agreement for the stadium and its parking areas.
The principal points of our proposal are:
1. A 30-year agreement for the nominal sum of $1.00 per year, cancelable by the City if we fail to perform under the terms of the lease at any time, including providing professional baseball each summer season.
2. Our ball club would be responsible for the expense of maintaining the stadium, including any major structural repairs that are or become necessary during the term of the lease.
3. Our ball club would agree to make capital improvements of at least $25,000 annually during the term of the lease. In practice, we expect that amount to be easily exceeded.
4. We would make the stadium and grounds available for other community uses, including high school football, but excluding other season-long baseball leagues.
Why such a long lease? We believe that the City and its citizens are best served by granting us a time frame that enables us to plan projects and financial commitments from the prospective of an owner, not a renter. To use an analogy, whom would you expect to take better care of an historic house for future generations, an owner or someone who was just renting it for a few years?