Merritt Paulson is trying to get a ballpark. He’s trying to see if some community in this area is willing to build a real baseball stadium in a public-private partnership. You realize, perhaps, that the ONLY stadium or arena of any size that this area’s ever built with public funds is Memorial Coliseum — which was done about a half century ago.

The Rose Garden, PGE Park (Multnomah Stadium when it was built), Vaughn Street Ballpark — all were done privately. My point is, we’re kind of due, aren’t we, to do some sort of arena or ballpark?

Anyway, Paulson, who had no connections here, moved into the area when he bought the Portland Beavers and Timbers and is in love with owning pro sports franchises. He’s been villified, made fun of and derided because he’s asked the public to help fund a ballpark that IT will own.

He’s willing to pour millions of his own money into this operation. Millions. And for anyone who thinks he’s got a great chance of even earning all that money back, well, you’re nuts. I just don’t think it pencils out. The fact is, he’s a wealthy guy who loves owning and operating a sports franchise.

Just like Paul Allen.

But Paul’s taken a lot of hits over the years, too. Yet the contributions the Trail Blazers have made to this community are too many to count. Seriously, with all of our job and economic problems here, the constant rain and the idiocy of some of our politicians, it’s the only thing a lot of people find themselves feeling good about when they pick up the morning paper.

And you know what? Paul has lost tens hundreds of millions on the Trail Blazers. Can you imagine? It’s never been a profitable operation. The people of Portland owe him a standing ovation every time he walks to his seat in that arena. Has he made mistakes? Of course, and we’ve always called him out on them. But on balance, Paul Allen has been GREAT for the city of Portland.

Traditionally, we’ve not had wealthy people who live in our area step up to own franchises. The closest I can come is Harry Glickman, but he wasn’t rich enough to own the team — he just was farsighted and creative enough to put a group together that had enough financial clout to buy a team in the NBA.

I think Merritt Paulson is trying very hard to be great for the Portland area, too. Certainly, to anyone who believes he’s here to make his fortune is sadly mistaken. If they think that ballpark in Beaverton is going to benefit only Paulson, they’re seriously deluded.

That ballpark will be a gathering place and a focal point for Beaverton that the city has never had. An identity and a soul. Just wait. What really bothers me is the whole political side to this. Some people don’t like Paulson’s father, Hank, the former secretary of the treasury, so they don’t like his kid. I mean, man, the guy was a REPUBLICAN — which is pretty much always a crime around these parts. And man, he’s from the EAST COAST! How terrible.

All I’m saying is that we ought to be thankful that people like Paul Allen and Merritt Paulson have chosen Portland as the home for their teams. Nobody around here is wealthy enough or willing enough to do it.

And we’re better off for what they’ve done.

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Oregon State athletic director Bob De Carolis called out his team’s own fans in The Oregonian this morning:

“I’ve never seen a state like this, where it’s one or the other, you’re a Duck or you’re a Beaver,” De Carolis said. “Well, if (OSU alumni) are so proud of that, why is it so hard to keep this thing going? We have a hell of a football product — a hell of a football product — and we can’t sell out the stadium?”

“Where are all the Beaver fans?

I’ve been around this stuff all my life and I can tell you, you cannot expect people to attend your games — and pay the big bucks it takes to go — out of a sense of obligation. It just doesn’t work that way. If they’re not coming, they either don’t have the money (lower the ticket prices) or they aren’t get what they want out of the games (do you have a promotion man?).

They won’t plunk down the money just because you think they should. Look, this is the entertainment business. And most of the time if people don’t show up for whatever attraction you’re selling, they either don’t know about it or they are afraid they won’t get their money’s worth.

Oregon State put that new addition on the East grandstand of Reser Stadium and added a bunch of club-level seats. In almost every stadium or arena in the country, those tickets are difficult to sell. They’re almost always overpriced, not great seats and just don’t offer enough to command the extra money being charged for them. The Trail Blazers, as hot as they are, have trouble selling their club-level seats.

It was a huge mistake adding that type of seating and that’s not on the fans, it’s on the athletic department. And so, Bob, is your inability to sell tickets. Don’t blame the fans. Look in the mirror. You’ve got a great program there — why can’t you sell tickets?

Perhaps the game-day experience could somehow be enriched. What sort of added value are your fans getting? What kind of atmosphere is being created? Are your fans being treated right? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions but you had better know.

My goodness, the story even mentioned the city of Roseburg, where 800 alumni live but only 19 are donors. As if those people are somehow not doing what they’re supposed to do. Honestly, does anyone around the athletic department know what bad shape that town is in? My goodness, it’s an old lumber town.

This whole thing reminds me of someone who puts out a bad movie and then blames the public for not coming to see it. That’s not a bad movie playing in Corvallis, though — it’s a winning football team. And it seems to me that if people aren’t buying tickets, that’s YOUR responsibility.

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The city of Beaverton is near a “non-binding agreement” (which, when you think about it, is no agreement at all) to build the Beavers a ballpark. And bottom line, it’s going to cost taxpayers in that community an average of $64 a year.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, that’s not much. Seriously, if your property tax bill went up $64, would you even notice? I seriously doubt it. It’s about what you’d spend to take your family to a movie and grab a pizza afterward.

All I can say, though, is they better build a good one. A beauty. A real destination. If they do that, it’s a lock it will be successful.

The benefits from a ballpark in Beaverton will be many — economic, quality of life and just plain fun. That and the fact that a whole lot of Portlanders who really have no reason to go there these days will now be making the trek. And Beaverton will become known for something besides Nike. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It will go down like it always does — with people complaining and moaning about the cost but then as soon as it’s open and they see the benefit, they’ll shut up, just as they have everywhere else where quality ballparks have been built.

Meanwhile, once that ballpark is open and prospering, the city of Portland can sit here amazed at how good it all looks. It’s probably what it’s going to take to get Portlanders to understand the value of these things.

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My lifelong friend, Mike Clopton, and I stood on a street corner across the street from the left-field entrance to Safeco Field Thursday afternoon, getting ready to duck into a quiet little place called “Jimmy’s” where we’d watch Ian Furness do his talk show live on KJR.

The Mariners were playing a rare 3:40 game and I hesitated before ducking into the joint. On one side of me was Safeco Field, a glimmering baseball oasis on a perfect sunny afternoon. On the other side was a meeting hall and theater, attached to Qwest Field, where the Seahawks play — another most impressive structure.

The streets were alive with happy people. Families, business people ducking out on work, singles, senior citizens — people who seemed giddy about what their afternoon promised them. Even the scalpers had smiles on their faces.

What a town, man. Yes, Seattle lost its NBA team. Cry no tears — with the NFL and major-league baseball, it’s barely noticed.

When I was a kid, Seattle and Portland were heated rivals in just about every way. They had the Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League fighting our Beavers and the Totems in the Western Hockey League always losing to our Buckaroos. Those were the days.

But then the Kingdome went up and Seattle became a big-league city. While we were focusing on keeping it weird, they were concentrating on pennant races and dreaming of Super Bowls. They haven’t won a World Series or Super Bowl yet, but they are allowed to think about it every year. They paid the price of admission — in erecting beautiful public facilities that, yes, probably cost too much money.

But I hear no complaints as I stand on that corner. You never hear any around here. I see excited people headed to the ballpark to watch what turned into a honey of a game. As Mike and I alternated between great seats behind home plate, an inning in the press box and about four innings in the owner’s suite (Thanks to an all-time great guy, Randy Adamack), I couldn’t help but reflect.

Right there within a block of each other, twice as many sports facilities as the city of Portland has built since that coin toss when the little settlement on the Willamette became “Portland” rather than “Boston.”

It’s a shame we quit being Seattle’s rival. It’s a shame we didn’t dare to dream big. What fun we could have had in this town.

But I will say one thing for us. We’ve got Memorial Coliseum on the National Register of Historic Places. Those idiots up there in Seattle, who probably could have done the same thing with the Kingdome had they been smart enough, decided instead to implode it to make way for a gorgeous, state-of-the-art football stadium.

Fools. Don’t they know you’re supposed to keep old, disgusting, worn-out dumps like the Kingdome around and sink even more dough into them? I mean, that could have been an athletic club or a velodrome, right?

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Our politicians have always been well behind on this issue. The people of Portland would love to have a casino centrally located where they can go a couple of times a month to watch big-time entertainment and dump a whole lot of money onto some table, never to be seen again.

I’ve always been for it. Been for legalized gambling of all sorts, actually. Doesn’t offend me in any way and has always appealed to me as a way to let others pay my taxes for me. Legalize it, tax it and I’m cool with it.

But the big thing — let’s allow that casino but leverage it. Get something big in return. Talk about some life for the Rose Quarter, a plush casino on the waterfront on the old hotel property Paul Allen owns, with a boat dock so you could also get there by water. And for the right to put it there, whoever is the owner of that casino must do the rest of the Rose Quarter up real nice. Level Memorial Coliseum, build that ballpark, put in a few other nice restaurants and clubs.

Oh, never mind. Makes too much sense for Portland to ever even think about.

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First off, it started about 20 minutes late, which isn’t nice on a day when everyone is seated in an unshaded area of metal grandstands. But anyway, I digress.

Point one — I was told just prior to the news conference that there’s a real chance Beaverton mayor Denny Doyle doesn’t quite have enough clout with his city council to pull this whole thing off. At least that’s what opponents were saying after a Monday night council meeting. That’s a little bit ridiculous, if you ask me — since the group hasn’t even heard a proposal yet from Beaver owner Merritt Paulson.

To me, if I was on that council, I’d at least wait to hear what Paulson’s asking the city for. Obviously, because he’s in a rush and doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of other options, he’s probably willing to make a pretty sweet deal. And trust me, that city could probably use the Beavers more than just about any other in the state — for a multitude of reasons that are partially economic and partially just community identity.

Second, I didn’t realize how important it seems to people out that way that this be described as a “multi-purpose” stadium. I lost track of how many times the mayor mentioned it in his brief speech. Well, I guess… I mean, if that’s what you need to say.

Folks, it’s a ballpark. It’s not something that can be used all year round, unless you want to put a dome on it — which you really can’t afford. Relax with that.

Yes, when the Beavers are out of town, when the weather cooperates and assuming the joint has (sigh) artificial turf, you can hold community events, use it for youth baseball, stage college baseball tournaments — whatever you want. But get the idea out of your head that you need to use it every day of the year. NOBODY in any town owns that stadium, unless it’s domed, OK?

Look, build a nice ballpark and build it big enough to seat 8,000 with an outfield berm that can accomodate another four or five thousand and the place will pay you back many times over. Beaverton would have a community gathering place built by a public/private partnership that it couldn’t get any other way. And some needed identity for the city, too.

That’s plenty beneficial enough to at least listen to a proposal, isn’t it? Man, politicians around here can just about drive you batty.

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The Oregon Sports Authority is now on board with Beaverton being the new site for a Portland Beaver ballpark.

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In response to the post yesterday about public funds going to build stadiums and arenas, I got a note from someone I really respect who liked the post. But he wrote this,

To me the debate isn’t really about whether or not there should be stadiums, but just about what percentage of the bill ought to be public. IF we’re in a world where the players and the owners use the building to get filthy rich, while schools are underfunded (not that we are, it’s not that clear) then clearly the public would be right to want to pay a little less of that bill, right?

Yes, IF we’re in that world, you’re right. But I’m afraid in this country right now, we are no longer in that bygone era where sports owners stuff their pockets to the brim with cash. Yes, if you own the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Lakers, the Knicks or any team in the NFL  – you’re in a different strata.

But the rest of the sports world is struggling hard just to break even. Certainly just about any team headed to Portland is going to have its hands full. I think we’re going to hit an era where cities are basically going to need to be partners with these owners if they want teams in their city. In return for building the stadiums, they need iron-clad leases that tie the team to the city for decades – but they’re going to have to shoulder a lot of the burden for construction.

It just may not happen any other way if you want a team. Some pretty successful franchises in today’s world are not making any money. The owners certainly aren’t getting “filthy rich.” It’s more likely that their team is draining their personal fortune. If you’re a good and loyal fan of your team, you don’t want that to happen to your owner because you know it’s eventually going to lead to disaster on the field, court, ice or pitch.

The NFL is different. It’s still a money machine, the country’s most popular sport and it has leverage. Ironically, since it’s so popular, it’s still in a position to dictate terms to cities. And those terms are terrible. They want stadiums that are now costing up to a billion dollars and are not a good civic investment, since many are used only about 20 times a year and look like giant blimp hangers blighting the landscape.

But that’s sort of the way our economy works. As a city, you must first measure the value that sport has to the lifestyle and hearts of your citizenry. If it fits, then whatever you spend is usually, in the end, worth it.

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