Build It, and They (Will) MIGHT Come

America's cities play sucker to big-league team owners who look for taxpayers to finance the fields of their dreams

The other evening, three guys ran across Candlestick Park brandishing a bed- sheet sign that read PLEASE DON'T GO! Stung by the announced sale of the San Francisco Giants to a consortium representing St. Petersburg, Florida, these three were exercising the birthright of any sports devotee: impotent pleading. This was the charge of the night brigade. But the trio might as well have been riding into the Valley of Death instead of invading the blustery pasture of America's crankiest ball park. The people who buy the tickets, whose taxes pay for the stadiums, who fantasize and fret over their team like...

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