Red Sox CEO John Harrington "offered only a subdued,
three-sentence response" thanking the MA Legislature for
passing legislation on a new Fenway Park over the weekend,
"underscoring his fears the team may not be able to afford
its portion" of the $665M project, according to Vaillancourt
& Bollman of the BOSTON GLOBE. Harrington "made no
commitment the team will be able to secure private
financing" for the park and said, "We have to be candid
about the realities we face." On Saturday, the MA Senate
and House each passed the bill authorizing $312M in state
and city aid for the project and calls for the Red Sox to
pay the full $352M cost of the ballpark plus overruns, which
team execs say means the team "will be required to make the
largest private investment any team has ever made in a new
stadium in the history of modern sports" (BOSTON GLOBE,
7/30). Also in Boston, Guarino & Crummy wrote that the
legislature approved "by comfortable margins" the measure
less than four days after it was "unveiled" by Gov. Paul
Cellucci, Mayor Thomas Menino and House Speaker Thomas
Finneran and Senate President Thomas Birmingham. However,
the package "still faces an uncertain future given the Sox
admitted financing woes and a majority opposition on the
City Council." The team secured "only one of their" seven
"11th-hour demanded changes" to the bill, an expansion of
the definition of a tax zone around the ballpark site to
include street-level shops and restaurants planned for the
ballpark "to help the team meet its payback to the city."
But legislators "turned away" other demands by the team,
including a bid that the city "revive its guarantee" of $7M
annually in revenue to the team (BOSTON HERALD, 7/30).
A DEAL IS A DEAL: The BOSTON HERALD's Cosmo Macero
wrote that with the "last-minute menu" of proposed changes,
Harrington "burned up enough political capital to conjure up
memories of [Patriots Owner] Robert Kraft's South Boston
fiasco." Macero: "The team's brazen overture at Friday's
legislative hearing on the ballpark bill even surprised some
Sox advisers. And it created bad feelings" (BOSTON HERALD,
7/30). The team's proposed bill changes "left government
leaders shocked and angered" (BOSTON HERALD, 7/29). In
Boston, Dan Shaughnessy wrote on Harrington's "complaining"
that the team does not have "enough money" to finance it's
portion of the $665M project. Shaughnessy to Harrington:
"Then sell the team or bring in a moneybags partner. This
whining only makes it sound as if the Sox don't really want
to go ahead with the project" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/29).
RESCUE MISSION: Also in Boston, Meg Vaillancourt wrote
on the role of local business leaders on the ballpark deal
under the header, "Businessmen Rescue Bid." John Hancock
CEO David D'Alessandro, ad exec Jack Connors and FleetBoston
Financial President Chad Gifford told Red Sox execs during
ballpark negotiations last Tuesday night that the latest
offer by state leaders was the best the team would receive.
The team accepted the deal "after the Red Sox realized the
politicians were, in effect, offering them a take-it-or-
leave-it proposition." Leaders "warned that if Harrington
rejected the deal it wasn't clear when they might consider a
ballpark project again" (BOSTON HERALD, 7/30).
BUT IS THE DESIGN FLAWED? In Boston, Robert Campbell
wrote, "I'm wondering why everyone is talking about politics
and money and nobody is talking about the fact that this is
a terrible design for a ballpark." Campbell criticizes a
replica Green Monster: "[The Green Monster] exists today for
a logical reason: because a city street sliced off a corner
of the lot the ballpark was built on. Once you replicate
the Monster on a different site, you've transformed it from
reality to stage set" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/30).
