LETTERS: CARDINALS AREN'T PUBLIC TREASURE; IT'S A BUSINESS

To the editor:

Since they support spending $100 million of state dollars on a new Cardinals stadium, state Sen. Peter Kinder and the Southeast Missourian should stop whining about liberals wasting Missouri taxes. This is the same Kinder who earlier this year bragged about saving the state $100,000 in administrative expenses. Indeed, Kinder endorsed the initial stadium proposal which called for nearly triple the amount of public money requested in the current plan. Remember also that Kinder was the dinner guest of Cardinals owners who are known to make generous political contributions (see the May 3 and May 6 editions of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Regardless of whether Kinder was actually influenced by this hospitality, it was time not spent serving his Southeast Missouri constituents.

As a lifelong Cardinals fan, I do not accept the notion that the team is a public treasure. This is a business owned by a group that includes individuals who profited enormously from the same stadium-financing scam in Texas. There they claimed a new stadium would generate the revenue needed to finance a competitive team. Now the Rangers have a $250 million playground but are are last in their division. So much for that argument.

I'm not worried about losing the Cardinals if the stadium plan falls through. The current team is not the one I've rooted for since 1960 but instead has become a conglomerate of overpaid players (Albert Pujols excepted) and greedy owners who are more interested in lining their pockets than maintaining tradition.

RICK BOHN

Scott City, Mo.