LETTERS: OUTSTATE FANS ALSO WANT TO SEE CARDINALS PLAY

To the editor:

I have noticed that the debate over a new stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals is coming to the forefront. The following letter I sent to state Sen. Peter Kinder in August summarizes my thoughts on using taxpayer dollars for a stadium:

Dear Senator Kinder, I am watching the Cardinals play the Phillies. Attendance is about 48,000, the 26th sellout of the season. The news I've seen on the proposed new stadium calls for it to seat only about 40,000, with most seats of the premium variety. We common folk from outstate already have a hard time getting good tickets to see a game. All of the best tickets are held by the wealthy or corporations. Now they want to eliminate the 10,000 seats that people such as myself can afford to buy and are not sold as season tickets. On top of this, they expect my tax dollars to help pay for this stadium that will eliminate my access to see the team play. Please stand up for the middle-class taxpayers and insist that the stadium have at least as many seats as the current stadium and that seats be set aside for sale to individual games so that an outstate family might still be able to obtain tickets. If the stadium is built as planned, an average man from Cape Girardeau will be less likely to be able to take his children to see the Cardinals, and another of our longtime traditions will have died.

BRAD WITTENBORN

Cape Girardeau