Joe Brown Columns
COLUMN
While speaking to the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce the other day, Tampa Bay Rays President Brian Auld made a case for a new ballpark that is used by every team when trying to justify the need for a new facility: economic development.
He maintained that with its 81-game home schedule, baseball is the only sport that can do that.
Auld made his remarks to a lunch crowd where one of the guests was U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. He said baseball can create “its own sense of place,” and even asserted that a new stadium not only could spark development and create jobs but help solve the Tampa Bay area’s mass transit woes.