Governor Mitt Romney is right: when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money, giving Melrose $200,000 for Victorian-style lighting — as the Massachusetts legislature’s newly passed economic-stimulus package recommends — may not be the wisest choice. Romney mentioned the pretty lights as a primary example of the pork he wanted to pare when he vetoed $225 million in proposed state spending this week. And most of the media ran with it.But what about the $55 million earmarked for transportation upgrades near Fenway Park — a massive public investment that’s sure to benefit the Red Sox?
Apparently the governor is cool with that, since the $55 million went unvetoed. It seems Romney subscribes to the argument that’s been coming out of Fenway over the past several months — that the Red Sox are just one of many parties who stand to gain when all that cash gets spent. “There’s no direct benefit to the team,” Sox spokesman Doug Bailey told the Globe earlier this month. “I’d be hard pressed to see how Ruggles Street, the Park Street crossover, or the Sears Rotary helps the team any more than it helps the academic, residential, and medical areas.”
Bailey’s comments weren’t wrong, exactly; some parts of the $55 million package, like a new commuter-rail platform at Ruggles Station, won’t necessarily be boons for the Sox. But his defense was, um, highly selective. First off, the $55 million will also fund upgrades to the various T stations around Fenway Park, including the Fenway and Kenmore subway stops and the Yawkey commuter-rail station — upgrades which, presumably, will be greatly appreciated by fans traveling to and from Red Sox games.
What’s more, the days when the Red Sox could credibly cast themselves as just one part of the neighborhood are gone. These days, the team is on the verge of becoming the neighborhood. For example, the Sox plan to help construct a new complex featuring a hotel and market-rate condominiums on Boylston Street, at the site currently occupied by the Howard Johnson. They’ve has also purchased several properties on Boylston and Ipswich streets outright, and will likely purchase more in their ongoing push to make the area “as magical as possible” (see “The Fenway Rising,” News and Features, November 25, 2005). How could improving the Sears Rotary help the Sox? By making their sundry new properties all the more attractive and valuable, that’s how.
Really, it’s no surprise that the legislature coughed up the $55 million in question, or that Romney — for all his anti-pork posturing — signed off on it. After all, this is the same team that’s allowed to turn a public road (Yawkey Way) into a private cash cow on game days, and that finagled a (paid) state-police escort for a knuckleball catcher (Doug Mirabelli) traveling from Logan Airport to Fenway Park. They’ve also done a fantastic job finessing the legislature — particularly Senate president Robert Travaglini, who’s close to Larry Cancro, the Sox’ vice-president for Fenway affairs. (On Election Day in 2004, Cancro reportedly brought the World Series trophy to a Travaglini re-election party.)
Kudos to Boston mayor Tom Menino for urging the legislature to spend its money elsewhere, and to House Speaker Sal DiMasi for suggesting a far smaller package ($12.5 million) in his chamber’s first economic-stimulus proposal. But in the end, the Red Sox still got what they wanted. Which is usually how it goes.
