Tom Keane

The Deeply Flawed Agreement That Saved Fenway Park

“Tommy,” comes the admonishment, “what you did was very naughty.”

He nods, bracing for the worst.

“And for your punishment…”

“I’m grounded?”

“No…”

“Have to give everything back?”

“No…”

“Apologize, then?”

“No, not that either.”

“So what then?”

“Well, don’t ever do it again.”

That, in essence, is a summary of the just-released Massachusetts Inspector General’s report on Boston’s 2013 property deals with the Boston Red Sox. There were three in all: for $7.34 million the city sold the team air rights over Lansdowne Street and allowed it to take over Yawkey Way on game days. Then, in a separate transaction, Boston bought part of a parking lot from a Sox-affiliated entity for $2.67 million (which the city then turned into a public road).

To which the IG’s report might well have added: “Oh, and by the way Tommy, even though what you did was very, very bad, we’re still glad you did it.”

Tommy, in this case, is late Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. It wasn’t Menino himself who signed an agreement with the Sox, but rather the Boston Redevelopment Authority — the BRA. Still, the powerful mayor, in the closing months of his almost 21-year reign, had absolute control over the agency. Although the IG’s report doesn’t directly say so, it implies that the city’s deal with the Sox was cut in some back room, and then papered over by the BRA to give it an official patina.

It was the papering-over that was badly done. The IG thinks the city should have had a written report from an appraiser, not just some spreadsheets and an oral presentation.  There was no public review of the transaction and the BRA board was only given six hours to consider it before voting. The agency didn’t officially make a finding that there was “blight” in the area, something that’s normally required. And the IG thinks that city may have been shorted financially, although it can’t say by how much.

OK, I get it.  Next time the city wants to push something like this through, do a better job of prettying things up.  Get a written appraisal, give board members more notice, be a little more transparent.

But these niceties notwithstanding, at the end of the day does anyone doubt this deal would have been done?

Of course it would have been. It was done to save Fenway Park.

As the IG recounts in its report, back in the 1990s the Red Sox’s previous owners, led by John Harrington, were hot to shutter Fenway Park and build a new stadium. Proposals were floated for something in South Boston, or perhaps a near-replica in the Fenway area. Their argument was that the nearly 100-year old stadium was dilapidated and dangerous — about to fall apart. In fact, the real issue was that it was too small, without the number of seats and the common space needed to generate big-league dollars. The city was in agreement and so was that state; the legislature in fact passed an act declaring Fenway “inadequate for the purposes for which it was designed.”

And so it appeared that beloved Fenway, that “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark” in John Updike’s lovely words, was doomed. Some citizens, under the banner of “Save Fenway Park,” protested, but against the weight of powerful owners and united politicians, they seemed to have no hope.

But then in 2002 along came John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino. What had seemed inevitable was no longer certain. Rather than seeing something old as a liability, the new owners saw the park as an asset — albeit, an asset in need of some serious upgrades. Working with architect Janet Marie Smith those were added in, including the Monster seats and the use of Yawkey Way as extra common space. But the Monster seats required the city grant air rights over Lansdowne Street and Yawkey Way required allowing the Sox to take over the street on game days.

The BRA signed off on that in 2003. The vote in 2013 was really just a permanent extension of what had been a 10-year agreement. Sloppily handed, indeed. And perhaps the city could have exacted more money — although that’s the least persuasive part of the IG’s report. For one, the IG looks at revenues from the new seats and concession sales, thinking these a surrogate for value. They aren’t. Net income (after expenses) is the right measure and the IG makes clear it doesn’t have those figures. Moreover, the IG places too much faith in having an appraiser set value. Deals aren’t done by appraisers; they’re done by buyers and sellers negotiating for a price with which both can live. Appraisers only come in at the end as a check, if you will, on whether an agreement makes sense. (And it’s a dubious check at that; ever wonder at how miraculous it is that, when you buy a home, the appraisal is just enough to satisfy your mortgage lender? As Mark Twain might have said, “lies, damned lies and appraisals.”)

What really happened in 2013 was an example of (appropriately enough) hardball realpolitik: making something happen notwithstanding the formalities. The IG’s right. The formalities could have been better handled. But the result still would have been the same.

This column was first published in Cognoscenti on October 28, 2015.

Election 2016: Where Things Stand Today, And Why This Race Could Be A Game Changer

The official presidential campaign season doesn’t kick off for another three months, with the February 1 Iowa Caucus. From one point-of-view, the mishegas of the summer and fall has been nothing but a pre-game show, the trash-talking, speculation and hyperbole preceding any big game. In truth though, much has happened: Fortunes have risen and fallen, the field has firmed up, and there is an increasing sense that the 2016 presidential election might truly be consequential, potentially one of those “realigning” elections so beloved by political scientists. To wit:

You’re outta here! Both the Democratic and Republican fields are about to narrow sharply.

On the Democratic side, we started with one — Hillary Clinton — and only slowly did the number balloon to five (and perhaps, some hoped, Joe Biden’s possible entrance might have made six). The GOP, on the other hand, had such a plethora of candidates (17!) that the debates had to be split in two — a top card and an undercard. On both fronts, things are starting to change.

The latest CNN poll, from October 17, shows three of the Democrats with almost impossibly low numbers. Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee (who’s “dog ate my homework” response to his vote on Glass-Steagall may well be one of the most embarrassing moments in debate history) have support that hovers at one percent or less. None of the three has a credible path to the nomination. Webb is now quitting, but saying he may run as an independent (good luck with that…). The other two should throw in the towel as well. Indeed, not doing so may itself be a comment on their fitness, since an ability to assess and make good judgments seems a necessary credential for the job. With Biden opting out of the race, we're really now down to just two.

Meanwhile, the GOP has already seen two candidates drop out (Rick Perry and Scott Walker). Eight others seem at death’s door. Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham are all polling at five percent or less. Of those, perhaps Christie and Kasich hang on for a while (if only because both, as more mainstream candidates, think they would benefit from the hoped-for collapse of Donald Trump and Ben Carson). Granted, even if the other six exited immediately, we’d still have a bloated field of nine. At least, though, there’d no longer be a need for an undercard.

It’s Hill and a player to be named later. Clinton will be the Democratic nominee but the GOP remains a cipher.

I’m with the conventional wisdom here. Clinton crushed in the first Democratic debate and the poll numbers show that: her numbers are trending up while Bernie Sanders is trending down. With support at 47 percent, she’s nearing a majority. And with Biden no longer a factor, her numbers will only improve. All hail!

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, it’s no longer impossible that the unthinkable might happen. Trump or Carson really could be the nominee, a circumstance that would likely be the GOP’s version of George McGovern. I still think the Republicans come to their senses, picking a more mainstream candidate like Jeb Bush or John Kasich. But if they don’t, the Democrats romp.

People care! They really care! The two GOP debates and the Democratic debate all had record-high viewership. For the GOP, Donald Trump is claiming credit, saying he’s a “ratings machine.” On the Democratic side, no one is being so crass, but some give Bernie Sanders credit; potential voters are curious, runs the thinking: just exactly who is this white-haired, wild-haired man?

There’s something to be said for celebrity and novelty as drivers for viewership. But that’s not what’s really going on. This election, still over a year away, is becoming a preoccupation, a topic around the water cooler and family dinners. The issues pushed hardest by Sanders — income inequality and the fate of the middle class — are now a mainstream concern that even Republicans are talking about. Folks are worried about broken politics in Washington, the influence of big money and the United States’ standing in world affairs. Split politics, with one party controlling the Congress and another the White House, isn’t working. All of this suggests a real possibility for a political sea-change, a realigning election along the lines of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Forget the White House: members of Congress too may find themselves under siege. The status quo has nothing to worry about when voters are disengaged.  But if they start paying attention — and that seems to be the case now — there’s no telling what might happen.

This column was first published in Cognoscenti on October 22, 2015.

Could 'The Martian' Fix The Dysfunction Of Washington Politics?

One wishes politics on Earth were more like that on the red planet.

The movie “The Martian” lacks the intense, profane and arresting opening lines of the book: “I’m pretty much f**ked.” Thus author Andy Weir introduces us to Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded on the planet Mars. He doesn’t have enough water, he doesn’t have enough food, and, for that matter, since no one knows he’s alive and all of his communication systems are broken, none of those really matter anyway.

But the brilliance of the book — and the movie too, which despite its bowdlerization, keeps faith with its source material — is that Watney persists. And he does so by doing something that seems a rarity these days: He solves problems. He doesn’t point fingers or cast blame. He doesn’t wallow in misery or succumb to despair. He doesn’t rail against imagined enemies.

He just solves problems.

It’s a lesson for our personal lives but also for the political as well. For despite its seeming theme of one lone man against impossible odds, Watney’s ultimate survival depends upon the efforts of many — thousands, really. The message of the book and film: It takes a village, or even the entire world, to save the life of one man.

What a left-wing kind of idea.

My first impression after reading the book had been that (despite the 57 times the f-bomb makes an appearance) we should make it required reading for high schoolers. If so, one might speculate, the number of kids interested in science, technology and math could double or triple. The reason is that Watney is such an appealing character — witty and self-deprecating but also hardworking, ingenious and brave. His MacGyver-like creativity makes being a geek seem almost sexy.

But there’s much more than that at play in the story (spoiler alert ahead): When NASA finally learns that he is alive, Watney’s survival becomes the preoccupation of the agency and eventually the entire planet. And we see in scene after scene how it is not only Watney’s undisputed cleverness that keeps him alive, but also the cleverness of a host of others — some higher-ups, some low on the organizational totem pole. Thus, it is a junior satellite planner looking at grainy photos who first figures out that Watney might be alive. Later, it is an over-caffeinated mathematician who figures how he might be saved.

Domestic and even international politics enter as well. Actor Jeff Daniels plays Teddy Sanders, the fleshy-faced NASA administrator who, if there’s to be a villain, would seem to qualify: He’s the one who worries about politics and public relations and fears to “take risks to save lives.” Yet when the timing of a possible re-supply mission proves a problem, it’s Sanders who makes the decision to scrap the normal testing protocol, saving precious days. It’s the right decision, but also one that bites him: The re-supply rocket blows up in mid-flight, and one can imagine a Benghazi-like series of Congressional inquiries in his future. And internationally, it is Chinese scientists who reach out to NASA — “space agency to space agency.” thus avoiding the politicians of their own government — to provide a needed assist when things really do look lost.

Sometimes “The Martian” feels like an idealization, aspiration for what the world should be rather than a description of what it is. Indeed, it makes for a sharp contrast with the dysfunction that seems to pervade Washington — a dysfunction rooted in core beliefs of rampant individualism that think small government is better than big and no government is better than small.

Yet the agency at the center of the action — NASA — is big government and it really does exist and despite politics and despite fumbling bureaucratic nonsense, it really does succeed, sometimes marvelously so. It’s hard to imagine that any private entity could muster the intellectual resources and billions of dollars involved to save the life of just one man. Yet that’s the seemingly impossible mission that NASA takes upon itself. And if we can possibly succeed in such a mission, one imagines, so too, if we just put our minds to it, can we succeed in others, from global climate change to gun violence. “Work the problem,” admonishes one character in the book. It’s an admonishment the Nation’s Capital needs to take to heart.

This column was first published in Cognoscenti on October 8, 2015.