Ball Park Semantics

The News-Repress unveiled the letters they have been soliciting all week about the Ball Park at Pershing Park. Yet again, they insisted on using the word stadium rather than ball park. And yet again, I can't link what I can't show.

Council Member Barnwell wrote a nice letter on what it means to have a great place like a ball park to bring the family. The BarnStormer also addressed a lot of the "what's going to happen to the neighborhood" issues. He addressed the issue you saw here first -- that it isn't a stadium! Has Mr. Barnwell read BlogaBarbara? He also pointed out that the seating isn't the 1,200 the News-Repress keeps on talking about but the 600-800 Barnwell and Mayor Marty "the Slugger" Blum have been talking about all along.

His letter addresses some of the concerns expressed by some writers about parking -- less seats mean less parking needs. One writer said people have to walk a mile to Los Banos Pool. This dosn't make sense as there is Harbor Parking near the pool and Pershing Park free parking (that will still be available if we even have one game a week there) is a short walk away. The same letter asked the city to take care of the Castillo Street underpass -- where tiles are broken and water is rampant. The city would love to and has lobbied for this work to be done for years but does not own the land. This is a problem for CalTrans and Assembly Pedro Member Nava to look into.

In any event -- Travis FactsWrong showed his colors once again by providing a leading question and getting the seating wrong. In simply asking people to come up with questions within a context that is incorrect, he has shaped the debate to his own agenda yet again.