Suburban Baseball: Build It and They'll Commute

John Branston, writing on the Memphis Flyer's "City Beat" blog yesterday, marked the beginning of a new baseball season by pointing out a sour truth for diehard fans: "basketball and football have better claims than baseball on being the national pastime."

Nothing is more representative of baseball's slide than President Barack Obama's first pitch at the Washington Nationals' home opener, which would have sailed over a left-handed batter's head. That same evening, during the NCAA basketball tournament final, CBS showed Obama looking much more at ease shooting hoop at the White House with basketball broadcaster Clark Kellog.

But there's a caveat for suburban baseballs fans and city planners alike. Basketball and football are king, Branston writes, "unless you are white and live in the suburbs or small towns." In Memphis city high schools, the best athletes play football and basketball, he says; when those schools' baseball teams leave their home turf, "the slaughter rule is usually invoked after three innings."

Branston praises the expense and effort ploughed into AutoZone Park (above, photo by meadowsa), the home stadium of the Memphis Red Birds in downtown Memphis, by its owners, Dean and Kristi Jernigan. After ten years, however, the novelty of the place has worn off and ticket sales are off. Meanwhile, lighted baseball fields have been built in Memphis outliers like Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, and Cordova. "Somebody is playing," says Branston, concluding, "The people who said a suburban stadium would have drawn better might be right. It certainly would have been closer to the market."