"Down the Drain (sublimated metal with float backing), copyright BOBBY BAKER PHOTOGRAPHY

The plan to put up a stadium for the Red Sox farm team now known as the Pawtucket Red Sox on redevelopment land in the middle of Providence makes n0 economic sense, except perhaps  for a few insiders.

For a few mostly minimum-wage jobs  from April to October, land that could be used for enterprises that could employ hundreds of well paid people in such fields as bio-tech and even light assembly would be taken out of use. This project is a plaything and ego trip for a  few rich politically connected operators who want to wrap themselves tighter in the macho world of baseball and send much of the bill to taxpayers with much less money than them.

Readers can research just how macro-economically over-rated are stadium projects for rich professional sports teams, even for the Major League teams, let alone Minor League teams such as the soon-to-be-late-lamented PawSox.

Another thing to remember is the remarkable ability 0f businesses to abandon their followers without warning. The entity that would like to call itself the "Rhode Island Red Sox'' could decide to close up shop and move to greener pastures, or just close up shop, period. That would then leave an empty stadium taking up space that could have been taken up by offices, labs or even a small factory where at least some people could continue to work. What would we do with an empty stadium in such a place?

After the strategic use of tax credits, the local (or Floridians six months a year plus a day) could have this stadium built at no cost to themselves, and then rake in some moolah until they bail out.

-- Robert Whitcomb