One of sufficient size to allow the mayor to throw all the fans under it.

Richmond mayor Doug Wilder said this morning on a radio show that the city did not support spending millions of taxpayer dollars for a new ballpark, which does not necessarily jibe with earlier plans. Wilder also talks about being embarrassed by sagging at attendance R-Braves games, notably a playoff game last season: “I looked around and you could have counted the teams, you could have counted the groundskeepers, you could have counted the service people - we didn’t have a thousand people barely. I sat next to [Atlanta Braves Executive Vice President] Mike Plant and I was embarrassed,” he said this morning on Lite 98.1 FM.

Yikes.  As the owner of a minor league club, I’m not so sure I’d be banging down the doors to get into Dixie’s capital.  While the mayor was front and centre, blaming his own constituents for the loss of the team (blogger: That oughta help around election time.), the Times Dispatch was placing the blame on everyone - the City of Richmond, the Braves and the citizens of Richmond itself.

So forgive me if I’m not turning cartwheels that AA and A minor-league baseball teams are lining up to replace our AAA Richmond Braves in 2009.

Big Whoop. We’ll still be a minor-league town — barely. We’re a region with well over 1 million people. When are we going to start behaving like it?

Talk about your tragedy of errors.

The columnist, Michael Paul Williams, sounds a warning which could just as easily apply to us:

“And that’s our problem: we’re not passionate about our sports here in Richmond.  Frankly, we don’t seem to be passionate about anything.  Well we better get passionate about something, and quick.  

Or we won’t even be a minor league city.”