Tax dollars shouldn’t go toward MLB parks

The gurgling sounds you hear are the millionaire owners of Major League Baseball teams at the public trough gorging for all they’re worth. The wholly unjustified building of sports arenas with public money continues unabated.

Forbes Magazine last week came out with the values of MLB teams. The Yankees are the first billion-dollar club, and that does not include the YES TV network they own. George Steinbrenner bought the team for $8 million and spent less than a million in cash. Nice return.

This week the New York City Council approved $200 million in cash to be spent on a new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees point to the $800 million they will spend on the new yard. What they don’t bother to talk about is that the Yankee contribution will come from NYC bonds, 93 percent or $864 million of that not taxable.

The city has limited bonding authority. That means all that money in bonds used for the billionaire owner of the Yankees cannot be used for roads, schools, wages and the myriad of other needs the city has. What a joke.

But there’s more. NYC at the same time approved spending $165 million in cash on a new park for the Mets in Queens. Add to that another $600 million in bond usage, $530 million of it not taxable, and all of which the city will not have available for far more important needs.

In Minnesota, the state house of representatives approved plans for an open air yard to replace the Hubert H. Humphrey Dome. Nearly all of the money will come from taxpayers. The state senate must go along and has some reservations. Let’s hope they say no.

In Washington, after a bitter battle, the city early this year approved plans for a new park for the Nationals, using taxpayer dollars and bonding authority, in a city dirt-poor and desperately needing tax dollars for basic public services.

The last four home games for the Nationals have drawn smaller crowds than any that showed up last year, the team’s first year in Washington after the move from Montreal.

The shine is already off the Washington baseball apple and the money for the new park will be thrown down a sewer.

Meanwhile, MLB still owns the Nationals. The owners of the other MLB teams paid $120 million for the Nationals four years ago. They will soon sell the team for $450 million or more, a price only good because of the tax-built new park. Nice return while soaking the District taxpayers.

The Florida Marlins are on a fishing expedition to see who they can fleece. They can draw no one in their park outside Miami because they are a really bad team. They are threatening to move if they don’t get a new park. So far Florida has said, “See ya.”

The Marlins are threatening to move to San Antonio, a move MLB will never approve because the market is too small.

Just as the White Sox used St. Petersburg, Fla., as part of their maneuvering with Illinois to get a new park, the Marlins are seeing if they can use San Antonio in the same way to soak the sunshine state for stadium money.

This column has repeatedly cited independent studies over the years that show taxpayer money used to build playing fields for pro sports is at best a break even proposition. More often than not, grand sums are lost from the public till.

Hello. Is anybody there?

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.