Arguments in favor of baseball stadium flawed

Editor,

In Raymond Rivera’s April 9 column, “Downtown stadium is needed,” there is a pretty picture of a new and exciting Albuquerque with lots of the wonderful features of other big cities. However, Rivera’s arguments are flawed in many ways.

Perhaps the greatest flaw of Rivera’s column is that he assumes that everybody enjoys baseball. Following this assumption, he surmises that a new field would be great for everyone. Rivera has made a hasty generalization by perhaps noting the enthusiasm that he, his friends and maybe a politician feel for the game of baseball. I know many people who do not care for baseball and will never be affected by the existence or lack of a stadium.

Rivera claims that the mere presence of a downtown baseball stadium will increase interest in the game, revitalize Downtown and make Albuquerque interesting. This is fallacious because Albuquerque’s problems go far deeper than having a Downtown stadium or not. Albuquerque is boring for many other reasons, such as its poor geographic planning, which initially failed to centralize many vital aspects of the city in the Downtown region. Furthermore, New Mexico has a low income average and a high cost of living.

Perhaps the real reason that it’s so boring here is that people are more concerned with paying bills and getting enough food than taking off Rivera’s fantasy day spending tons of money at a bar, restaurant and stadium while losing wages.

Furthermore, I feel that if the money to build a stadium existed (which it doesn’t), it would be spent more wisely clothing and feeding the homeless, building schools, paying teachers more money and cleaning up Albuquerque’s increasing pollution problem

I appreciate Rivera’s dream and his interests, but they are not for everyone. In the future, he should not use fallacious logic to persuade the multitude that he is right.

-Adam Collingsworth

Undergraduate student