June 18, 2007

Pandas over ballpark? The horror
Shades of Irvine in Omaha

FRANK MICKADEIT
Register columnist

OMAHA – I nearly got myself banned from the main UCI hangout here, and in doing so tapped into this ugly little subplot going on in town involving NCAA baseball, the City of Omaha, its stupid zoo and some of the residents who profit from the College World Series coming here for 11 days every June.

UCI boosters have taken over an old wood-frame house directly across 13th Street from Rosenblatt Stadium. This follows a tradition started by Cal State Fullerton boosters, who instituted the "Titan House" during one of its CWS trips years ago. On Friday after I watched Rice beat Louisville in the opening game, I moseyed across the street to the UCI house. Outside they've hung a huge banner that reads, "Eater Nation." Cool. My peeps. How much will they dig it that I've driven all the way here to cover them? Maybe not so much.

In the yard, UCI parents, alums and a few players were eating BBQ and drinking beer. I went up to a guy who looked like he was guarding this roped off area, identified myself and asked if I could enter.

"Who are you?" he asked in a beery way, even though I'd just told him.

"I'm with the paper," I said again "The paper from Orange County. We're the hometown paper."

He wasn't getting it. He waved me off like he was a bouncer at a chic nightclub and I was, well, someone like me.

"You really aren't letting me in?" I said incredulously. "You know what? This is actually going to be a better column if you don't." (And you know I wasn't lying.)

Finally he asked to see some I.D. I guess he couldn't see the NCAA press pass with my name, photo and affiliation hanging around my neck, a multi-colored card the size of a small restaurant menu. I showed him a business card. Not good enough. I showed him my driver's license and Register I.D. Finally, he said I could enter.

"I really wasn't trying to be a dick," he said, pumping my hand.

"OK," I said, "because I really thought you were."

"No, no! Come on in!" he said, and he lowered the rope and slapped me on the back. "Have a beer!"

My new best friend, Mark Moore, owns the house. He's lived in Omaha forever. He thought I was a city inspector posing as a reporter.

Huh?

Politicians are politicians wherever you go, and they can't leave even this idyllic chunk of Americana – Rosenblatt Stadium, its environs and the College World Series – well enough alone. Moore says he's been hassled by the city because the mayor wants to "clean up" the area around the stadium.

Seems a few people were having too much fun in previous years, as 13th Street took on a little Bourbon Street ambiance after dark, and the good mayor was worried this might sully his reputation with the NCAA. After years of renting out his house, Moore was denied a permit this year. City inspectors are sniffing around his place all the time now, he says, strictly enforcing the no-rent rule.

So just to mess with the city, he's not renting his place to the Eater Nation – he's letting the Eaters stay for free. "These are my 'friends,' " he says, sweeping his hand to identify a few dozen UCI boosters he'd never laid eyes on before last week.

Lest you think this is just Moore's sentiment, note that Mayor Mike Fahey was booed – booed! – at CWS opening ceremonies on Thursday because of his proposal to, yes, move the CWS stadium from its historic perch on a hill overlooking Omaha to an area Fahey wants to revitalize downtown.

Tied to all this is a scheme to truck in some pandas for the adjacent city zoo and then expand the zoo into the area currently occupied by the ballpark. Yeah, the mayor wants to desecrate an American shrine in order to rent some overpriced ursine talent from the communist Chinese. There's serious discussion going on around town about whether one can grow bamboo in Nebraska! All this reminds me of officials in a certain city who think they need a giant balloon. Giant pandas; giant balloons. If it's giant, they will come.

See, Omaha residents are quite proud of their zoo, and ever since they had a female hammerhead shark that had never been in the same enclosure with a male shark give birth, well, they've been deluded with the notion they'll oust Bethlehem as the No. 1 destination for pilgrims of the Virgin Birth. You can't get them to shut up about the zoo.
I've taken to adopting the condescending line of my traveling buddy and San Diego State classmate, Kirk Kenney. Yes, I'm sure you have a fine little animal enclosure. We have something like that where I'm from. Where? Oh, well, you may have heard of it … San Diego? Kind of shuts 'em right the hell up.

So can you believe I left behind all the political and municipal B.S. I cover in Orange County to come here for a celebration of America's Pastime, only to get sucked into the same kind of garbage? I guess I'm now obligated to put in a call to the mayor's office to get his side of his "vision." I think I'm about to meet the Midwest's Larry Agran.