Concrete plant is a new ballgame

Let’s see where this goes.

It was very early in my Chronicle career when I learned Citrus County desperately wanted a Major League Baseball spring training site.

The county had a group of business leaders who shopped Citrus County to prospective teams looking to relocate.

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Every year, this group would host a minor league game in the dead of summer at Whispering Pines Park to keep it on the public radar.

Then someone answered the bell.

On Election Day 1990, the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) announced intentions to open a spring training site near Hernando in 1993. The team was moving from Arizona to Florida and chose a fresh location in Citrus County.

Well. Talk about your big deal. My goodness. The county, especially us east siders, was thrilled. I immediately started my list of excuses to get me out of the office for three hours on March afternoons.

The business crowd loved the plan. Along with spring training, there’d be hotels, restaurants, housing — the whole works. Citrus Hills and Citrus Springs developers led the way, donating land and making connections.

As is often the case, the big announcement fizzled into details. The team wanted our firstborn. Not quite, but close. I mean…it was ridiculous the concessions that the Indians demanded Citrus County make. They wanted us to build the facility, widen the road, provide utilities, and guarantee 5,000 ticket sales in a 7,000-seat ballpark.

The County Commission was wary. For one thing, as Ken Marotte’s excellent Chronicle column reminded me, the plan didn’t have universal county support. Homosassa and Crystal River could see no tourism benefit from a ballpark on the other side of the county.

(Sound familiar? Today, east Citrus communities have the same argument when it comes to marketing Citrus County as a manatee destination.)

But what really bugged commissioners was the overall feeling that these big-shot business tycoons were taking us for chumps. Yeah, we wanted spring training, but at what cost?

The negotiations were fruitless. Finally, in June 1991, the Indians announced they were moving from Arizona to Homestead. Never even contacted Citrus County to say thanks, but no thanks. A total brush off.

As lousy as that was for us, it became worse for Homestead. When Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, the Indians decided the community had been damaged too badly to support spring training. Even before the first pitch, the team skipped town AGAIN for Winter Haven. The Guardians would eventually leave there and head back to Arizona.

A lot of Citrus County business leaders were unhappy with commissioners, but it seems the team wasn't interested in being a community partner.

We face these same issues today. Large corporations dangle promises of a better life, more tax revenue, and a chance to join the big time in front of commissioners who so desperately want relevance for Citrus County. Citizens, meanwhile, have a very different outlook. They’re tired of the very intrusion that the County Commission invites.

So…my point.

Our photo today is of the concrete plant being built on U.S. 41 near Hernando. I nearly ran off the road when I saw this monstrosity the other day. Nothing the County Commission could do about it…the land is zoned industrial, and turns out, that’s fine for a concrete plant. 

Neighbors in nearby Canterbury Lakes are worried about noise, dust, groundwater contamination — you know, everything citizens want to avoid for a decent life.

I feel their pain. But when I saw that plant the other day, I immediately thought of one thing: the Cleveland Indians.

This location is right around where the spring training facility would have been built. That entire section of U.S. 41 between Hernando and Holder would look totally different today. 

Instead, a developer made outrageous demands and our politicians held firm. Thirty-five years later, we can reflect whether that was a good call or not.

The question: Are they holding firm today? That’s a decent topic for the campaign season. Are commissioners getting the best arrangement from developers to protect the public’s interest? Or are they rolling over?

After the Cleveland fiasco, the county stopped marketing itself for professional baseball. One strikeout was enough.

That’s my pitch for today. Have a wonderful Wednesday, friends.

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