Stadium For Rent: 22. The Artful Dodger

STADIUM FOR RENT:
Tampa Bay's Quest for Major League Baseball
By BOB ANDELMAN

22. The Artful Dodger

"It was very easy for local sports enthusiasts
to be critical of Rick Dodge because he was very cautious
of what information he gave to individuals or groups.
He knew what damage could be done if it leaked.
Some business people came in to me and said,
'Rick Dodge isn't the person to get this done.'
My impression was that their impression was wrong.
He displayed the right tact to engineer
and negotiate this whole process."
-- Jack Critchfield, Chairman of the Board, Florida Progress

Rick Dodge, even when he was winning praise from city officials, often rubbed them the wrong way. Many of them didn't like the way he worked behind closed doors, out of sight and influence.

"Too much latitude, too much free rein, didn't produce," one former member of the St. Petersburg City Council says.

Mostly, they didn't appreciate being left out of the loop on the latest top secret development. But if the assistant city manager's work had not been shrouded, St. Petersburg would not have gotten anywhere.

"In this business, reputation is everything," Dodge says. "I talked to a guy at one team who started off by saying, 'You have a good reputation for keeping your mouth shut and based on that, I am willing to explore this opportunity with you.' It didn't always make me popular in St. Petersburg."

Jack Critchfield wouldn't have wanted anyone but Dodge by his side. "He took some slapshots from the media and others who thought that because he was an assistant city manager he was not a high enough ranking official. That was baloney," he says. "He was one of the best negotiators. One of the coolest thinkers. He complemented me as well as anyone with whom I have ever worked. He was a pleasure."

Former Seattle Mariners owner Jeff Smulyan remembers being in New York when baseball approved the sale of the team to Nintendo and having to face a crestfallen Tampa Bay media.

"A couple of the TV sportscasters said to me, 'Rick Dodge blew it again,' " Smulyan says. "I said, 'You guys don't understand. This guy is the best asset you've got. This guy elevated his stadium through the fervor he demonstrated. He elevated the market. The people in baseball dealt with him.' One of the grossest injustices was he didn't have a baseball team yet. I couldn't speak strongly enough about Rick Dodge. Rick is a first-class person."

"There are probably those who will take shots at Rick because he was the point man," Peter Bavasi says. "For Rick to get the project where it ended up -- within a hair's breadth of attracting the White Sox -- he needed to operate the way he did. He needed to build the relationships and contacts with Major League Baseball. You're not going to do that unless they can be assured that they tell Rick is not going beyond that room. He was held in high regard by the owners in baseball. When Dodge called up, they'd take his call. When they needed advice, they'd call him. I know that for a fact. When I went back to the Cleveland Indians, I was a member of the executive council of Major League Baseball, and I know what high regard Rick was held in. In that way, Rick was able to develop strategies that work. If people knew what Rick was doing, he wouldn't have been as effective.

"The fact is, Rick is an unusual public servant. I've never come upon anyone like Rick Dodge. His mind is fast, he's an excellent strategist, well thought of, and he's a good friend," Bavasi says. "He didn't get ruffled. He looked at what was best for St. Petersburg and not what was best for Rick Dodge. He was very unselfish. There was nothing in it for him."

Nothing but gnawing self-doubt and deep, dark moments of anger and frustration during his decade spent chasing the dreams of a boy. Every time he bumped up against baseball and lost, he was propelled deeper into his own psyche, forced to consult inner demons in pinstripes and caps. Not long after he lost all hope of winning a relocation of the Seattle Mariners in 1992, he talked about how the ongoing circus affected him personally.

"Nobody will ever understand," Dodge says. "When you are a steward of people's dreams it is a heavy responsibility. When we lost {expansion}, I asked myself, 'What else could I have done? Did I miss a sign?' That was a haunting issue. I felt terrible.

"I felt like I owed everybody. My home is in this community. I wasn't Steve Porter. I couldn't get on a plane and fly out of here.

"I think back upon how we positioned ourselves and marketed ourselves. How we worked the system and how we communicated with baseball and how we got over the issues of a divided community. How we got over uniting the community on a season-ticket drive and demonstrating that kind of support and how we went out to eight counties and built a political unity, how we got the state money to finish the facility. How we kept people focused on the positive aspects of this, despite severe criticism of what was going on. We did a good job. I don't think there is much of that I would change.

"I lost patience with myself a lot of times. It's the nature of my personality. Who else can I talk to? Is there a different angle? If I call so-and-so, what would happen? I never wanted to get to the end of any of these decisions and say to myself, 'Was there something else I could do?' I worked hard. But couldn't I make one more call, one more trip? I wanted to be able to know that wasn't the reason. I got frustrated on things I couldn't control, like Fay Vincent's attitude. Or Carl Barger's. What could I do about it?

"I had people that really cared for me come to me a number of times in this process, worried about my physical health, concerned that I would kill myself. There were times when they have probably been pretty close to right. I have been real close. As close to the edge as you can get. I can remember so many times when I was so tired I could cry.

"One time, {Chicago White Sox co-owner Jerry} Reinsdorf was in St. Petersburg and we had been operating on about three hours' sleep, trying to get a deal done. I was sitting in a motel room and there was a guy at a computer running numbers. My heart started pounding in my chest and I thought, 'Oh, no . . .' I was just so worn out.

"A girl I dated told me -- after we stopped dating -- that she was always worried about getting a phone call that I was dead.

"She said that it was a terrible feeling to see the person that you care about destroying himself. From her vantage point, it was not worth it.

"I didn't consider myself irreplaceable or indispensable in this process. But I also know that the project happened because zealots committed themselves to do things that were personally foolish. I never felt like I lost. I felt like the community lost. They didn't deserve to lose so I'd always say, 'Let's figure out another way.'

"By the summer of '91, I had almost 10 years of my life involved. Did I want to look back 20 years from now not having this goal accomplished? Twenty years from now I will look back on this 10 years -- what did I want to see differently? I wanted to see a balanced life that was connected with other things and friends and people who cared about me. This is very personal, but a girl who I see -- after we had the bad news about expansion, I went to her with my feelings. That wasn't something that I would have chosen to do before. I would have talked to the fish. I wanted to share with somebody that cared about me, how I felt.

"Literally, from Jack Lake, Jim Healey and John Ware to Cecil Englebert, Bill Bunker and me -- we had a lot of people till this field. Jack Critchfield was a new laborer in the field. When this crop comes up, it will appear to have come out of nothing and that's fine. But when I think of Jim, I want his labors to count."

END CHAPTER 22

Acknowledgements