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Home About Us B2B Club Breaking News Contact Donate Events / Programs Feedback Ideas Incubator Industry Clusters Links / Resources Progess Funds Progress Teams Public Art / Murals Publications		Breaking News June 29, 2004 - Mayor steps up to plate with idea Daily Tribune Editorial Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Jerry Bach may have stirred a hornet's nest by getting involved in the state's annual college baseball tournament. The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference holds the tournament each year in the community of the team that won the regular-season title. Bach wants that tradition to stop. In fact, he has proposed in a letter to the WIAC that the organization consider moving the tournament to Wisconsin Rapids' Witter Field permanently. Huh? Why would a college baseball tournament be held in a city where there is no college baseball team, and what is Bach's interest in the matter? Good questions. Easy answers. 1. Wisconsin Rapids is smack dab in the middle of the state. It's about the fairest place in the state for any group of University of Wisconsin teams to meet. (UW-Stevens Point would catch a lucky break, though). 2. Rapids also is a neutral site, so no team would have a hometown advantage. 3. The city needs more tourism to help build its economy, and recent youth soccer and baseball tournaments show that sports events are a great way to bring in gobs of people to showcase the community. 4. Bach wrote the WIAC after watching his nephew play baseball at a UW-Whitewater stadium less desirable than Witter Field. "No bleachers, a porta-potty, no concessions," he told a reporter for the Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper. "And it was windier than hell." Tradition could kill Bach's idea, contained in a five-page plan he forwarded to every WIAC athletic director and baseball coach. In his proposal, he lists Witter Field's amenities including its new press box, a quality sound system, adequate parking, concessions, nearby practice fields and seating for 2,000 spectators. He proposed giving the regular-season champion a first-round bye and giving 100 percent of the gate receipts to the WIAC. The College World Series is held every year at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb., an arrangement that works well and has entered its sixth decade. The Northwestern followed a news story about Bach's proposal with an editorial commentary suggesting that Oshkosh follow his lead. "There's another significant element to Bach's proposal that has much less to do with baseball. It's that he looked at his city's resource from the standpoint of wondering what kind of value different groups of people might put on it," the Northwestern wrote for Thursday's edition. "What's also significant is that he is an elected official. Nobody told him to propose the idea. He wasn't required. But he did, and in so doing showed his city and the state he is an inspired leader." What the Northwestern editors might not have known is that the entire Wisconsin Rapids area is trying to sprout this kind of inspired leadership through the Community Progress Initiative. With the progress initiative in mind, one could argue that Bach did exactly what he's expected to do - go beyond his job description to find new ways to build the community and give us more to cheer about. In fact, he did what more of us are expecting of ourselves these days. These words from the Northwestern apply not only to Oshkosh leaders - the intended target of the editorial - but to people in our area, as well: "Someone or some group must be willing to recruit other interests, like Bach did. It means someone must be willing to fail if a proposal doesn't work. "A Wisconsin politician once said the job of an elected official is to help people with ideas cut through the red tape of city government. Sometimes, those same people need to provide the idea, too." Maybe Wisconsin Rapids won't land the annual college baseball tournament - although, in our view, it should - but Bach already has made an important point. Griping gets you nowhere, unless it's backed up by thoughtful solutions. So, what are your ideas for Wisconsin Rapids?
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