For all sane people, there’s only one proper reaction to the passing into history of another Super Bowl: Just a few more weeks until spring training! Yes, baseball fans, the long wait till next year is almost over. Except in Richmond. Virginia’s capital city will be without professional baseball for the first time in 44 years. We’ve parsed endlessly the reasons why. So let’s look to the future.

Legislation designed to get a new baseball stadium or a renovated stadium in Richmond has cleared its first legislative hurdle. House Bill 1803, proposed by Del. G. Manoli Loupassi, R-Richmond, at the city’s request, would designate 2.5 percent of the sales-tax collections derived from the stadium—and the development it spawns—toward paying the bonds used to finance the construction.

The developers pitching a minor-league ballpark for Shockoe Bottom are giving Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones an extra five months to swing. At Jones’ request, the developers have pushed their deadline to get preliminary city approval from March 1 to Aug. 1, project spokesman Pete Boisseau confirmed yesterday. The delay won’t affect the ballpark’s targeted opening in 2012, but it will mean that local investors who hope to buy a team will have to do so without any guarantee that the Shockoe Center development will be approved, he said.

Proposals regarding sales taxes and a baseball stadium in Shockoe could prove difficult to sell—particularly during a perhaps protracted period of budgetary retrenchment. Although the plan, floated by Del. Manoli Loupassi, would not raise taxes, it would earmark revenue generated by baseball-related development. Citizens might resent such targeting.

Do we value sports entertainment above paying our bills and feeding our children? I like sports like anyone else, but what have we come to in this country when an athlete, who would play a sport for free if he had to, is pulling down this appalling salary for playing a game?Greg Lumpkin. Chesterfield.

In the 1950s, on Richmond’s South Side, there wasn’t much to do for those too young to drive. Richard W. Harris loved baseball, and he loved children, so he and some friends at church brought the two together. With financial help from the Sampson Paint Co., Mr. Harris and other members of Sherman Avenue Methodist Church started and coached several teams, representing the Ampthill, Chester and Beulah neighborhoods of Richmond and Chesterfield County.

Steward School doesn’t have a baseball field, but the western Henrico campus is oozing with talented baseball players. Three players off last year’s 21-2 club recently signed scholarship offers with Division I programs.

NEW YORK—Alex Rodriguez homered to become the only player with 35 homers and 100 RBIs in 12 seasons, and the New York Yankees slowed the Chicago White Sox’s pursuit of the AL Central crown with a 5-1 victory tonight. Rodriguez and Yankee legend Babe Ruth had been tied at 11 seasons with the 35/100 combo. In tonight’s Yankee victory, Johnny Damon hit a two-run homer, Robinson Cano had three hits and Xavier Nady had a tying RBI single in the seventh inning. Nady then scored on a wild pitch as New York rallied against rookie Clayton Richard.