Miller Park is oozing crap

Oh shit.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that at least one sanitary sewer at Miller Park is misconnected to a storm sewer, allowing untreated human waste to flow directly into the Menomonee River and downstream to Lake Michigan.

From the MJS:

Green dye flowing out of a storm sewer on the Menomonee River confirmed at least one misconnection between a sanitary sewer from Miller Park and storm sewer lines draining from stadium parking lots less than three weeks before 40,000 fans arrive for opening day.

The improper connection allows human fecal bacteria from bathrooms on the northeast corner of the stadium to flow into the river.

One or more of the sanitary sewer pipes coming from that corner of the stadium likely was connected inadvertently to a storm sewer during Miller Park’s construction, said Peter Topczewski, the sewerage district’s water quality protection manager.

No wonder Bud Selig is so full of crap — his drinking water is loaded with it!

But seriously, one’s first reaction to a story like this is, “gross”. But actually there is a long history of polluted rivers and fecal matter in sports.

Everybody’s third favorite baseball movie, Major League, begins with the Randy Newman song, “Burn On, Big River,” a song about the Cuyahoga River, which caught on fire in 1969 and prompted Time Magazine to call it the river that “oozes rather than flows.”

Veteran Stadium was home to the Phillies and Eagles until it was imploded in 2004. The stadium was roundly criticized — everything from the turf to the accoustics sucked — but maybe its biggest flaw was a shortage of bathrooms. On Sundays, lines to the bathroom would get so long that people started pissing in the sinks. I even heard a story about a group of guys who started wearing Depends to the games, so they wouldn’t have to miss any of the action.

Those are just a couple of examples that I can think of off the top of my head. But you see, there’s pleny of precedent for floating crap in sports.