LVW: What's been the hottest topic during your years on sports radio?
DAVE COKIN: Without question, it's the idea of major-league sports coming to Las Vegas, and it's gonna get hotter. Because it is an inevitability. It's just a matter of when. They've got the land, those acres behind the Plaza. Absolutely I'd put it there, without question. I think [Las Vegas 51s President and General Manager] Don Logan's idea is the idea that makes the most sense: Build a AAA facility now that can be expanded into a major-league park when the city gets a team. Cashman Field's gotta go. Those people in that organization are doing an unbelievable job managing to get almost 5,000 a game at Cashman. They're working their asses off. That place sucks. It's a lousy place to watch a game. You get the sun coming in at the wrong time. Aluminum benches. It's not that old, but you think it is. It feels as if it's built around the turn of the last century. It's awful. The facility is totally outmoded.
LVW: When Mayor Goodman discusses a stadium, he seems to imply that from the very start it would be a big-league stadium for a big-league team.
COKIN: I love the mayor. I think Oscar's a great mayor. But I don't agree with him on this. You can't build a major-league facility without a team: Tampa-St. Pete built a stadium and look how long it took them to get the team. They spent all that money on that crap-hole down there and how many times was there supposed to be a team going in there? The White Sox were going in there, they were gonna get this team, that team. Finally baseball expanded and they got a team. Well, guess what: They're not expanding again! There's no guarantee we get a team if we build a major-league stadium and then what? We get a half-a-billion-dollar empty stadium; it makes no sense. You have to have a better AAA facility. Build one! It won't cost that much. Everybody's building them. Stockton built a brand new facility for God's sake. Stockton! Stockton's the shithole of the universe! It's for a Class A team, though. And they spent plenty of money on it, too. It's nice. Fresno's got a brand new stadium. Fresno?! It's just embarrassing. You talk about those cities out there and cities all across the country with new facilities, and we've got this? And we're talking about a city where a hotel feels old in five years.
LVW: What do you think of the idea that was in the mix last year—to build a AAA stadium in Henderson?
COKIN: I don't know if there's life left in the Henderson idea. I think it can be resurrected. But the problem is that you're gonna have a Marlins idea [the possibility of a troubled franchise coming to town] come up frequently now. You've gotta be ready with a stadium that can be expanded. I don't care if they do the same thing in Henderson. I personally think that they're two different towns and I understand Henderson doesn't give a shit about Downtown Las Vegas. I would like to see it in Downtown Las Vegas because I think that's what can save and revitalize Downtown Las Vegas. I don't think there's any question that if you build an entertainment complex [it will work]. Does Henderson have the room to build an entire entertainment complex? It can't just be a stadium. It has to be movie theaters, malls, stuff like that. I don't think they have the room in Henderson. They do in that area Downtown. And you don't have to put a whole lot of parking right at the ballpark. You can let people walk in through Fremont Street. And they would. And there'd be high-rises. You know what property would be worth? The hotel owners down there would be creaming their pants: ‘OK, lets knock this down, let's knock this down.' Hell, you can be sure that MGM and Harrah's would both get in and they'd buy up the hotels, they'd make the offer to the hotel owners that they couldn't refuse down there. The vision I've got is for what exists down there now to all be gone. The Fremont Street Experience—you know, nice idea, but I was at Center Stage Restaurant in the Plaza, great view, this is just last month, they had the fights down there and [Review-Journal boxing writer] Kevin Iole and myself went to eat—very good food by the way, they gave me an order of king crab legs that you could not believe, it was enormous, I couldn't finish it, and I'm a big eater—and I'm thinking to myself, corny! It really is. Fremont Street. It was kind of dynamite at first, but now it's corny. Cartoon planets! It's for the schmucko tourist. It's gotta go. It's tacky. Downtown is tacky. It's like a cheap arcade. Before, you could literally walk down the street [under the nighttime sky] reading a book it was so bright. That's gone.