There’s an old joke about a man who wanted to become a monk, later learning from the head monk he must take a vow of silence. Only two words every three years.

After the first three years, he told the head monk, "food cold!" Three more years went by and the man said, “robe dirty!" After three more years, the man said, “I quit!”

"Well," the head monk replied, "I’m not surprised. You have done nothing but complain ever since you got here.”

This is how I’ve always perceived the leadership (and some residents) of Norwich since the origination of Dodd Stadium 30 years ago. They’ve done nothing but complain. Noise, traffic, taxes. Taxes, traffic, noise. It’s to the point now of sounding like the “wah-wah” sounds of Charlie Brown’s teacher.

So imagine my delight last week upon reading Claire Bessette’s story in The Day about how Norwich “will seek proposals to market Dodd Stadium and its city-owned Norwich business park property for possible sale or redevelopment.”

I nearly summoned Alexa to cue Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

Just one request to the poohbahs of The Wailing City: Please get out as soon as possible. The idea of private ownership willing to do more than the minimum daily requirement and turn the 30-year-old Grande Dame into a multi-use facility for the benefit of everyone in eastern Connecticut is making me giddy.

City Manager John Salomone said during last week’s budget presentation that he already has asked the commercial real estate firm marketing the new Occum Industrial Center property, Cushman & Wakefield, to market the 40-acre stadium property – which includes about 12 acres of wetlands. Salomone said the city also has been approached by a broker who represents investors interested in purchasing and upgrading stadiums for continued use as sports venues.

“We’re in a position now with Dodd Stadium that it’s over 30 years old, and it needs major capital restoration, like any building that was 30 years old,” Salamone said.

To which I say: Nooooooo. Really? Dodd Stadium has been in need of capital restoration for some time now. Many of us have pined for modern, creative, strategic thinking about more uses and revenue streams. (We wanted to form “The Dodd Squad.”)

Ten months ago, I wrote this: “Now is the time for forward thinking, an urgency to dispatch all the previous aspersions about the ballpark’s location and to finally stop pigeonholeing its use as a mere baseball stadium. Now is the time for Norwich’s leadership to consider the old vessel as a multi-purpose facility in need of a facelift, understanding that improving it is not a money issue. It’s a prioritization issue.”

The result? Crickets.

Salomone even had the temerity to say the stadium now is “underutilized” with just a summer collegiate team (the Sea Unicorns). He said the lease payments of $22,500 per year and shared repair and maintenance costs are not enough to cover the city’s expenses.

New ownership would rid Dodd Stadium of the current inertia: the same people making the same decisions. Or not making them. It is time for new ideas. People with backgrounds in business and marketing, brainstorming new methods of potential use, revenue streams and revenue sharing.

To wit: Why does the comparably sized minor league ballpark in Hartford bear a corporate name (Dunkin’ Park), thus earning the requisite revenue of naming rights? Why is there an XL Center in Hartford and Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, but the same old Dodd Stadium here?

I just typed “Dodd Stadium” into the Day archives. Since 2000, “Dodd Stadium” has been mentioned in The Day 1,655 times. There is no local or regional business that wouldn’t want its name on the stadium and thus mentioned 1,655 times? And that’s just in The Day. This doesn’t count other traditional, social and antisocial media platforms.

“This organization, and I think to a certain degree the Double-A organizations before us, have always been very community based,” Sea Unicorns general manager Lee Walter said during an interview in 2023 about the venue’s midlife crisis.

“Wanting to be part of the community and being part of the community isn't just us getting out there and going to events. It's bringing events here. And so whether we have them in the parking lot, concourse or the field, let’s get some bigger events here.

“Why can't we have a carnival here? Why can't we have more graduations here? Why can't we have concerts here? I want to bring more community based events here and really make sure that the community knows how badly we want them.”

Attracting such events would require the commencement of many capital improvements. And it’s not happening with current leadership, whose lack of ideas thrust the financial burden on the taxpayers.

The new owner(s) should consider installing synthetic turf, instantly making Dodd a more multi-purpose facility. The stadium could become the place where schools from the Eastern Connecticut Conference played their league tournaments in several sports, Friday night football, a rental facility for AAU tournaments in soccer and lacrosse and a number of other events.

“Turfing the field would allow for more community types of events,” Walter said. “You can have a carnival on a turf field without the worry of destroying it. You can have more concerts and graduations. If a grass field gets ruined by a carnival or other type of event like that, you're paying a lot of money to fix that. A turf field would be for sports other than baseball, too. I know soccer has been played here in the past. We could bring in lacrosse.”

Keep in mind: Walter said that 10 months ago. Did anyone listen? Has anyone listened for the last decade? Has anyone executed an original thought? Draw your own conclusions.

The fervent hope here is that the new owner(s) understand how underutilized the venue has been for 30 years. There is potential here. And now with Norwich’s presumptive exit, there is hope.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro