In a shameless bid for next year’s Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, we hereby present a possible solution to the civic angst about “Lake DeWitt,” the giant hole adjacent to Busch Stadium:

A Potemkin Ballpark Village.

This is brilliant, if we do say so ourselves. Instead of wringing our hands — as the mayor, the aldermen and local news media are doing — about the fact that the eyes of the world (or at least the eyes of the people of that part of the world that pays attention to baseball on one particular day) will be on St. Louis for the Major League All-Star Game just 372 days from now . . . Instead of worrying that those eyes and the brains in the heads behind them will focus on a construction site instead of a spiffy $387 million mixed-used development . . . We have a plan.

Forget about studying fencing options, which is what St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III says the ballclub’s owners are doing. Instead, we suggest that the ball club emulate what Russian minister Grigori Potemkin is alleged to have done to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787; he had the serfs build the façades of an entire village along the Dnieper River.

The phrase “Potemkin Village” thus entered the lexicon. It’s the same thing Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little did to the town of Rock Ridge in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” to fool the thugs of the evil Hedley Lamarr — as you doubtless remember.

Frankly, having been to a few All-Star games ourselves, we’re not as worried about the “eyes of the world” thing as some people are. The game will be broadcast on Fox by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, two men with local connections who surely wouldn’t want to embarrass St. Louis. Besides, if Bill DeWitt III and his dad, Cardinals managing partner Bill DeWitt Jr., don’t want the Ballpark Village fiasco mentioned during the broadcast, they can fix that. This is the Fox Network, after all, not “60 Minutes.”

Oh, sure, there will be some fans at the game from out of town, but most of the seats will be offered to season ticket holders already familiar with the pit and the Ballpark Village haggling among city officials and the Cordish Co., the Cardinals’ development partner. They know the hole is where the old Busch Stadium stood. They know how things work in this town.

As for the baseball writers who will be covering the game, our experience suggests that they will be far less interested in urban development issues than in getting a reservation at Tony’s and learning what time the clubs in Sauget close.

Still, if it would assuage our municipal All-Star angst, a Potemkin Ballpark Village could be thrown up in a trice. We’ve got plenty of serfs. All we need is a few thousand sheets of plywood, some drywall screws and paint and we’re in business. Who’s going to know?