June 30, 2003
D.C. Baseball Update
Last week thousands of locals cheered as D.C. City Councilman Jack Evans essentially told Major League Baseball to "put up or shut up," when it came to moving the Expos here.
Looks like Washington's only competition for the team, Portland, Oregon, thinks our new attitude gives them a decided advantage:
More than 2,700 miles west of Washington, however, the folks in Portland, Ore., reacted to it with emotions ranged from bemusement to unabashed glee. Looking for an advantage against the larger and richer Washington area, Portland baseball backers think they found it with the District's newly stated demand for a conditional award of the MLB-owned Montreal Expos.
Oregon's contribution toward a $350 million stadium, due for a critical vote by the state senate sometime in July, includes key provisions that would not release the money without a team in hand. But that legislative safety net still does not match the vitriol seen hereabouts.
"Oregon, the backward state with [supposedly] no chance, has better brains and better process than the folks out east at this stage," said Maury Brown, spokesman for the Oregon Stadium Campaign [OSC], on an Internet site devoted to Portland's MLB bid. "Let's remember that only when things went bad in terms of the [financing] numbers did Evans go, 'That's it.' Don't place the blame squarely on MLB's shoulders. If [Washington] and Mayor Williams had their act together on the funding proposal they wouldn't be in this position."
As far as I'm concerned, let Portland have the Expos.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ericmcerlain.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2219
03:01 PM