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December 20, 2004
Hope For D.C. Baseball?
Is MLB showing a little give in its dispute with the D.C. City Council? Major League Baseball does not oppose involvement of private financing for Washington, D.C.'s proposed new $440 million stadium for the Nationals but is standing firm on the Dec. 31 deadline to have the ballpark package in place. Then again, he's not offering a change in the deadline. Meanwhile, a Washington Post poll found a slight majority of District residents supported private financing for a new stadium, even if it meant losing the team: "Let them take their team and get out of town," said Carla Gaskins, 36, a homemaker and mother of four who lives in Southwest Washington. "Let's get a new tax to raise money to build a new hospital. We can use new schools. We have so many other needs," she said. Baseball owners, she added, were "gaming D.C. to see how high we can jump." This is the sort of opinion Cropp is counting on. And if the math was any other way, she'd be voting the other way too. Are the folks jumping ugly with Cropp just because she's a woman? Courtland Milloy says yes. Captain Offwing says no, and suggests that late Council Chairmen John Wilson and Dave Clark would have been just has savaged if they followed the same course. Here's Tony Kornheiser: But let me give Cropp this: She has made herself The Key Player in this game. All baseball roads go through Linda Cropp now, and not the mayor. When you see the mayor squirming, it's because she's got his, um, onions, in her hand, and she is squeezing the Charmin right now. It's hard to believe a smart big-city mayor like Tony Williams could have been punked like this. Marion Barry wouldn't have been. Ouch! More later from the Washington Baseball bloggers. UPDATE: Distinguished Senators, now DBA Disgusted Senators, points to the D.C. Baseball Pac, who will apparently be hosting a town hall meeting with Mayor Williams to rally supprt for the stadium. Sounds like an idea that should have been put into play a couple of months ago. Chris Needham has his own beef with the mayor: It’s always hard to argue with numbers, but I wonder how things would be different if the Mayor and stadium proponents had done a better job explaining the stadium vote and how the overwhelming majority of funds used to pay for the stadium are new sources of revenue that will not exist without the stadium. I went over-the-top with this line of thinking last week, but there’s not suddenly a magic bag of money. Voting against the stadium is not going to get DC General funded and the literacy rate isn’t going to instantly drop. Chris has a point here, and it's probably important to note that the real reasons for opposing the stadium are the negative effects of the gross reciepts tax (driving small to medium sized businesses out of the city), as well as the fiscal risk that public financing poses to the District budget in future years (if there's a shortfall in the funding mechanism, the balance has to come out of the general budget). Nationals Pastime actually has some on-field news to comment on. Meanwhile, Ball Wonk is channelling the Blues Brothers. Funny stuff. So what's next? Today, the Mayor, Cropp and unspecified officials with Major League Baseball will meet to try to hammer out a compromise. Normally, I'd say if the leaks point to a compromise by the end of the day, look for the Council to approve some sort of face saving compromise for both parties. But with the way Cropp operates, who can really say? Stay tuned. UPDATE: Here's an interview from WTOP with Richard Morin, head of polling for the Post. EXTRA INNING UPDATE: Here's the link to Sunday's Post piece detailing how things fell apart last Tuesday. In particular, this exchange between Mayor Williams and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf should catch everyone's attention: Last year, when Williams suggested that the city would be willing to build a ballpark by using two-thirds public funding and one-third of the money coming from the team, The Washington Post reported that Reinsdorf responded: "Two-thirds/one-third is fine. But three-thirds/no-thirds is more of what we had in mind." Now that takes a lot of gall. I like Skip Sauer's rejoinder: Let me get this straight. MLB asked D.C. to build a baseball stadium. The modern baseball stadium is a specialized asset, the value of which can only be realized as a facility for major league baseball. And the city didn't even know who the owner will be. I'm sorry, that's just nuts, regardless of your stance on the economic impact issue. Keep your ear to the ground about that meeting today . . .
Eric
06:46 AM
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» Lightning Sportsbloggery from The Agitator Tracked on December 20, 2004 10:43 PM Comments"This is the sort of opinion Cropp is counting on. And if the math was any other way, she'd be voting the other way too." Shocking newsflash: politician represents views of constituents! That should never happen in a democracy. Posted by: at December 20, 2004 09:24 AM Eric -- The Sunday Post cover story is a must-read. It shows that the situation is nowhere near as simplistic as the pundits have been making it. In fact, it's a great example of how the pundit-driven media can make a mess of a story because the reactions are all recorded before all the facts are known. The basic point here: The conventional wisdom that Cropp agreed to the deal then changed course to become the center of attention is not -- repeat, NOT -- accurate. Schwartz was one of several council members to pounce upon a "late fee" in the contract. I'm not going to defend Cropp here, but I find it astounding that Selig and company are emerging as the good guys in this discussion. That's ludicrous. Again, a must-read. Posted by: at December 20, 2004 10:25 AM It was interesting to see that the "Shop" link is missing from the Nationals' website, and that you can go here for season ticket refunds - it looks like they're accepting requests for refunds even though the team isn't totally out the door. I've also been informed that a few positions within the organization that were in the middle of the hiring process have been left unfilled at this time, with no update in sight. Not just baseball-specific positions, either - front office roles. Posted by: at December 20, 2004 11:39 AM Thanks, Eric -- you're doing a nice job with this. Posted by: at December 20, 2004 10:49 PM Post a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |