December 21, 2004
D.C. Baseball Winners And Losers
Winners
1) Major League Baseball -- I'm sure when it comes to the other 29 owners in MLB, it seems like decades since they engineered the Jeff Loria/John Henry/Expos/Marlins/Red Sox swap. Now that they've got a a city and a stadium, they can start thinking about unloading the team at a nice multiple from the $120 million purchase price.
2) Mr. "X" -- The moniker for whoever manages to purchase the team from MLB. Free stadium + Baseball starved populace = Money Machine. Look for the original owners of the new-style Nats to unload the team not long after they move into their new stadium in 2008.
3) City Council Chairman Linda Cropp -- Though she might think otherwise, die-hard Washington baseball fans will never really forgive her for her role in the stadium deal. But in her calculus, those folks never really mattered much anyway. And unlike former Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, she stood up to a "billionaire bully," and won -- something she'll say the current Mayor was unwilling to do. Has to be considered the number one challenger for Mayor in the next city-wide election
4) Ward 4 City Councilman Adrian Fenty -- Shoved out of the way by Cropp's deft political manuvering, he may have to wait out an election cycle or two before he gets an honest shot at City Hall. But a comparitive youngster, Fenty can afford to wait, and if anything goes wrong with the execution of the stadium plan that redounds negatively on the city budget, he'll claim he was right all along.
Losers
1) Mayor Anthony Williams -- A well-meaning, intelligent and even erudite man who simply lacked the retail political skills to get the stadium deal that he wanted. Instead of bringing Cropp into the deal early, and perhaps sharing some of the credit on the front end, he wound up getting punk'd at the 11th hour. Oops!
Now he just looks weak, and in the eyes of the folks who go to the polls on Election Day, he was ready to give away the store to MLB. Perhaps mortally wounded politically, and it's a shame too, as he's compiled a solid record when it comes to getting the District government to work in the post-control board world.
2) Ward 2 City Councilman Jack Evans -- One month ago, he was a local version of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, deftly guiding the stadium financing bill through his finance committee. And at every public event concerning baseball, was always at the right hand of Mayor Williams. Well, that sure as heck wasn't Evans sitting beside the Mayor last night at the District building, was it? Won't suffer any lingering pain at the polls, but he's not shining nearly as brightly today as he probably thought not very long ago.
Incomplete
1) Baltimore Orioles Owner Peter Angelos -- He's been very quiet lately, hasn't he? We still don't have any details on his reported compensation package, or exactly who is going to be paying for it. As for that regional cable sports network, we're waiting on that too.
2) Washington, D.C. Taxpayers -- The only question here is the limits of the damage. Will the pain remain the sole province of the small business owners for whom the gross receipts tax is more than a petty nusiance? Or will cost overruns drive the price of the stadium so high, that the current funding mechanism won't be able to cover the debt service on the bonds, forcing the city to dip into general revenue to fund the difference? Stay tuned . . .
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Boswell's column this morning quotes an unnamed baseball executive (well, I suppose he HAS a name, but ...) who wonders when we'll get the "next Machiavellian twist."
Machiavellian? Wouldn't that seem to imply an overbearing leader who doesn't deal with the piffle of other people's opinions?
No, Mr. Unnamed, this is democracy. It's messy, but it usually works. Get used to it.
Posted by:
at December 22, 2004 08:55 AM
Does that make him a winner, a loser or incomplete? I need closure!
Posted by:
at December 22, 2004 09:05 AM
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04:17 PM