Playing for keeps

She’s either the hero of D.C. taxpayers or the Grinch who wants to steal baseball.

It depends on whom you ask about the deal-breaking move by D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp to force more private funding, and less taxpayer liability, for bringing baseball back to Washington.

Mrs. Cropp should be applauded for “standing up to Major League Baseball’s bullying of the District of Columbia,” national consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote her in a fan letter.

“To the people who hate baseball and don’t want it to happen, I guess [Mrs. Cropp] will be great,” council member Harold Brazil said. “But I think there is some underestimation about the depth of the emotion on the pro-baseball side, and that is not going to be a positive thing.”

Mrs. Cropp is expected to meet tomorrow with Mayor Anthony A. Williams to come up with a financial package by Dec. 31 that includes significant private investment and is acceptable to Major League Baseball.

“Everybody in this building is bending over backward to make that happen,” Williams spokesman Chris Bender said.

Mrs. Cropp, 57, acknowledges the potential political fallout from being the person who sent baseball packing. But the council president insists she is doing the right thing.

“I can stand tall under pressure so long as I know I am doing this for the citizens of the District of Columbia,” Mrs. Cropp told reporters last week.

Mrs. Cropp and Mr. Williams, both Democrats, have not met in person since last Monday, the day before the council president introduced her bombshell amendment. Tomorrow’s meeting was requested by Mrs. Cropp, spokesman Mark Johnson says.

The council president also asked for a meeting with league officials and can call a special council session, most likely this week, if a viable proposal is ready.

Mrs. Cropp drew national attention Tuesday night when she successfully proposed amending the final legislation authorizing construction of a baseball stadium in Southeast to require that private investors pay half of the roughly $280 million cost.

The next day, Major League Baseball President Bob DuPuy said the change to baseball’s deal, cut with Mr. Williams, was “wholly unacceptable.” He promised to move the recently named Washington Nationals team elsewhere if the measure was not corrected.

Among the fans of Mrs. Cropp’s tough stance, though, is Mr. Nader, the two-time independent presidential candidate.

“Throughout this whole process, [the league] has dictated the terms for a stadium as if the District had no elected city legislature to look out for its residents,” Mr. Nader wrote in his letter to the council president.

Mrs. Cropp could not be reached for comment for this article.

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