Stadium bill: Baseball or bust

No close observer of District politics and the return of baseball to the city would seriously suggest the stadium bill before the D.C. Council is doomed to fail.

Many insiders at the John A. Wilson Building see the seven needed votes to pass the bill essentially in place, and Major League Baseball would not have announced the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington without some significant assurance of strong political support behind the effort.

But what if? What if the council runs out of time to find a workable version of the stadium bill before its Dec.31 deadline with MLB expires? Or through some quirky political fallout, what if the five council members openly critical to the legislation find two more allies, enough to the kill the measure?

The consequences would be far-reaching and severe.

• No hope of a Washington team. For more than three decades, MLB executives found just about every possible excuse not to give Washington a team to call its own. It ascertained an overwhelming need to expand into Seattle; Toronto; Denver; Miami; Tampa, Fla.; and Phoenix, then an overwhelming need to contract teams. Even the foibles of former mayor Marion Barry were effectively used as the excuse for years.

But actually turning down a stadium bill would trump all of that and create a permanent memory in the clubby fraternity that is baseball.

cAn awkward stadium situation. If the stadium bill were to fail, the Expos obviously would need a place to play for the 2005 season. The first option would be to seek a last-minute lease with Olympic Stadium back in Montreal. That’s a possibility, but with more of the Expos infrastructure moving to Washington with each passing day, it’s also an option of fast-growing difficulty.

The city’s agreement with MLB mandates the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission make RFK Stadium available to the Expos, even in the event of the legislation’s failure. All that’s required from baseball is “a license agreement having terms to be negotiated in good faith.”

So after all the waiting and fevered pursuit of baseball, the team could be playing in the District and still not call the city home. A more twisted and perverse situation can hardly be imagined. Attendance would be pitiful, driving a franchise already strapped for cash further into trouble.

• National embarrassment. Between Barry, the financial ruin of the mid-1990s, high murder rates and Metro cops arresting children for eating French fries and throwing pregnant women to the ground, national pundits and comedians have never wanted for ways to pick on the District. Saying no to baseball at the end of a pursuit costing hundreds of thousands of man hours and millions of dollars would simply tee up the city again for jokes and ridicule.

cResurrection of other bidders. The Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority is keeping itself in existence on the chance the District fails to deliver on its stadium promises. The other bidders for the Expos, most notably Norfolk and Las Vegas, similarly would resume talks with MLB executives if given the opportunity. The end result would be Washington again being passed over for a region less than half its size.

cNo help from the local business community. District businesses and trade groups, most notably the Greater Washington Board of Trade, are making a significant and somewhat risky step in agreeing to a proposed return of the gross-receipts tax, which would pay the largest chunk of the stadium costs. Many local activists are irate that businesses are agreeing to an additional tax for baseball and not for other priorities.

But the implicit deal between District businesses and the city is that paying the gross-receipts tax will not excuse businesses from any other tax burden, current or future. A deal works both ways, and if the city does not honor its end, going back to businesses for taxes for something else becomes far more difficult.

The collective result of all this potential fallout is a do-it-or-else mentality that has enveloped the stadium legislation. Not surprisingly, this enrages several members of the D.C. Council. Nobody likes to have his hand forced, particularly those in power.

The paradigm, however, is really the result of MLB and how it conducted the Expos relocation search. Buttressed by the sport’s antitrust exemption, MLB executives held nearly all the leverage. Seven jurisdictions were bidding for one club. And none held an existing, contractual relationship with the franchise that so often forms the safety net for public officials who balk at paying for a new stadium.

District officials, seeking to pull any power they could to their side of the bargaining table, demanded a stadium bill not be introduced to the council before MLB made its relocation choice. MLB reluctantly agreed but in exchange for that concession gave the city a limited window to make good on its promises. The District is now in the midst of that window.

“For the first time in this whole pursuit of baseball, we actually control our own destiny,” said Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat. “[If] we work through this and approve the financing, the team is coming.”