Mayor says they’ll build it

Building a baseball stadium with public funds is an objectionable idea whose time has come to the city.

There is no other alternative, as Mayor Anthony A. Williams has come to realize.

His $340 million proposal is an act of surrender.

Here, he says to baseball, you win.

We will build it, as you stipulated.

Will you come now?

This has been the game within the game the last few years.

Baseball has been waiting for a suitor to blink, although not necessarily Washington.

The mayor finally obliged, right down to the last penny.

His critics have principle on their side.

You are planning to do what — pass the full cost of the stadium to the public?

Are you out of your mind?

Williams is actually stuck with the humbling reality of trying to do business with an entity accustomed to having its way.

Bud Selig and the owners, after evaluating the mayor’s vision, may ask to have a parade thrown in their honor to complete the deal.

Baseball has had no shame with the Expos.

The Expos were a basket-case operation long before the league’s owners allowed the team to go on welfare in 2002.

Here it is, in 2004, and the issue of the Expos still remains unresolved. As the years have passed, the Expos have become more and more laughable, losing money and top players, while taking up part-time residence in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

They are a team without a genuine home. They are a team whose playing field is tilted.

Washington has been pleading with baseball since forever to adopt the Expos and restore their health. Baseball has been thinking on it forever, not wanting to alienate Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

After the Expos became a ward of baseball, the mayor and the city’s ownership group had every reason to believe that they could dictate part of the terms. How long could the owners stomach the losses of the Expos? Apparently, the owners have incredibly large stomachs, and no sense of haste with the Expos.

Even now, with a new deadline in place, baseball is having to dissuade the thinking that it may postpone anew a decision on what to do with the Expos. The latest deadline is the All-Star Game in July. Don’t bother circling the date on your calendar.

Peoria, Ill., may have a stadium proposal and ownership group in place by then, and baseball will feel compelled to re-study its options.

There is always something about Washington, Baltimore’s glorified suburb, as Angelos sees it.

Williams made his pitch in this environment.

If Washington ever is to secure a Major League Baseball franchise, it is on this go-around, with a franchise that is begging to be delivered somewhere, and sooner rather than later.

No, the public should not be required to fund a business venture that is reserved for the truly wealthy.

What would anyone say to building a grocery store with public funds?

The words of protest would come spewing out, no doubt.

The mayor, though, is motivated by a fundamental question: Do you want a baseball team, or not?

Well, if you do, this is what we have to do. Otherwise, the Expos could wind up in Boone, N.C., and still might anyway.

It seems baseball is bound to find something wrong with the mayor’s plan.

Perhaps baseball will not like the RFK Stadium element in it. Perhaps baseball will not like the mayor’s bowtie.

Perhaps, as baseball considers one city against another, it will just decide that the nation’s capital remains a bad idea, all its persuasive demographics aside.

Whatever the outcome, the mayor has stepped to the plate and done his part to advance the cause of baseball in Washington.

You do not have to like it. In fact, it is hard to like.

Then again, what is a baseball team in Washington worth to you?

If the Expos ever end up here, we’ll find that out, because going to the ballpark will be a taxing experience.

The cost of building the stadium will result in stiffer parking, ticket and merchandise costs.

If you don’t approve, then don’t go. It will be your choice.

For now, it is baseball’s move.