So D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams won’t visit Camden Yards until baseball puts a team in the District.
“I made a pledge,” Williams said. “I’m not attending any Orioles games until we get a team.”
The timing of the mayor’s “pledge” is a bit strange. Last week, The Washington Times reported on Williams’ proposal to build a publicly financed ballpark on the grounds of RFK Stadium — calling Major League Baseball’s bluff on full funding. Fred Malek, leading the ownership group seeking a team for the city, said he didn’t believe the Orioles’ presence would make or break the decision to relocate the Montreal Expos in the District.
“I take the league at their word,” Malek said. “They said they want a fully financed stadium, that Baltimore is a consideration, not a roadblock.”
So if it is not a roadblock, why did Williams bother to issue this declaration of war now? Not that it is particularly objectionable to take on the Orioles, but why didn’t Williams do it a long time ago, exerting pressure to bring the issue of the presence of the Baltimore franchise to a boiling point — and maybe elicit some kind of true and accurate measure about the influence of the Orioles on Washington baseball?
Why not do it before Orioles owner Peter Angelos was named to the owners’ executive council — baseball commissioner Cadillac Bud Selig’s inner circle? Why make waves now — unless the Orioles are truly more of a factor than Washington officials believed earlier?
Or did all of this just occur to Williams?
The District has been slow to react in this entire process to bring baseball back to Washington. The fully funded ballpark offer was inevitable and should have been made when the horse race for the Expos involved just the District and Northern Virginia.
The illusion of playing hardball only gave Cadillac Bud the opportunity to entice more bidders into the process — Norfolk; Las Vegas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Monterrey, Mexico.
And not forcing MLB’s hand with an offer it couldn’t refuse earlier allowed this process to drag on and get closer to 2006, when baseball can move forward with contraction.
There is a new development that is another bad sign for baseball in this area: the continued emergence of New Jersey. The movement, being pushed by a number of teams (including the Orioles), is seen as a way to slow down the spending of the evil empire, the New York Yankees, by cutting into the Yankees’ market, although the issue remains about territorial rights.
This week it was reported that New Jersey officials have continued to talk to baseball about bringing a team to the region, so much so that two weeks ago they met with architect Janet Marie Smith about ballpark plans.
Smith, of Camden Yards design fame, is vice president of planning and development for — drum roll, please — the Boston Red Sox. What a coincidence: a Red Sox official helping Northern Jersey develop plans for a ballpark in the Yankees’ backyard.
Baseball insists Northern Jersey is not in the mix for the Expos. “New Jersey is not on the list of candidates being considered,” said Bob DuPuy, baseball’s chief operating officer. Of course, we can take him at his word, right?
Here’s a suggestion: New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey should start his boycott of Yankees games immediately.
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