Commentary: Logan & Co. execute play beautifully

Thursday, March 21, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

LIKE MANY OF the fundamentals that have been lost in baseball, it's rare you see a perfectly executed squeeze play.

To Don Logan's credit, he still remembered how to do it without having the play blow up in his face. The Las Vegas Stars' general manager once again displayed a flawless style at the plate in a pressure situation when he was able to work out a deal with the Oakland Athletics to bring real major league baseball to Cashman Field in a couple of weeks.

The name of the game is scoring runs and Logan pushed one across for Southern Nevada Wednesday by making sure Baseball saw how serious he and his friends at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority as well as the City of Henderson are about joining the Cactus League and being part of spring training.

Yes, Logan may have had to sacrifice his team's opening series by hightailing it to Canada. Sure, the upcoming Big League Weekend may lose some of its luster, though I doubt many will pass up the chance to watch Ken Griffey Jr. hit in Cashman.

But when the final out is made, Logan & Co. will be the ones in the winning clubhouse because it's going to be hard for Baseball to say no when the time comes to decide to let Southern Nevada be part of spring training. They'll remember Las Vegas' willingness to step in, pinch-hit and deliver for the A's.

For the purists, spring training has merely become an extension of the regular season. But for the municipalities that play host to baseball's annual rite of passage, it is a gold mine.

It's filled hotel rooms and restaurants. It's families vacationing, senior citizens relaxing and reminiscing and kids scurrying all over the place in search of foul balls, autographs and cotton candy.

LVCVA President Manny Cortez sees all that money flowing in Arizona and Florida and says, "Hey, we should be getting some of that, too."

So when Logan came to him the other day and asked the LVCVA to be partners in bringing the A's to town for a week of games that count, Cortez didn't flinch. He didn't necessarily have the bank to do it himself and cover the $900,000 nut, but he had friends who did.

And while we tend to look at politicians with the most skeptical of eyes, the fact that Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones and County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates stepped to the plate and connected shows they aren't blind to the big picture.

Yes, baseball fans vote, but more importantly, so do people who live in vibrant economies. And if you're a politician and it shows on your ledger that you helped attract new businesses to your community and raised revenues without hiking taxes, that's going to look pretty good when it's your turn to bat again, won't it?

Besides, how would Jones look if she said no to baseball? She'd be panned as Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in a miniskirt.

So while everyone enjoys watching the ball fly out of Cashman for a week, remember that sometimes you don't need to juice one out of the park to push one across the plate. Sometimes, some simple and timely execution works just as well.