Action by Fla. governor puts LV on spring training hot seat

Steve Guiremand

Friday, June 2, 2000 | 10:18 a.m.

It's do or die time for Las Vegas Stars president Don Logan's bid to spring training to Las Vegas.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Thursday signed into law a bill that would make almost $8 million in state funds available to major league baseball teams to upgrade their existing spring training complexes. And the Los Angeles Dodgers, the key team in making a Las Vegas spring training site a reality, are one of the teams that has first crack at that money.

In fact, Dodger officials plan to meet with officials from Vero Beach and Indian River County on Monday and Tuesday of next week to discuss what can be done to keep the Dodgers in Vero Beach. They hope to meet with Logan and other Las Vegas officials later in the week.

The Dodgers have set a tentative June 14 deadline to make a decision on their spring training future.

"We will not make a decision without fully negotiating with Las Vegas," Derrick Hall, senior vice president of communications for the Dodgers, said Thursday.

Logan said no date has been made to meet with Dodger officials and said he would just as soon discuss his options over a conference call than in face-to-face meetings.

"It was too much of a pain in the (butt) trying to get everybody into town at the same time last time," Logan said.

When asked if negotiations to bring the Dodgers and at least three other teams to Las Vegas in time for 2002 spring training were in the bottom of the ninth inning stage, Logan replied, "Nah, I'd say it's more like the seventh-inning stretch.

"(The Dodgers' deadline) does push the process along. I don't know how much if that's the absolute date. But we're quite a ways down the road in the process. I'm being kind of vague because I don't want this to be negotiated through the newspapers."

Dodger officials reportedly want Vero Beach and Indian River County to buy the Dodgertown facility, which also includes two golf courses as well as acres of orange groves, from the club and then lease it back.

Logan didn't seem to believe that the money garnered through the bill Bush signed on Thursday would make much of a dent in his effort to bring spring training to Las Vegas.

"The main problem in Florida and Vero Beach is that there are not a lot of people there to go to the games," Logan said. "I don't care if they build the Taj Mahal there, that's not going to change. It's a hard place to get to. And most of the people down there care more about auto racing and football than they do about baseball."