LV group pitches ideas to 6 teams

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, March 28, 2000 | 9:43 a.m.

Six major league baseball teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, met Monday at the Four Seasons hotel to listen to a sales pitch about moving their spring training operations from Florida to Las Vegas in 2002.

Just how much interest those six teams have in making the proposition into a reality, however, remains to be seen.

"The thing that was most important (Monday) was to verify that there was legitimate interest from these teams about possibly coming here for spring training," said Don Logan, president of the Las Vegas Stars. "I came away from this meeting thinking that was the case."

Logan, along with Mandalay Sports Entertainment executives Ken and Hank Stickney, sat down with representatives from the Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Devil Rays to discuss the possibility of perhaps making Las Vegas a third spring training site along with the Grapefruit League in Florida and the Cactus League in Arizona.

"Our talks were very productive," Ken Stickney, managing director of Mandalay Sports, said in a statement. "Each of the teams involved is interested in exploring a variety of options for spring training, and we all feel that Las Vegas presents some very favorable qualities."

All six teams have expressed dissatisfaction with their present spring training setups in Florida. A bill in the Florida legislature, which likely won't be acted upon until May, would grant about $7.5 million to help aid in the refurbishment of those facilities, including legendary Dodgertown in Vero Beach.

The Rangers are definitely interested, said executive vice president John McMichael, who represented the team at the meeting.

"Every team was sufficiently interested to proceed with the discussions," he said.

McMichael said the financial and economic considerations were not discussed. Instead, Las Vegas officials and architects showed them a plan for a four-to-six-team training facility in the southwest part of the city and a stadium downtown.

"Obviously a lot has to be in place to go from some nice drawings on a board to an actual facility," McMichael said. "But based on what we saw, the teams have decided to proceed with the financial and economic discussions."

McMichael said the teams involved will meet to discuss strategy, then get back with the representatives from Las Vegas as early as next week.

"Our interest has been piqued," McMichael said.

Logan, who said he is taking an "overly cautious" approach to the spring training plan after a similiar effort in 1997 was derailed by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, was very upbeat following Monday's meeting.

"There were a lot of indications made to us to think they were genuinely interested in making Las Vegas a legitimate spring training area," Logan said. "The fact that all six teams would make it out here just a week before the start of the regular season shows their interest in it."

When asked what kind of potential spring training arrangements and facilities were discussed, Logan said those topics had not been broached Monday.

Neither, as McMichael indicated, was the crucial issue of financing the facility.

"The way we left it was we wanted to let everybody go home and, in the next three or four weeks, maybe come back and craft some sort of arrangement.

"It's a two-phase deal in my mind," Logan continued. "First we have to come up with an equitable deal that all the clubs can deal with and will make them decide to move to Las Vegas. Then we'll have to go and work out the right deal with the community and the cities involved to build the facilities. It's not fair to the LVCVA or the communities involved to try and do anything until we have a legitimate deal in place to have spring training here."

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram contributed to this story.