Meeting on the mound

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

Mike Shapiro met Don Logan for the first time Monday afternoon inside Logan's office at Cashman Field, home of the Las Vegas 51s, and both parties regretted that the session hadn't taken place sooner.

Shapiro, a San Francisco Bay Area baseball consultant who, for more than a year, has been the point man for a group trying to convince Major League Baseball to relocate the Montreal Expos to Las Vegas, said he's been too busy.

Until mid-May, assembling a 125-page proposal for the nine-member MLB relocation committee had demanded all of Shapiro's time and energy. Since then, clarifying, refining and polishing details of that proposal have exhausted Shapiro.

"It's taken us awhile to see him, and that's my fault," said Shapiro, who represents Las Vegas Sports and Entertainment. "I would have liked to have seen him sooner. It wasn't because there was any conflict. It's just, we were so busy. In retrospect, I should have gone to see him sooner."

Logan, the 51s' president and general manager who has been a part of the Las Vegas baseball franchise for 22 years, said it did not make sense that Shapiro's visit had not occurred much sooner.

"It was good," Logan said. "I think it was productive. I think it certainly is a positive step, in terms of getting this thing taken care of once and for all. It was nice to chat with Mike.

"He's been the point for the group, and he has learned a lot about the politics -- good, bad or indifferent -- of the community and what it would take to get something done."

The two men are inexorably linked, since Logan cannot proceed with plans for a new Triple-A stadium, possibly in Henderson, until the Expos' relocation situation is finalized.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, the 51s' parent team, consider Cashman to be an inadequate Triple-A facility, and the player-development contract between the two teams expires after this season.

LVSE has its sights set on building a $420 million, 40,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof on 15 acres behind Bally's and Paris Las Vegas.

"People with as much money as it's going to take to do this (LVSE) deal wouldn't invest the type of dollars necessary if they didn't think that it made sense or would work," Logan said.

"That being said, as I've said before, if you don't understand some of the unique nuances of this community, it's going to be very difficult to form a real accurate understanding of how the market truly works. This is as fluid a market as there is."

This is the third season that MLB's 29 other owners have run the financially troubled Expos, and MLB commissioner Bud Selig has delayed a decision on a new home for the Expos numerous times.

The moving deadline

For several weeks, it had been reported that a decision would be reached by the end of the owners quarterly meeting in Philadelphia on Aug. 19. MLB president Bob DuPuy disputed that timetable last week in USA Today.

Washington and Northern Virginia have been widely considered the leaders in the Expos derby, but venerable New York Times baseball writer Murray Chass discounted both venues in his Sunday column.

According to Chass, Selig told Baltimore owner Peter Angelos, a successful lawyer and member of MLB's prestigious executive council, at the All-Star Game in Houston that nothing would be done to infringe upon the Orioles' territory or make Angelos unhappy.

In addition, Chass reported, Selig repeated those statements to Angelos later that day in a meeting with baseball's bankers.

DuPuy disputed those claims in a Monday e-mail to The Virginian-Pilot, which has been covering a group's effort to lure the Expos to Norfolk, Va.

So a decision might be rendered by the end of this month, or in September, but Selig has vowed that the Expos will play in a new "temporary" home, and not Montreal, by next season. They could settle into their permanent new home by 2007.

And either the District or an area near Dulles International Airport might be involved, is a favorite or won't even be considered because of Angelos' threats.

After eating lunch Tuesday at Margaritaville with wife Jane, 8-year-old son Jackson and Jackson's friend Sean, and before trudging off to a television interview with Mayor Oscar Goodman, Shapiro said he wasn't concerned with the other candidate cities.

"All we can do is keep our focus on providing baseball with the best possible proposal," he said. "We're totally determined to do that."

That proposal's details, Shapiro said, are constantly being refined.

"It's not something you just read and say yes or no to," he said. "There are areas that need continued development. There are suppositions that are raised in there that need definition and revision. So baseball has been very, very detail-directed about our proposal."

The jewel of the plan is the versatile stadium, to be used year-round for various events, concerts and other sports. That nonbaseball revenue, Shapiro said, would pay off the building's debt service and pad the investors' rate of return.

Robert Blumenfeld of Pembroke Development Corp. and Merrill Lynch investment banker Peter M. Hoffman, both based in Manhattan, are the main financiers who would coordinate the funding of the stadium project.

That's the most specific financial structure that Shapiro has revealed, and he declined to elaborate. He reiterated that the plan would require no new taxes.

"In this marketplace, there are no facilities that have the capacity to seat at least 20,000 people," Shapiro said. "This one would accomplish that."

LVSE has retained Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm HOK Sport to possibly design the glass-and-steel structure.

What happens here

"Las Vegas is certainly unique," Logan said. "Any of us who has spent an appreciable amount of time here knows that. I think their model, their concept, is new, in terms of the number of dates (it would be used) or the flexibility of the venue. I don't know of one anywhere like that."

Selig and his lieutenants will select an ownership group for the team only after a site is chosen. Randy Vataha, of Game Plan LLC in Boston, has been hired by LVSE to arrange a Vegas ownership group if the city is picked by MLB.

Mandalay Baseball Properties is the majority owner of the 51s. Should an MLB team ever move into Las Vegas, Mandalay might fetch at least $15 million for the rights to the territory.

"From our standpoint, we've been here 22 years," Logan said. "We, and Mandalay, are capable of doing a (similar) deal, but we've never chosen to do so. That's our position, and they have their position.

"It certainly makes sense for a group that wants to do what they're trying to do to at least have dialogue (with us) and an understanding of why we haven't chosen to do that. Mandalay has got the ability to do anything we want to do within the sports world, and we just haven't chosen to do it here in Las Vegas."

Logan has contended that the round-the-clock nature of many jobs in Las Vegas would keep a faction of workers who are baseball fans from attending major league games just off the Strip.

That is marginal, said Shapiro, citing two extensive surveys that LVSE has conducted and another that was administered by an independent research company. He declined to show the surveys to the Sun.

"No one has said, 'Geez, I work at night. I guess I'd never see a baseball game.' We've never heard that," Shapiro said. "Secondly, we learned that only a small percentage of people who are part of that 24-hour-a-day work cycle would not be available to attend a game.

"The overall number is actually very small. It's sort of an overstatement, I think, to suggest that it would significantly harm a team's chances in this marketplace."

Those surveys also show, Shapiro said, that a rich tourist industry, projected to attract at least 36 million to Las Vegas in 2004, would comprise approximately 40 percent of the team's regular attendance.

Combine those figures with the city's growing population, currently at more than 1.6 million, and Shapiro said an MLB team would receive at least as much consistent support as the league's current average, of 30,290 through last weekend.

"The statistics tell us that a Major League Baseball club in this community would attract a sizeable percentage of visitors, unlike most other major league cities, because of the nature of the visitor base that's coming here," Shapiro said.

"They're coming here to be entertained and coming here with disposable entertainment dollars. We believe we can achieve the major league attendance average."

Shapiro said the attendance subject was raised in his one-hour chat with Logan on Monday.

"I think we share, to a certain degree, a common feeling that this market is going to be ready for Major League Baseball in very short order," Shapiro said. "He believes that perhaps it will take a longer period of time than we do."

Logan defies any other city in the world to match the amenities that Las Vegas offers in such a relatively tight area, from Fremont Street to Russell Road, and he admitted that a sleek glass stadium would add to that luster.

"This is truly the ultimate adult destination," Logan said. "That's what would encourage a group like Mike's group, that anything's possible here. It really is. Nobody knows what it is, it just keeps evolving."

Shapiro said he is grateful for Logan's input, that Logan was open and forthcoming about sharing his feelings and knowledge of this unique market, which will benefit LVSE.

Keeping in touch

Shapiro did not have a business card for Logan but said he'd notify Logan of how to get in touch with him. Shapiro didn't broach the possibility of Logan possibly working for LVSE someday. Logan said he wouldn't have been comfortable talking about that, anyway.

It is not known where the Expos will go. What is known, Shapiro confirmed, is that if they don't come to Vegas, LVSE will not disappear. Industry sources believe the Oakland Athletics and Florida Marlins will flirt with relocation.

"I think Don is in a tough spot, I really do," Shapiro said. "I empathize with his plight, and I hope for his sake and for our sake -- for everybody's sake -- that we get a decision fairly soon. That will help define what happens to this territory.

"I think Don is doing everything he needs to do, baseball is doing what it needs to do and we're doing what we need to do. Sooner or later, it's all going to move in the right direction."

archive