Washington baseball bid gets new life

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- Major League Baseball in the nation's capital may not be dead, after all.

After a day of negotiations among the mayor's office, baseball officials and the head of the District of Columbia city council, government leaders announced an agreement Monday night they said would revive a deal to move baseball's Montreal Expos to Washington.

The council was to vote on the revised package today. At a meeting this morning, the council had yet to take up the issue.

Las Vegas was originally in the running for the Expos, and local officials have noted that should the deal in Washington fall apart, Las Vegas could be next in line.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, however, dismissed the situation in the nation's capital this morning.

"I wish Washington well," Goodman said, adding that the developments are "absolutely not" a setback for his efforts to bring baseball to Las Vegas. "We have so much planning to do it's almost a blessing."

Since a private group bid to bring the Expos to Las Vegas, several other groups have surfaced and Goodman has been in the forefront of the effort.

The mayor met with Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson on Monday. Jackson, a part-time Las Vegas resident, has a group of investors trying to buy a franchise. A number of small-market teams have been mentioned as possibilities for being sold, moved or both.

"Baseball has indicated we're next in line. It's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned," Goodman said of the Washington situation. "There's plenty of action in baseball."

In Washington, the compromise reached by Mayor Anthony A. Williams, D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp and baseball officials appears to have settled remaining problems, assuming the council approves the deal. The plan allows private financing for a 41,000-seat stadium on the Anacostia River south of the Capitol but would eliminate a provision voiding the deal if private financing isn't found.

Estimates for the project, which includes land acquisition, street improvements, infrastructure upgrades and refurbishing RFK Stadium, start at $435 million.

The revised deal also splits the liability for cost overruns and missed construction deadlines evenly between the city and Major League Baseball, Williams spokesman Chris Bender said.

Last week, the council approved a Cropp-sponsored requirement that private money cover at least half the cost of actual stadium construction, now estimated at $249 million. Baseball rejected that provision and halted promotional, marketing and sales operations for the team, which would be renamed the Nationals.

The city faces a Dec. 31 deadline to have a financing law in place consistent with the September agreement signed by the team and Williams.

Under the accord, Williams' office would keep the council informed on all private funding proposals it receives. In return, Cropp agreed to drop the provision she inserted last week that would void the deal if the city couldn't find private financing.

"We remain hopeful that the council will pass legislation consistent with the stadium agreement so we can move forward with the Nationals in D.C.," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, who negotiated by telephone from New York.

The effort to bring Major League Baseball back to the capital 33 years after the expansion Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers has been controversial.

A poll published by the Washington Post on Monday found that 56 percent of city residents surveyed favored private funding to pay for half the cost of a baseball stadium. Nearly 53 percent favored the private funding requirement, which wasn't part of the city's talks with baseball owners, even if it led owners to move the Expos elsewhere.