Columnist Dean Juipe: Bid for Expos ups city’s stature, if nothing else

Dean Juipe

Friday, July 2, 2004 | 9:49 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The man on the street has been heard.

In February his voice was clear. "No way," he said.

In May he took a more pragmatic approach. "Well, you never know," he surmised.

Now it's July and his powers of analysis and rationalization have been stretched again. "It's been good publicity, if nothing else," he states without hesitation, the Montreal Expos no more close to moving to Las Vegas than ever yet the city keeping its hand in a sweepstakes that eventually must present a winner.

Major League Baseball doesn't know what to do with the Expos.

And Las Vegas hasn't been quite sure how to react, varying its opinions along the way to match the circumstances that appear to be prevalent at any given minute.

At first it was with out and out disbelief that any rational group of men, let alone MLB, could see an up side to moving the Expos here. The nay sayers were out in force.

But as the campaign evolved and gained momentum, the skeptics were obliged to adjust if not meet the optimists half way. Could it happen? The team has to go somewhere ... the city is growing at an alarming rate ... maybe it's not impossible after all.

And now Stage 3, waiting and wondering yet tipped off that Las Vegas is running no better than third in a derby that tilts toward a pair of East Coast entries: Washington D.C. and a bid from an overlapping region identified as Northern Virginia, which is so close to D.C. that its proposed stadium would be within a bloop double of Washington's Dulles International Airport.

Norfolk, Va., Monterrey, Mexico, and Portland, Ore., round out a field, that, like Johnny Damon's mane, could use a barber's shears. It needs to be trimmed.

Throughout the ordeal, Las Vegas has enjoyed the benefits of seeing its name in countless publications and without the usual accompanying references to vice, mayhem and prostitution. It has been shown in a positive light, endlessly portrayed and discussed as an emerging city that will eventually land a team in a major professional sports league.

The fact that it's MLB standing at the door remains the most puzzling aspect of the entire scenario.

Supporting a baseball team requires not only a $450 million stadium but a hearty population base and an enthusiastic sports populace. The bid in Las Vegas' name allows for the stadium to be built and points to the 1.5 million residents of the valley, while all but ignoring the city's history of sports failures and its real and perceived reluctance to support live sporting events.

Could locals and tourists occupy 30,000 seats in a baseball stadium just off the Strip 81 nights a year? Or is such a goal just plain ridiculous?

Wouldn't it be more sensible to go after a National Hockey League or National Basketball Association franchise, where 15,000 fans per game spread across some 40 home dates at least has a ring of feasibility to it?

Or what about the granddaddy of concepts, bringing a National Football League team here to enjoy what could be unparalleled local support, selling out any size stadium that may be constructed a minimum of eight times a year?

Our scorecard has never really changed: football succeeds here, no doubt; hockey and basketball probably do, too; and baseball seems like a long shot.

Yet it's baseball, the most daunting of the challenges, that has enticed investors in this still-early and formative stage of Las Vegas' development. Ancillary concerns such as sports books running baseball lines and the city's second-rate status as a TV and media market simmer away on the back burner.

The man on the street is aware of this check list and has kept its vagaries in order. But his perception of baseball and its relationship to Las Vegas has been altered during the first half of 2004, from initially believing that baseball was simply using Las Vegas to feeling that, at worst, Las Vegas is now using baseball.

It's positioning itself for something big and a team in a league of consequence, while playing along and allowing itself to be amused at MLB's hand wringing and indecisiveness.

It's Las Vegas in a "no lose" situation, even if it loses out on the Expos.