Point man still positive

Wednesday, June 23, 2004 | 10:58 a.m.

As Major League Baseball's decision on the fate of the Montreal Expos draws near, Mike Shapiro has developed a curious feeling.

After more than a year of work as the point man between the Las Vegas groups who have been trying to woo the Expos and MLB officials, Shapiro insisted Tuesday afternoon that that feeling had nothing to do with nerves.

"No, I'm not overly nervous because I know what we put on the table was the best we possibly could do," he said. "I'm somewhat circumspect about what our chances are and what would ensue if we got it or didn't get it. I think, under either scenario, it's very good for Las Vegas."

In his first face-to-face interviews about wooing the Expos to Las Vegas, at the Brown & Partners public relations firm, Shapiro, 53, revealed new details of his groups and their proposal in a 90-minute meeting with the Sun.

He showed interior designs of a $420 million, retractable-roof stadium, to be built behind Bally's and Paris Las Vegas, that highlighted its versatility in renderings for baseball, football and basketball games, boxing matches and concerts.

With a mostly glass exterior highlighted by expressive steel, the stadium could be almost completely built with private financing and might be ready for play, Shapiro said, for the first half of the 2007 baseball season.

Shapiro and his colleagues have received an abundance of positive feedback, he said, from area corporations and casinos, who would serve as vital advertising and season-ticket resources.

He named influential figures on his team, whose identities had been previously kept secret, and he said plenty of people have contacted him about possibly working for the baseball team, and at the stadium, in various capacities.

Even Shapiro's grade-school-age children keep pestering him.

"My kids have been all over me," the San Francisco Bay Area consultant and resident said, "about being bat boys."

Shapiro read a short list of figures who have been valuable assets but who, until now, have operated in the shadows of the project:

Lou Weisbach heads Niles, Ill.-based Teamscape, which is responsible for coordinating prospective team owners, and Manhattan financier Robert Blumenfeld presides over LVSE.

For months, Shapiro had been reluctant to offer much background information or opinion because of MLB's insistence that the Vegas groups remain under the radar. Growing national attention, and a Monday ESPN show, changed that tack.

"I think it's really important for Las Vegas, for the public, to understand a little bit more about what was done in their name and on their behalf," Shapiro said, "with baseball and who the people are who are behind it.

"I wanted to fairly represent who was behind all this and who did all this incredible work ... the major beneficiary is this community."

However, Shapiro limited his revelations. He said he was prohibited from naming specific stadium investors, or the degrees to which anyone might be financially involved with the building or the ownership group, and he declined to identify a possible temporary home for the Expos, should Vegas get them.

"We have addressed that in our proposal," Shapiro said. "Where the team will play until the stadium is ready for occupancy is proprietary, something we can't really talk about.

"I will say this, that of all the thoughts and suggestions that we have offered to baseball and they have discussed with us, about a temporary home, (our suggestion) would be to the advantage of baseball and to the franchise. In fact, it's a huge advantage."

Would it be in the Southwest?

"I can't comment any further," Shapiro said. "It just wouldn't be in Las Vegas."

Would it be in the continental United States? Monterrey, Mexico, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, have been mentioned as possible sites for the team.

"I can't talk about it," he said. "Nice try, though."

Groups in Washington, D.C., several sites in Virginia and Portland, Ore., are among the candidates battling Las Vegas for the Expos, with the perceived leaders by many sources being D.C. and Northern Virginia.

MLB commissioner Bud Selig has vowed to make a final decision by the mid-July All-Star break.

To have a Vegas stadium ready for 2007, Shapiro said, design work on its structure must begin no later than late next month, with site preparation and construction to swiftly follow.

A group in Northern Virginia, with plans for a stadium near Dulles International Airport, has gained recent attention, and an Associated Press story Monday said its proposal is the only one "with a fully financed funding plan on the books."

Shapiro disputed that claim.

"For them to say it's the only one is not correct," he said. "We are very confident that we're going to be able to put in front of baseball a fully financed stadium."

Shapiro admitted that the general public response to his groups' effort, in Southern Nevada, has been skeptical. A history of short-lived sports teams and leagues that have been wary to wade into a city with such a gambling backbone might be two reasons why a sports fan in Vegas would be cynical.

"I'm not sure about the word cynicism," Shapiro said. "Pessimism? The feedback I have gotten is generally, 'Is it for real? Do we really have a chance?' It's almost self-deprecating.

Monday night, in ESPN's "Outside the Lines" program that addressed the feasibility of MLB landing in Vegas, Shapiro, Mayor Oscar Goodman and Selig were featured.

Selig previously called Las Vegas a viable candidate for the Expos and said that the 125-page proposal that Shapiro submitted for the league's quarterly meeting in New York last month was "aggressive." In Monday's show, Selig downplayed the the significance of gambling in Las Vegas.

"Life has changed," said Selig, compared to when he was learning the business of baseball under former commissioner Bowie Kuhn. "I have said to people that gambling is legal now in most states, and there are casinos in almost every major league city today. And there are some very close to the ballparks."

Tuesday, Shapiro eagerly followed up on Selig's statement.

"The comments the commissioner made were very encouraging and should be taken as very encouraging for Las Vegas' chances, whether the Expos come here or not," he said. "I think what the commissioner said was more telling than anything.

"And that's, 'We are very, very seriously looking at the Las Vegas market.' "

Shapiro also insisted, as he has previously told the Sun, that Vegas has not been used as leverage by MLB.

"Not at all," Shapiro said. "I can only tell you that I'm so definitive about that because I believe that the people we've been dealing with have been very, very honorable, and very forthright, with us. There's absolutely no reason to believe that what they've been telling us isn't true."

He dismissed the notion that D.C. and Northern Virginia are leading the relocation pack as folly.

"I have no idea what they put on the table," Shapiro said. "All I know is what we put on the table is damn good. My own gut-level opinion is that I think what we've done is stated a very credible case for Las Vegas that some major professional sports team is going to take a hard look at.

"I personally believe it's going to be the Expos."

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