Wednesday, May 19, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.
Major League Baseball's headquarters are 4 1/2 blocks from Grand Central Station, in between the Chrysler Building and St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The popular floor today, for the start of baseball's quarterly meetings, will be the 31st, one of three that MLB moved into six years ago at 245 Park Avenue.
The conference room will consist of 60 to 70 cloth-seated chairs and a horseshoe-shaped, cherry-wood table, with the typical crystal pitchers, filled with water and personal-favorite beverages, common in many executive meetings.
One wall features several framed baseball photographs, a podium stands in front of a production screen for press conferences on another side and the major of two windows offers a view of the United Nations headquarters and the East River.
"I wouldn't consider it breathtaking," said an insider.
The groups -- Teamscape and the Las Vegas Stadium Co. -- that are attempting to lure the Montreal Expos to Las Vegas might beg to differ. Their collective goal is to, sooner than later, enable the owner of a Vegas major league franchise to savor that sweet view of Queens during a similar spring meeting.
Another major step in that process was scheduled for this morning.
An agenda, typically kept very private anyway, hadn't been assembled by the end of business hours Tuesday, according to a source. But it is common knowledge among the owners that the relocation of the Expos is the priority of this session.
That could be classified as either old business, since baseball has delayed a decision on the team for nearly two years, or new, since the Vegas crew has supposedly impressed many in the MLB hierarchy with its aggressiveness.
"They keep the agenda tight to the vest," said an MLB official who requested anonymity. "It's hard for me to say where it would be placed (on the agenda). None of us know. But I know that it is somewhere in there.
"Then it will all depend on what the relocation committee has to report."
The nine-member relocation committee is chaired by Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and its recommendations will guide the owners to shaving four or five cities off the list of seven that are contending for the Expos.
Although MLB commissioner Bud Selig's mid-July deadline to publicly announce the final destination of the Expos is considered soft by his own public relations staff, Selig is adamant to have the deal done for next season.
So far, Washington, D.C., several sites in Virginia and Portland, Ore., have been most seriously considered, along with Las Vegas, by the relocation committee.
With an offer for 100 percent public financing, strongly favored by the committee, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams seems to have an edge on the competition.
However, many sources have indicated that the owners might not reach a consensus on a final list of candidates at the spring meetings in New York or even announce that list.
Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos will no doubt be one of the most interested observers of relocation talk over the next two days in that 31st-floor conference room.
He told the Sun two weeks ago that he would vigorously oppose the relocation of the Expos into his backyard, either in the D.C. area or in Northern Virginia, via two avenues.
First, if D.C. wins the Expos derby, it would have to pass a final vote by the owners. With seven other negative votes, Angelos can block the move. The Washington Times has already speculated that he can count on at least five right now.
As a member of the MLB owners' prestigious executive council since January, Angelos might wield significant influence to attract those other two allies.
Second, if Angelos doesn't obtain those seven other votes and the Expos' move to D.C. is approved by owners, Angelos might take MLB to Al Davis-like litigation hell.
As an attorney who has won scores of asbestos, lead-paint and tobacco battles in court, Angelos has the wealth and wherewithal to threaten baseball.
"I told (Reinsdorf) that if (the Expos) go to Washington, they're in for a huge fight with Angelos, and he said he knew," John Alevizos, who pondered moving the Expos to Connecticut and might be in line as a D.C.-area team owner, told the Washington Times. "You're dealing with a very formidable guy there."
Which could affect how the owners deal with the Las Vegas proposal for the next two days.
The spring quarterly meeting was first held in New York a year ago, when Arte Moreno was approved as the new owner of the Anaheim Angels. So many owners approved, Manhattan will likely be the permanent home for the May meetings.
Sixty or 70 seats will be needed today and Thursday, the insider said, because some teams have multiple owners. In addition, those who do not attend will send multiple representatives.
Committee chairmen, like Reinsdorf, are expected to present their issues or items before the owners today, when breakout sessions generally take place, too. Tonight, Selig will host a dinner at an unspecified location.
In addition, St. Louis owner William O. DeWeitt, Jr., and New York Mets chairman of the board Nelson Doubleday and president Fred Wilpon might entertain peers at tonight's Cardinals-Mets game at Shea Stadium.
Any votes, like cutting seven candidate cities for the Expos to two or three, will be conducted during Thursday's general session.
"It all depends on the committee meetings and things of that nature," said the insider. "I don't think there's a definite order to these meetings. They change every time, and it's based on the particular subject matter for each meeting."
The subject matter this time around will have plenty to do with the potential owner of a Las Vegas major league team peering out at that view of the East River within the next few Mays.
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