Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004 | 10:39 a.m.
As the city of Washington, D.C., waited for today's expected announcement that big-league baseball was returning, Mike Shapiro sat in his District hotel room most of Tuesday with a great deal of pride.
The point man for Las Vegas Sports and Entertainment (LVSE) LLC fielded telephone calls from business associates, colleagues, friends and family, and he calmly told all of the inevitability of baseball returning to the nation's capital.
One call he hadn't received, as of 1 a.m. today in Washington, was from a Major League Baseball official or executive informing him that LVSE had been removed from the Expos derby.
"I believe they'll have a press conference (today) to announce that they've decided to award the franchise to D.C.," Shapiro said. "It's what I've been hearing informally and in the press ... you can discern all that from the buzz in the media."
For more than a year, Shapiro, an experienced baseball consultant who runs Centerfield Management Group in the San Francisco Bay Area, had been the most influential voice in LVSE's attempt to secure the first of the four major spots for Las Vegas.
The main attraction of that proposal was a privately financed, $420 million stadium to be built on 15 acres behind Bally's and Paris Las Vegas.
Instead, MLB commissioner Bud Selig and his staff were lured back to D.C., where legislation for a publicly funded, $440 million stadium along the Anacostia River, where it breaks from the Potomac, essentially expires by the end of the week.
Washington last had a team in 1971, when the Senators went 63-96 before moving to Texas to become the Rangers. Texas still owns the rights to the Senators nickname.
"The most pertinent thing, I think," Shapiro said, "is that Las Vegas came out of this whole process in much better shape than it was before the process began, in terms of its chance of getting a major professional sports franchise."
Shapiro, who declined to reveal the nature of his business in Washington, said he is prepared for a certain reaction by many people in Southern Nevada.
"I know there will be a lot of people who will say, 'Told you so.' They'll say, 'This market was not ready for baseball,' or, 'They've used us.' There will be a lot of people saying a lot of things," he said. "The truth of the matter is that we made a pretty good run at this thing and we fell short to the nation's capital.
"You've got to take a look at the totality of the situation. Washington, D.C., is a major metropolitan area and it's the nation's capital, and Las Vegas came pretty damn close to getting this team. That's an amazing, amazing accomplishment."
Until last summer the relocation focus had been on Washington, Northern Virginia and Portland. When plans from those representatives proved sketchy, MLB began the process anew, which allowed the Vegas faction to enter the fray.
Norfolk and Northern Virginia, and Shapiro, made MLB notice them, forcing the D.C. group to put together a serious and solid offer.
"It wasn't until very late in this process that Washington was really able to come to the table with a publicly financed stadium on a viable site that made sense, that made better sense for the relocation of the Expos than other markets," Shapiro said.
"It was a very open and fair process. I worked very closely with a lot of great people in Major League Baseball who, I think, very honestly conveyed that they were open to hearing about the attributes of the Las Vegas marketplace."
Chicago-area businessman Lou Weisbach initiated contact with baseball on the city's behalf. Eventually, LVSE was formed and hired Shapiro to conduct all of its stadium negotiations with baseball officials, namely relocation envoy Corey Busch.
LVSE comprises a group of private investors whose confidentiality agreements prohibit them from commenting publicly about the project and restricts Shapiro from identifying them.
"The private investors want to remain private," Shapiro said. "That's part of why most of them were willing to invest their money in this proposal."
New York-based financiers Robert Blumenfeld and Peter M. Hoffman are the only two prominent LVSE figures who have been acknowledged as such, and only Blumenfeld has made a public, albeit brief, comment about his involvement in the project.
Blumenfeld told the Sun that he has never been associated with such a professional and focused group. Both Blumenfeld and Hoffman are known as ace recruiters in the investment field.
"I'm very proud of all the work our whole team of people has done," Shapiro said. "I think it's been recognized by the national media and it's been recognized by people inside baseball that we brought Las Vegas a lot farther than anyone would have ever expected.
"We have built the credibility of Las Vegas as a viable market for major league sports, particularly baseball, since everything we've done was so well-received, and we got such favorable commentary, from those inside baseball."
Shapiro said he believes it will be easier for another team to relocate to Las Vegas, as opposed to MLB being responsible for shifting another team here -- especially over a vacancy in the nation's capital.
The Florida Marlins, Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics all have been mentioned as potential relocation candidates.
"I have been completely convinced that Las Vegas is an appropriate and viable, and potentially very successful, market for a major league team," he said. "If someone gave me the opportunity to participate again in trying to bring a team to Las Vegas, I would welcome it.
"This was all due to the very hard, brilliant work of a great team of people who wanted to do something rather extraordinary, and we came very close. I believe we'll make it happen in the near future."
archive
