Columnist Jeff German: Big-league quest needs team effort

Friday, Jan. 7, 2005 | 11:19 a.m.

Without Mayor Oscar Goodman, landing a major league baseball team would still be a pipe dream around here.

He's the only local elected official who has had the vision to see that Las Vegas, with its 1.6 million population and 37 million annual visitors, has potential to support a professional franchise.

God love him for his exuberance and ability to attract media attention to the cause. But I wonder if this push for big-time baseball needs more than the Oscar-quality performance Goodman has been delivering in the arena of public opinion.

If Las Vegas truly has a shot at getting a baseball team, maybe the rest of the community should start stepping up to the plate.

Where are our political leaders in the county, where most of the people live and where most of the tourists stay? Where are our business and civic leaders? Our gaming executives? Our union bosses? Our state lawmakers and our governor?

In his zeal to lure a team here, Goodman, without any research, already has decided that the 61 acres downtown is the best site for a stadium.

He might be right, but we don't know that for sure because we haven't considered any other options. We haven't even studied what a stadium would do to traffic along the congested Spaghetti Bowl.

Michael Shapiro, a San Francisco area sports consultant who specializes in developing ballparks, is among those applauding the mayor's efforts.

"Nobody else is showing any interest or leadership on this issue," Shapiro says. "He's doing the right thing."

But at the same time, Shapiro adds, just considering a site within the city limits is, well, shortsighted.

"You need to take a look at all available sites in the area, both private and public," he says. "You want to be able to make the best choice you can that makes the most sense for both the community and the franchise."

That can only happen when the entire community is involved in the decision-making process.

Shapiro, a former San Francisco Giants executive, believes that the Las Vegas population base alone won't be enough to support a major league team. Any franchise, he says, will have to tap into the vast tourism market.

That was the premise Shapiro was operating under when he participated in the bid to bring the Montreal Expos here. A private group of investors Shapiro represented wanted to build a 40,000-seat stadium behind Bally's and Paris-Las Vegas on land owned by Caesars Entertainment. The bid fell short, losing out to Washington, D.C., but it opened baseball's eyes to Las Vegas.

If you subscribe to Shapiro's theory, a stadium site on the Strip would seemingly be a more attractive business venture than one downtown, far away from the biggest concentration of tourists.

But not everyone shares Shapiro's opinion.

"I don't see tourists becoming a huge part of the mix," says MGM Mirage Vice President Alan Feldman. "It's naive to assume that the resorts will be spending a lot of money on baseball when the money we're spending is on showrooms, restaurants and nightclubs."

So who's right? I certainly don't know, and I suspect Goodman doesn't know, either.

Yet this is one of many questions that need to be answered if we are to land a major league team.

It's a matter of doing our homework and showing baseball we are united as a community.

In the end getting a baseball team will have to be a team effort.