FRANCHISE D.C. eyes assurance baseball is coming

Washington, D.C., wants a commitment before it puts a tax package in place.
By STEVE GOLDSTEIN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- As other favored cities savor pennant races and baseball's mid-season All-Star Game, officials in the nation's capital are playing their own kind of hardball.
The District of Columbia is vying with neighboring Northern Virginia and with Portland, Ore., to become the new home of the Montreal Expos, who draw poorly in Canada. Once facing contraction, the Expos have been launched like the Flying Dutchman into the void by Major League Baseball, playing 22 home games in Puerto Rico.
Washington, which aches from the loss of baseball 32 years ago -- some say the wrong Senators left town -- has been ardently pursuing the Expos. But now, as baseball dangles the prospect of a decision by next week, the capital's politicos are aiming their pitch high and tight.
D.C. council member Jack Evans said he is fed up with what he perceives as baseball's strategy of playing the contenders off against one another, thereby upping the ante and sweetening the pot for baseball's establishment.
New stadium
The ante, of course, is a new stadium for the new team. Major League Baseball, which took over the Expos last year, wants the public to pay for most or all of a new stadium.
D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams has offered the inducement of a $339 million stadium-financing package and three possible downtown sites for a ballpark.
Evans has been critical of the mayor's generosity, and his opinion counts. As chairman of the council's finance committee, Evans is the guy who has to shepherd through the tax package to pay for the stadium.
Late last month, Williams told baseball officials he could not proceed with the financing package until baseball commits to Washington. In fact, Williams was just acknowledging the power of Evans, his fellow Democrat, who announced that baseball's "sweetheart deal" from the mayor was "gone."
Proposal
When a baseball official proposed a compromise involving "provisional" passage of a funding bill by the council, Evans invited the official to "stick" the proposal "where the sun don't shine."
Last week, a group of MLB officials scheduled and then canceled a meeting with Evans. Baseball officials said it was no big deal, they would reschedule. Evans said they probably wanted to avoid a media circus.
"I want baseball here as much as anyone," Evans said, "but until baseball says they are coming here, we are not putting a tax package in place. You say you're coming to Washington, and I will say I will build you a stadium."
Williams has been more cautious.
"Baseball has the upper hand. That's the way it is," he said. "We should be careful trying to change this dynamic and, in the process, losing the chance of a team."
Declined
Bobby Goldwater, director of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, declined to address the Evans offensive.
"Baseball has told me that they still expect to have a recommendation [on relocation] by the All-Star Game next week, and we know there's no better place than Washington," said Goldwater.
Evans believes that Washington is the only sane choice.
"To put a team in Portland, with all that rain, makes no sense," he said. "You'd be creating another Montreal there."Neither Portland nor Northern Virginia has completed a potential financing package; nor has the issue been quite as contentious in those jurisdictions. But residents of Arlington, Va., who oppose a stadium in their neighborhood, have formed a group called Arlingtonians for Baseball in D.C.