This interesting thought comes courtesy of Tampa On Line:

quote:

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The Tampa Bay Expos? With Baseball,
You Really Never Know

JOE HENDERSON
Published: Aug 21, 2001

This is directed at Devil Rays fans.
All six of you.

We know you like those fresh-faced munchkins doing battle for our local nine these days. Jason Tyner, Joe Kennedy, Brent Abernathy, Toby Hall. It was love at headfirst-slide. The dirtier their uniforms, the more you root for them. You smile at the future, imagining the wins when guys such as Josh Hamilton join them at Tropicana Field in a year or two.

We interrupt this dream to bring you the following news bulletin:

The Tampa Bay Expos?

Well, maybe.

Under a plan actively being considered at the top levels of baseball, the Rays could be folded after this season and replaced at Tropicana Field by the Expos.

Or, the Rays could remain the Rays, but under completely new ownership that likely would sweep the team's front offices with an industrial-sized broom. A far, far less likely development would be for baseball to fold the Rays and take its chances with the blizzard of legal briefs sure to be filed from Pinellas County.

Either way, they appear to be at ground zero for some unprecedented changes in Major League Baseball - that is, if Commissioner Bud Selig isn't just trying to bluff the players union and really pushes ahead with his ambitious plan to shake up the game.

The Rays already have been shaken.

The club announced last week the JP Morgan investment banking company is researching options for the Rays' current ownership group, including a sale of the franchise.

While no names of potential buyers for the Rays publicly have surfaced, interest in the franchise apparently is strong. A sale to a new group could be much closer than the Rays have led people to believe.

Top-level sources say it is "50-50" whether the Rays will be sold, or give way to another team in St. Petersburg.


Stadium Wars Could Happen Again

What's it all mean? It's impossible to say for certain, but we can take some educated guesses.

If the Rays fold and are replaced, a new team probably wouldn't have to assume the lease at Tropicana Field, which runs through 2027. Here we go again? Pinellas-Hillsborough Stadium War II?

It's a lot simpler if the Rays are sold to a new owner and continue to play at the Trop. Their lease stays in place, and fans don't have to trade Ben Grieve jerseys for ones with Vladimir Guerrero on the back.

All the talk of folding franchises could just be a warning shot to players union chief Don Fehr for the upcoming labor negotiations, of course. Or a bargaining chip to be cashed for other concessions.

If it is a ruse, though, it is a very good one. Selig really believes he can solve a lot of the game's problems through contraction, and now he might have owners willing to cash out and leave.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday that Marlins' owner John Henry could get a $250 million payoff for folding his team. We can guess that Montreal has the same offer, but what if that money went to the Rays and, instead, the Expos get to be the only team in Florida?

The Rays are players in this because their owners can't get along. They remain cash poor because the general partners of lead owner Vince Naimoli refuse to put any more money into the team. At least some of the partners are intrigued by the chance to break even by unloading their ownership shares and letting the troubled franchise become someone else's problem.

Baseball still sees Tampa Bay as a desirable market, but Selig understands the franchise can't continue under paralyzed ownership. If Naimoli and his partners can't complete a sale of the team, Selig might be tempted to include the Rays in his overhaul.

Just in case, baseball has drawn up several tentative schedules for next season. Some of them don't include the Rays.


Devil Rays Tried Misdirection Play

Unfortunately, the Rays have done just about everything possible to increase suspicion that something sinister is afoot.

Take last Monday, for instance. The Rays waited until kickoff of the Bucs-Dolphins exhibition game to announce they had hired JP Morgan, then the club's top officers scattered like mallards on the opening day of hunting season.

They knew the local media would be en masse at Raymond James Stadium, so the cynical timing of the release - it was deliberate - only adds to the impression they have something to hide.

They also announced to the media that any sale likely wouldn't happen until well after this season, but we hear different. Contrary to that smoke screen, we hear sale talks are much further along than the Rays have suggested.

Baseball is used to playing this game, as we all know.

Top sources like to float seemingly believable scenarios, then blame it on the godless, irresponsible media if the plans fall apart.

So we'll see if this one is any different. Maybe Selig is trying to stare down the union with the potential loss of two teams, or maybe the owners will do what they always do - fold.

Insiders say the wise baseball fan will keep an eye on owners meetings next month in Milwaukee. Although these meetings typically promise more action than they deliver, owners are nearing the time when some big decisions need to be made.

Rays fans only can wonder if their future holds Hamilton or Guerrero. Is Naimoli part of the picture? Expos owner Jeff Lurie? Or some millionaire we haven't met? American League or National?

The answers should come soon.

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Boy, that's an odd idea. Yikes.


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?

Favorite quote:

"Top sources like to float seemingly believable scenarios, then blame it on the godless, irresponsible media if the plans fall apart."

Uh-huh. CBA coming up, man. Expect more and more (or is that "less"?) "believable scenarios" in the weeks to come. "¢

Portland in the National League.

That has got to be the weirdest scenerio I have heard yet! I still believe contraction is a complete ploy. The un-named potential owners I would guess are the DC group, they already were looking at the financial books of the D-rays and they have the money to pay off the lease of tropicana with billionaires in the group. I think three teams will end up moving the D-Rays, Expos and A's but no one will be contracted.

I think you may be right, dean.

While I personally consider it a mistake to dismiss contraction as casually as so many people do, and while I believe that it is possible that we will have two teams contracted, I do think think it will happen in the end.

I also have this (possibly irrational) belief that the A's will end up staying put. But the next year will certainly be interesting....


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?

quote:

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Just in case, baseball has drawn up several tentative schedules for next season. Some of them don't include the Rays.

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This was something I speculated on earlier. Could one of these schedules have "Portland" written on it somewhere?

Look for more of these mysterious schedules to be "leaked" to the press as the CBA talks heat up. Selig must have a bottomless bag of tricks!

T'aint Selig leaking....


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?

And people thought I was crazy when I suggested the Marlins might be moved to Tampa Bay to fulfill the lease...

I'm telling ya, there are some crazy scenarios being proposed out there. None of which, in my opinion, will solve any of baseball's problems -- at least if contraction is involved. It just moves somebody else to the bottom of the pile.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chicago Cubs -- Back-to-back World Series Champions 1907-1908
EAMUS CATULI -- AC125693

Oh, you're still crazy. You just have plenty of company.


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?