This article is from the 09/17/02 edition of the Portland Tribune

Portland Tribune Article

Portland may be in Expos mix

Languishing Montreal team could be seeking greener grass as early as next season

BY KERRY EGGERS
The Tribune

Portland is in the middle of Major League Baseball's site search for relocation.

The Montreal Expos will move, though experts disagree on whether that will happen next season or in 2004. Bought and operated by MLB this year after years of poor attendance and financial difficulties, the Expos are last in the majors in attendance. The club, which drew 2,134 for a game last week, is expected to lose more than $30 million this season.

Drew Mahalic, chief executive officer of the Portland Oregon Sports Authority, says he took a call last week from a high-ranking major league executive.

"He said after they ratify the (recently agreed-upon) labor agreement, baseball will turn its attention to the Expos' situation," Mahalic says. "They want to make a comprehensive assessment (of relocation). When the time comes, Portland will be duly considered, he says.

"This is the first time we have had that kind of sound bite from them,'' he says. "We are spending a lot of time on this because we think we have a legitimate chance for something to happen for Portland."

Last week, Montreal online columnist Marty York wrote that the Expos could be sold to Paul Allen and moved to Portland in time for the 2003 season. "Negotiations are taking place right now," York quoted a source as saying.

A Blazer front-office executive, speaking privately, told the Tribune the report was untrue. "I know of no recent discussions with anybody in baseball," the executive said.

Allen's involvement, or lack of involvement, is academic, according to one person in the movement to bring a major league team to Portland.

"Getting major league baseball in Portland is not dependent on Paul Allen," says Lynn Lashbrook, president of the Oregon Baseball Campaign. "I don't see Paul, with his sports empire and cable network, sitting on the sideline, but it doesn't matter if he does. Ownership will surface if we build a stadium."

Portland does not have a stadium suitable for major league play. PGE Park could be adjusted to serve about 25,000 fans and would be OK on an interim basis.

Lashbrook and Steve Kanter of the Portland Baseball Group, which has been involved in trying to land a major league club for three years, say a bill will be reintroduced in the next legislative session dedicating players' income tax to repaying the state's contributions toward construction of a new stadium.

"You would raise $150 million over a 20-year span," Lashbrook says. "I am confident it could be sold as an economic-stimulus package."

Published reports in recent weeks have suggested that all sorts of things might happen to the Expos, including home games at several sites next season.

ESPN.com's Rob Neyer suggested the Expos could play 20 games apiece in Washington, D.C., Portland, Charlotte, N.C., and Las Vegas, allowing MLB to gauge fan interest in each city through an audition of sorts. It seems unlikely, however, that the players' union would stand for that.

A source told the Washington Post, "If the Expos are moved for next season, it would temporarily be to a city other than Washington." That could mean one season in Portland, or elsewhere, before a move to the nation's capital in 2004.

Were that to happen, major league baseball would have to deal with the territorial rights of the Triple-A Portland Beavers, who have lost millions of dollars in their two seasons at PGE Park.

"It would surely mean relocation of the Beavers, and there would be some sort of indemnity paid to us," says Mark Schuster, president of Portland Family Entertainment, which operates the Beavers. "We have had no conversation with anybody."

Montreal isn't the only big league franchise that might be moving in the next few years. The Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays draw poorly and also seem destined for relocation, especially with the recent agreement that baseball won't consider contraction again until 2007.

"That absolutely means the process of finding
viable relocation sites accelerates," Kanter says.

Other contenders

The leading contender is thought to be the Washington, D.C.-Northern Virginia area, which has three groups identified as candidates for ownership. The area has several factors stacked against its bid, however.

Baltimore owner Peter Angelos objects to a franchise so close to the Orioles and will do what he can to strong-arm fellow owners into a territorial rights verdict. The D.C.-Northern Virginia area has no suitable long-term stadium, and RFK Stadium would need a $5 million spruce-up to be ready for interim use. And 14 former minority owners in the group that sold the Expos to MLB have filed a lawsuit charging that MLB and former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria conspired under federal antiracketeering laws to defraud them.

"If baseball sold the Expos to a midlevel market like Portland, that undercuts the plaintiffs' claim," Kanter says. "Washington has a lot of legal and political problems we don't have on the short term. Eventually, it may be a place to move a team. For now, I think the probability of the Expos going there is very small."

A couple of years ago, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by major league owners recommended New Jersey in the event of relocation.

"The idea would be to put a third team in the New York area and, eventually, in the Los Angeles area," says Tracy Ringolsby, senior baseball writer for the Rocky Mountain News. The Yankees and Mets would object, "but you could blow up the ticket prices and help with revenue sharing and offset money taken from George (Steinbrenner)."
No ownership group has yet been identified in New Jersey, however.

Portland's chances to get in on relocation over the next five years?

"I would say it's a long shot," Ringolsby says.
Ringolsby and Stephanie Myles, Expos beat writer the last five years for the Montreal Gazette, both believe that the club will play next season in Montreal.

"In anything it does, baseball moves at the speed of a glacier," Myles says. "When contraction was being considered this year, I would have bet my house against it. They are not going to stay in Montreal for four years. They will obviously move the team, and I am sure they will consider Portland. But they will want to get all their ducks in a row before they make any decision, and I don't think it will happen in time for next season. Hey, spring training is just five months away."

If baseball were to commit the Expos to Portland for only next season, "we would be open to that," Kanter says. "After that, it would be pretty clear what steps we would need to take to get one permanently."

Contact Kerry Eggers at keggers@portlandtribune.com.