This article is from the 09/03/02 edition of the Portland Tribune

Major league pact encourages Portland group

It may be that the new collective bargaining agreement will work in favor of those trying to bring major league baseball to Portland.

That is the hope, at least, of Lynn Lashbrook, the Portland-based sports agent and academician who calls the labor deal "the best news I have had since I started working on (the Oregon Baseball Campaign) six years ago."

To Lashbrook, the most significant section of the agreement was the stipulation there will be no contraction for at least four years.

"That's the same thing as saying there is going to be relocation," Lashbrook says.

Washington, D.C., is expected to be the city to replace the franchise most likely to move "” Montreal, currently owned by major league baseball and drawing crowds worthy of the Double-A level. There also have been discussions that the Expos might rotate home games among as many as four cities (perhaps Washington, Portland, Las Vegas and Charlotte, N.C.) in 2003, working around the Triple-A schedule in each city.

That seems a bit far-fetched. But, if Portland plays its cards right, there is no reason it can't be in line to land the next franchise to move (Oakland? Florida?).