This article is from the Friday October 11th 2002 Portland tribune

Fair Game:

If Expos roam next season,Portland could get a visit

The latest word from inside major league baseball is that the Expos likely will stay in Montreal for the 2003 season.

But the National League club may play a home series or two in one or more other cities, which very well could include Portland.

We are hearing Major League Baseball is considering that, and we would like that to happen,says Drew Mahalic, chief executive officer of the Portland Oregon Sports Authority. Our proposal asks for that opportunity, if it should come to that.

Potential ownership groups in Washington, D.C., are taking the opposite viewpoint. The nation's capital wouldn't be interested in taking the Expos for the entire season if there wasn't a guarantee that the move would be a permanent one.

I am almost certain the answer is no, D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission chairman John Richardson told the Washington Times. There would have to be a lot of money spent on RFK Stadium to get it in shape for major league baseball, and somebody will have to pay for that.

PGE Park, meanwhile, would be a perfect site for a series or two.

We have suites, we would actively pursue local sponsorship, and we would have no trouble selling out 25,000 or so seats for as many games as they would give us, Mahalic says.

Corey Busch, a former San Francisco Giants executive retained by Commissioner Bud Selig to do marketing analysis on potential relocation of the Expos, would confirm only that Portland is one of many sites he has visited.

With the lawsuit against Major League Baseball by the former owners of the Expos scheduled to begin Nov. 8, Busch says he isn't sure what kind of timetable is to be met before a decision is made.

Everybody in the decision-making mode understands there are timing issues involved, he says. But we haven't set a timetable, and there is no indication when it might be resolved.

Says Mahalic: I would hope a determination could be made by Thanksgiving.

An Expos employee for the past four years thinks an exhibition could work in Portland. If they sold out a series and indicated great interest in a team, it would help in the eyes of major league baseball, says Don Reynolds, the Corvallis native and Portland resident who recently resigned after four years in the Expos' front office.

I think it would be a great attraction in the city, as long as they didn't fleece the team of all its assets, he says, in reference to such stars as Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Vidro and Bartolo Colon.

Reynolds, 49, has spent the past 15 years with the Seattle, Houston, Texas and Montreal organizations, mostly in scouting. The older brother of ESPN's Harold Reynolds, he wants to stay in baseball but hopes he can get a position in player development.