This article talks of the advantages the A's would have if the Expos move to D.C. This is something I didn't think about... having the territorial rights situation broched in D.C. with Angelos opens the gates for Schott to challange Magowan. Portland looks better by the second. - TBGR

Baseball owners claimed labor fight, but A's, San Jose may be big winners

By Skip Bayless
Mercury News Staff Columnist

After weeks of player-bashing by misguided fans, the players ``got bashed'' in Friday's settlement, said A's representative Barry Zito.

Did they ever. Somewhere, former union bulldog Marvin Miller was clutching his heart. For the first time in nine negotiations spanning 30 years, a strike was averted because the players no longer could stomach the fan backlash.

``We showed we were very interested in not striking,'' Zito said.

So give them a break and a hand. Redirect your wrath at Bud's Duds, the smaller-market owners who have been killing the game's competitive balance by making so many idiotic decisions. If only they could be forced to sell their teams to smarter, wealthier buyers who had the option to move the teams to more lucrative markets.

What is this, the United States of Russia? Why should players -- uniquely gifted entertainers -- have to sacrifice for the incompetence of some owners protected by baseball's un-American antitrust exemption? This 80-year-old Supreme Court ruling gives baseball's commissioner the right to keep teams from moving. Since the last baseball team moved -- the Washington Senators to Texas in 1972 -- seven NFL teams, seven NBA teams and nine NHL teams have taken better deals in new cities.

But baseball players conceded billions in future income so cry-poor owners championed by Commissioner Bud Selig, whose family holds Milwaukee Brewers fans hostage, can remain in baseball's prestigious club. Shockingly, the players accepted a thinly veiled salary cap. They caved on a luxury tax and revenue sharing. They turned Bud Lite into Barry Bonds.

Yet some justice could still prevail. The owners' lone significant concession could benefit one small-market owner who's beating Bud's Duds at their small-minded game -- the A's Steve Schott.

The owners agreed not to increase the revenue they share by contracting teams -- and reducing the players' job market. But now the owners are stuck with a team once earmarked for contraction, the Montreal Expos. The obvious solution is to put the Expos up for sale, and their obvious destination would be the Washington, D.C., area.

Selig says no qualified buyer has come forward, but just wait. Bottom line: If struggling franchises in Milwaukee or Tampa Bay or Miami were put on the market, no strings attached, potential Steinbrenners would line up to bid for them. If those teams could be moved to D.C. or Portland or New Orleans or wherever, Bud's Duds could make new fortunes selling them.

But they no longer would have the ultimate all-access pass. No matter how bad an investment a baseball team might be -- without a look at the books, that remains debatable -- plenty of egomaniacs who have made anonymous fortunes would risk millions for the opportunity to be doused with champagne by baseball stars while accepting the World Series trophy on national TV.

Money can't buy that kind of household-name happiness anywhere but professional sports. Ask Mark Cuban.

But if Selig approves moving the Expos to the D.C. area -- and waiving the Baltimore-Washington territorial rights of Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos -- Pandora's Box will be unlocked for Schott. It's no secret Schott, a San Jose native, wants to move his A's to the South Bay. But Selig has upheld the territorial rights of Peter Magowan's Giants.

Magowan says about 80 percent of his biggest-in-baseball season-ticket base comes from San Mateo County down through the South Bay. No doubt the San Jose A's -- playing in a new stadium at least as inviting as Pacific Bell Park -- would lure away some Giants customers. Giants management would feel more pressure to provide a winner. Ain't that America?

The Washington Expos could provide Schott all the argument he needs to challenge baseball's antitrust exemption. Yet Schott would have to have some Al Davis in him -- some tolerance for being vilified and ostracized by other owners for bucking an 80-year-old system. In cities that might subsequently lose teams, Schott might go down as The Man Who Wrecked Baseball.

``I'm not sure I have the personality or stomach for that,'' a chuckling Schott said Saturday. ``Then again, I didn't get where I've gotten in business without taking risks. I can't tell you right now I'd challenge the antitrust, but if the Expos go to the Washington area, we'd have a pretty fair argument. You'd have to ask, `Would testing the system ultimately provide us the revenue stream to remain competitive with the Yankees?' ''

No doubt. But first, of course, Schott would have to secure a South Bay stadium site and funding that also would cover the buyout clause in the five-year deal the A's recently signed with Network Associates Coliseum. Then Schott would have to beat the exemption awarded to baseball in, fittingly, a 1922 Supreme Court case involving Baltimore's team.

Antitrust experts say the exemption wouldn't stand up in court under any circumstance. Vince Piazza, you'll remember, was preparing to challenge it in 1993 when baseball awarded the Giants to Magowan for a reported $15 million less than Piazza had offered. Piazza wanted to move them to St. Petersburg, Fla. He accepted a $6 million settlement to drop his case.

So whether or not the Expos are allowed to invade Baltimore's space, Schott could take a shot. I say he would win. Go, Steve, go. Down with Bud's Duds.

A man has to have goals- for a day, for a lifetime- that was mine, to have people say, "There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived." - Ted Williams

[This message was edited by TeddyBallgameRules on Sep 02, 02 at 10:37 PM.]