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City is acting anything but major league
By John Canzano
The Oregonian
Friday, May 21, 2004

So this is how it's going to be -- an exercise in torture, with Portland merrily serving as Major League Baseball's over-eager, silly, played-out instrument.

The small-town tune played on Thursday.

This time you could hear the notes bouncing off City Hall's pink walls, where Mayor Vera Katz gathered with civic leaders to announce that Portland, get this -- really, really, really wants major league baseball.

"We're in the seventh-inning stretch, and the top of the order is coming up," Katz crowed.

I don't know why -- maybe it was all the lawyers present in the room or the hot-seat feel of council chambers -- but her words made me think of Demi Moore's young, overeager character in a courtroom scene of the movie, "A Few Good Men."

You know the part.

Moore didn't just object.

She strenuously objected.

Portland doesn't just want baseball.

It strenuously wants baseball. It wants baseball so badly that it's willing to serve as MLB's biggest pawn, spitting corny baseball metaphors to the sad end.

If you take them at their word, our city's leaders actually still think this is Portland vs. Washington, D.C., vs. Northern Virginia vs. Las Vegas vs. others. Even as the leaders seem to understand how Portland, now close to completing a stadium finance plan, surely is being used.

"Why would you want to narrow down the cities at any time?" Katz said. "When we went to New York, there wasn't anything organized, just (instructions from MLB to) 'go do good work.' "

So it went to work.

Portland put together this stadium finance plan, studied potential ballpark sites, contracted with a company that will hone ballpark cost information and Thursday called a desperate news conference in which Oregon Stadium Campaign's David Kahn said, "Since we started this process, it's never been about just one franchise."

Not just about the Expos?

Kahn even floated a rumor about there being two other potential teams.

If the leaders from the nation's capital could have witnessed this scene, it would have spoiled commissioner Bud Selig's little ruse. D.C. would have sniffed out the small-town mentality and quickly realized just how much leverage it actually has in this so-called "competition" for the Expos.

This isn't a competition. This is a waiting period designed to push Washington, D.C., as far as it's willing to go to get the Expos. And if D.C. isn't ready, the hunch here is that we'll be doing this all over again a year from now.

Kahn's two "other" franchises?

Not the Oakland Athletics.

"The A's are not interested in moving to Portland," said Sam Spear, the public relations manager who handles A's co-owner Steve Schott. "The A's are committed to finding a site for a 40,000-seat stadium in the Bay Area. That's the reason Steve bought a part of the team in the first place -- to keep it in the Bay Area."

Not the Florida Marlins.

The Marlins are one step closer to getting their own stadium in South Florida after a private party signed a $25 million contract this week to buy the Miami Arena and turn it into a parking structure.

And not the Minnesota Twins, not while state officials in Minnesota are active putting together their stadium finance plan.

It's easy to understand why our civic leaders want baseball in Portland. The economic impact is clear. The esteem factor is clear. But leaders are supposed to be grounded and smart, and when you see how giddy everyone is, and how clearly Portland is being played, what we're left with is a big city that is acting small.

So welcome to Mayberry, America.

Someone let me know when the bottom of the seventh starts.

John Canzano: 503-294-5065; JohnCanzano@aol.com