Dave Betancourt | Sports Section Manager

3/22/02

Washington D.C has been without baseball since the Washington Senators left to become the Texas Rangers in 1971.  Now everyone knows D.C. is and always will be a football city and that the Redskins are always going to be the number one ticket in town, but the people of D.C. have always expressed a desire to bring the once national pastime back to the nations capital.

Now more than ever baseball returning to Washington seems like a real possibility. Baseball is going through some serious financial problems. Well, not all of baseball, just a few teams in general.  Teams like the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays are all in financial crisis.  The bottom line is these teams aren't making any money.  The Expos have been in a rut for years, they're lucky if they can draw 5,000 fans on a given night.  Those kinds of numbers are horrible in terms of what the average baseball team draws.

The Marlins and Expos flat out should not have been created.  Baseball was crazy to think that they could support two teams in Florida.  The Dolphins are the biggest thing in Florida and they can't even sell out Pro-Player Stadium, so for baseball to think they would hit a gold mine in the sunshine state was pretty dumb.

The first solution from major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig was to contract the teams that were making the least money and struggling.   The teams he considered were of course the Expos, Marlins and Devil Rays. Funny how he didn't want to contract the Milwaukee Brewers, who suck just as bad as the aforementioned teams, but Selig owns the Brewers and his daughter runs the team.  Go figure.

The solution is pretty simple.  If you have to contract a couple of teams then so be it, but at least one of those teams can be relocated to D.C.   Whether it be the Expos or Marlins or whoever doesn't matter, just put a team in the district.  D.C. has shown over the years that they are a sports loving city that always supports their teams.  The Redskins have a 30 year waiting list before you can even be considered for season tickets, the Wizards had a good fan base even before Michael Jordan got their and they sucked.  The Mystics have been the WNBA's top ticket selling team for four straight years and the Caps get strong support despite choking in the playoffs every year.

There is no other city in the nation that should get more consideration for a baseball team than Washington.  There's only one problem though and that problem is the Baltimore Orioles.  The Orioles and their owner Peter Angelos (who is single handedly responsible for their demise) have gone crying to baseball like they do every time D.C. is considered a place for relocation, and have said that the D.C./Baltimore area can't support two baseball teams.

For some odd reason Angelos thinks that he owns the rights to the D.C. area.  Representatives for the Orioles have said that if a team were put in D.C. that it would kill the Orioles financially because a large sum of their fan base comes from the D.C./Maryland/Northern Virginia area.  This of course is a big bunch of bull.  If the D.C area was so vital to Baltimore sports then the Ravens wouldn't be as successful as they've been.  And besides if D.C. does get a team it'll be in the National League and not the American League.  And imagine the revenue it would create once interleague play came around, it'd be bigger than the Yankees vs. Mets.

Major league baseball needs to stop being so scared of Angelos.  He's a lawyer not Tony Soprano.  If D.C. gets a team, give Angelos a financial settlement and tell him to shut the hell up.  It's pathetic that cities like Miami and Atlanta have baseball teams and their fans can't even sell out playoff games.  Get baseball in D.C where it belongs and baseball will see its economic problems slowly start to go away.