One Guarantee Sparked Larger Baseball Battle

A banner hangs along East Capitol St. SE in reaction to an amendment from D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp. (Jay Premack -- The Washington Post)

At a Nov. 5 news conference, Cropp said the stadium proposed for the Southeast waterfront was too expensive. She recommended building the ballpark on government land near RFK, a site she said would make the project cheaper. Baseball already had rejected the RFK site, however, and Cropp's announcement threw the deal into crisis.

Baseball officials put Reinsdorf on the phone with Cropp to explain their objections, but he did nothing more to woo her or the council. "We believed the mayor to be the representative of the city council negotiating the deal," said a high-ranking baseball official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The mayor, meanwhile, tried to work around Cropp. Williams tacked cash for community projects onto the stadium package, including $45 million to renovate public libraries. He gained council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) but lost Mendelson, who was more concerned about escalating costs.

On Nov. 9, the Williams administration said it had the votes, but Cropp controlled the agenda. She canceled a scheduled vote and demanded more time to work on her latest cost-cutting plan: private financing. She also told the mayor to go back to baseball officials and secure new concessions.

Barry said that Cropp told him she was trying to give Williams some "wiggle room to go to Major League Baseball and say, 'I can't get this through this council.' Then he would get a better deal."

On Dec. 2, Selig came to the District. He declared at a Greater Washington Board of Trade luncheon that baseball officials would not reopen negotiations. "A deal's been made," he told reporters.

Cropp sat next to Selig, but the two barely spoke. Afterward, baseball Executive Vice President John McHale Jr. offered to meet with Cropp, said Evans, who was present. Cropp declined, saying she had to attend a hearing. Williams, meanwhile, was out of town again and in no position to broker a compromise.

In the end, Major League Baseball did offer concessions. Cropp acknowledged that it met most of her demands. "There are actual concessions in that letter," Evans said. "She should have held it up and declared victory and gone home."

But by then, the council's mood was foul. Schwartz sunk her teeth into Item 7, contending that it did nothing to improve the stadium agreement.

Later, Schwartz could provide no information to support that argument. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), who joined the assault, acknowledged he had no facts, either.

"Look, nobody has any facts," Fenty said. "We were just connecting the dots."

Evans wearily blamed Cropp for crumpling in the face of "out-of-control rhetoric."

"She's really stepped into a nightmare," he said. "I have no idea what's going to happen."

Staff writers Thomas Heath, David Nakamura and Yolanda Woodlee contributed to this report.