Like, perhaps, a choice of dueling pistols vs. sabers?
Some think Angelos's indignation will reach such intensity that he'll explode from spontaneous combustion. Others assume Reinsdorf, the toughest customer Selig can send into battle, will cross swords with Angelos as the commissioner's surrogate.
| _____ Baseball Returns to D.C. _____
• Bud Selig announces that the troubled Montreal Expos will move to Washington, returning baseball to the nation's capital for the 2005 season.
• While the Expos aren't very good now, they have loads of potential.
• News Graphic: Time to settle down
• Q&A on the new team
• Graphic: Meet your Expos (PDF).
• Survey: What should we call D.C.'s new team? | Discuss.
• After having RFK to itself for eight years, D.C. United will share.
• Details sketchy on how regional sports network would operate.
• There was a time when the Expos were the envy of all of baseball.
• News Graphic: Coming full circle.
• D.C. region has suffered through an endless number of close calls.
• City officials, led by Mayor Anthony A. Williams, gleefully celebrate the end of a generation of frustration.
• District's offer described as very generous.
• News Graphic: Stadium strategy
• A majority of the D.C. Council supports the mayor's stadium plan.
• When the hoopla dies down, will D.C. still have baseball fever?
• In Virginia, some blame Gov. Warner for failure to lure Expos.
• More than 50 years ago, it was Baltimore that needed D.C.'s help.
• Orioles management had little to say Wednesday about the news.
• Expos final home game is marred by unruly fan behavior.
_____ Post Columnists _____
• Thomas Boswell: We are finally getting exactly what we wished for.
• Sally Jenkins: D.C. is getting a bad team and a potential financial mess.
• Michael Wilbon: There are only four choices for the name of the new club.
• Mike Wise: Talk to the old Nats, you realize baseball never left.
• George Solomon: Finally, Shirley Povich is looking down and smiling.
• Marc Fisher: Baseball's challenge is to connect with the black kids.
_____ Multimedia _____
• Video: D.C. residents have mixed feelings about the relocation.
• Video: D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams makes the announcement.
• Video: In 2003, a D.C. official details improvements to RFK.
• Video: The Post's Garcia-Ruiz on what still needs to be done at RFK.
• Audio: Ex-Senators announcer Ron Menchine on the proposed move.
• Audio: Ex-announcer Bob Wolf says D.C. team, Orioles can thrive.
_____ Live Online _____
• Post's Tom Heath was online Thursday. Read the transcript.
• The Post's J.J. McCoy took questions before Wednesday's announcement. Read the transcript.
_____ On Our Site _____
• The District has been without major league baseball for more than 30 years. Look back at a visual history of the Washington Senators.
• Eighty years ago, the Senators won their only world championship.
• What's your opinion?
| | |
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"Bud is a piece of work," said one bitter member of the Orioles family yesterday, not disguising his sense of betrayal. "And Reinsdorf, there's another great American."
However, those who know Selig assume that he has already laid a vast amount of groundwork to placate Angelos. "It's not a question of Bud 'standing up' to Peter," said one industry executive yesterday. "It's a matter of him having the imagination to satisfy Peter [financially]. And I think he'll be able to do it."
For months, various economic olive branches have been offered to the Orioles owner. However, Angelos ultimately has no actual right to block an Expos move to D.C., except to appeal to his fellow owners -- as one monopolist to 28 others -- to defend him and his perennial losing franchise from competition. It's a vile line of argument, but in baseball, base often works.
Why has baseball finally decided to decide? Because time has run out.
No Washington mayor is ever going to offer more than a 100 percent city-built, state-of-the-art ballpark. In fact, it may be too much to offer. Last week, three city council members won primaries who all claim they'll oppose using public funds for a park when they reach office next year. If baseball designates Washington as its choice for the Expos, then Mayor Anthony A. Williams still has the time, and presumably the votes, to fulfill his ballpark promise to baseball.
In theory, baseball could dither for another year. But all the economic and political factors are now aligned in the District -- although precariously. Everything from low interest rates to a decent economy to political support for baseball is in place. For now. "Time is the great killer to deals," said a District official yesterday.
"We all know a decision has to be made on Washington right now, one way or the other," a baseball official said yesterday.
What could cause that decision to go against the District?
First, there's a legal fight between baseball and the minority partners of the Expos that isn't concluded yet. If you have a spare decade, somebody can explain it to you. Baseball thinks it'll be solved soon. We shall see. It could gum the works.
Second, Angelos will use all his firepower to fight a team just 35 miles from Camden Yards. However, some in the game believe that he has lost control of events and, at this point, doesn't even have a grip on what will hit him tomorrow.
Third, the anti-baseball groundswell in D.C. politics might conceivably prevent Williams from delivering the stadium package that his people have negotiated, in minute detail, with Reinsdorf. However, that pitfall seems doubtful.
While Northern Virginia's best efforts have met with disappointment after disappointment, events have finally fallen into place for baseball in the District after an almost inconceivable third of a century of delay.
"I tell people I'll believe baseball is back in Washington after I actually see a game played there," a member of the relocation committee said yesterday.
"That's funny," I said. "I always say I'll believe it after the second game."
