After a decade of lobbying, promise making and plan changing, the executives and officials trying to bring a Major League Baseball team to Virginia believed they had one last chance.
Gov. Mark R. Warner had joined key lawmakers in balking at Virginia's plans for financing a new 42,500-seat stadium. But baseball negotiators, hungry for political certainty, had presented a radical idea: Could Virginia officials simply agree to give the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue expected from the ballpark to baseball or team owners, who would then finance the ballpark themselves?
| _____ 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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Members of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority rushed to secure assurances from Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore that such handouts -- totaling about $1 billion over 30 years in one scenario -- were legal. Projections showed that once construction costs were covered, hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue could be left over for baseball or team owners to pocket, authority Chairman Keith Frederick said.
"They are taking more of the risk and getting more of the upside. That's business," Warner (D) said in an interview yesterday. "My responsibility was to guard the fiscal situation for the taxpayers."
The last-minute proposal, which emerged even as baseball officials were pushing ahead with negotiations with Washington officials about financing a stadium in the city, appears to have foundered, people involved with Virginia's bid said. Efforts continued to sweeten the deal by adding sources of revenue, but those, too, seem to have failed, those involved said.
Warner said the Montreal Expos appear headed to Washington, lured by a more generous financial package than Virginians could muster. He said the District's plan was $100 million better for baseball. "It's clear that the league is leaning towards the District," Warner said, adding that he thinks Northern Virginia "is still in the picture."
But what seemed to be the harried end to Virginia's long effort followed broader weaknesses and political missteps that plagued the state's bid and helped block a deal that Virginia insiders said was tantalizingly close.
"It's an error. This one bounced off the glove," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), a fervent fan who had discussions with baseball officials and was kept abreast of progress on bids from both Virginia and Washington.
"They wanted to put it in Virginia if they were able to. They weren't able to," Davis said, referring to baseball officials. "The District was able to give Major League Baseball the assurances they need, and Virginia was not. . . . The political leaders couldn't put it together, and in D.C. they did."
In the high-stakes, and highly secretive, process of bidding to host a team, "assurances" translate as dollars. Major League Baseball is exempt from antitrust laws, and owners can veto a move to a new home. In a twist, baseball's 29 team owners also own the Expos, giving them a direct financial stake in getting a high price for the franchise.
The District's $440 million plan to finance and build a ballpark using business taxes and stadium-related revenue is good for the sale price for two basic reasons: A team is worth more if it comes bundled with a new facility; and potential buyers can pay more for the Expos because they don't have to pay construction costs and are responsible only for annual rent payments.
Frederick argued that the late-blooming plan to channel Virginia's tax revenue to the baseball or team owners would be better for the Expos' owners and Major League Baseball in the long run.
"The District was offering a dedicated tax revenue source not tied to ballpark performance, which is the traditional way these deals are done," Frederick said, while Virginia was offering "all revenues pledged in the project. . . . In the end, the upside is much bigger."
A source close to the negotiations said a group separate from the Virginia authority talked with Major League Baseball officials as recently as last weekend to try to attract the team to Loudoun County. The offer fell short, and talks stalled, the source said.
