By Alan Goldenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Last October, Henry Champ was at a friend's birthday party when he ran into D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. The conversation steered toward construction of the new Nationals Park and whether it would be completed in time for Opening Day.

After being assured it would, Champ asked Fenty if the stadium could be ready for another new idea. "We told him that the city has never had a high school baseball championship," Champ said.

Fenty, who later called the idea "a no-brainer," told Champ to form a fundraising and organizing committee to plan the event along with the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. The result is the D.C. High School Baseball Classic, scheduled for May 31. It will be an all-day affair capped by an all-star game and a matchup of the District's top public school team and one from a top D.C. private school, to be televised on Comcast SportsNet.

The goal is to spark interest in the game among District students, and the nonprofit D.C. High School Baseball Classic Inc. is funneling all profits back to D.C. Sports and Entertainment for the purpose of refurbishing baseball fields in the District. Champ, a Washington correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and chairman of the newly formed nonprofit, said the group has raised more than enough to cover its $36,129 in expenses to use the stadium for the day.

A pair of Montgomery County schools found a different way onto the field at Nationals Park for a game tonight. Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Whitman will wrap up their regular seasons there as part of a pilot program with the Nationals' group ticket sales department. B-CC and Whitman won't have any costs up front to play at the stadium, but they said they must each sell a minimum of 250 tickets to a future Nationals game.

The two games offer a look at how the Nationals are opening the $611 million, publicly financed facility for community use. The D.C. Classic will be one of the 18 days annually that the team, per its lease agreement with the city, operates the stadium for D.C. Sports and Entertainment. Tonight's game between B-CC and Whitman is not one of those days, but is the first of a pilot program the team is developing with an aim similar to the D.C. Classic -- generating interest in baseball among the area's youth.

"It's part of our outreach program," Barbara Silva, the Nationals' director of community relations, said of tonight's game. "As the years progress, we hope this becomes a huge part of high school baseball in the D.C. area, where maybe we'd get a Maryland team and a Virginia team that wouldn't normally play each other."

Organizers of the D.C. Classic did not learn of the deal that led to tonight's game until last week, and Champ was not happy his group was not afforded a similar arrangement.

"We think this is gouging, at the best," Champ said. "Considering the city gave [Nationals Park] to them at $611 million, [the Nationals] should be a little more charitable. You'd think the Nationals would be saying to themselves, 'Oh, what the hell, let them in for free.' "

According to Michael Shapiro, the Nationals' senior vice president of business affairs, who has been handling the negotiations with D.C. Sports and Entertainment, tonight's game and the D.C. Classic are "two different types of events."

The biggest difference is the projected attendance. Nationals officials are expecting a crowd of about 200 to 300 for the game between B-CC and Whitman. Champ and Shapiro each estimate a crowd of about 5,000 for the D.C. Classic, of which The Washington Post is a sponsor.

"It's nowhere near the same scale," Shapiro said, adding that tonight's game requires the ballpark open for the late afternoon and early evening, while the D.C. Classic will utilize the stadium from early in the morning to near midnight.

Unlike the D.C. Classic, tonight's game also will not feature the high-definition scoreboard in center field. The cost, including labor, to operate the scoreboard for the D.C. Classic is $15,240, according to Champ. Additional costs, Champ said, include $8,100 for cleanup and trash removal, $5,720 for security, $4,149 for stadium staff, $1,800 for an ambulance and EMS staff on site, and $1,120 for a grounds crew.

Shapiro said the Nationals "are providing services, but we don't have as much to do with producing the event. We're operating the building for the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission."

The operating costs, which Champ said have been negotiated down from "as high as $55,000," are still being discussed with Nationals ownership.

"The costs are the costs, and we are negotiating them with the Lerners," said Bill Hall, head of D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission's baseball committee. "We have to reach a final cost in the not-too-distant future in order for this to happen," likely by the end of the week.

According to the agreement between the Nationals and the District for the city to finance the construction of the stadium, the Nationals "will provide attractive and meaningful programs designed to keep Major League Baseball games affordable for youth to be distributed through programs operated in partnership with the District of Columbia public schools."

The D.C. Classic is one such program. It will begin at 9:30 a.m. May 31 with the top two D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association teams playing for the public school title. That will be followed by a game pitting two top District private schools, then an all-star game featuring seniors from 22 public and private high schools. The final game of the event matches the public and private school champions.

In the spirit of the D.C. Classic's mission, all spectators 17 and under will be admitted free. Adults will be charged $5.

"I hope the Nationals live up to their end of the agreement," said Frazier O'Leary, Cardozo High School's longtime baseball coach. "I don't think they've done enough yet. We would like to have a lot more of a partnership with the Nationals."