In Portland, Oregon (where Jeff Bower and I will be for a BP Pizza Feed in March), there are some developments that have suddenly made Portland the front-runner in convincing baseball to move another team to the West Coast.
Team Health Report: Pittsburgh Pirates February 2003
Last week I talked a little about possible homes for the Expos, profiling a number of cities often included in discussions about relocation. Well, according to reports, the big three contenders–Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and Portland, Oregon–are slated to make presentations to Major League Baseball on March 20th and 21st. MLB’s major priority in selecting a place to move the team is not long-term viability, or strength of ownership, or anything like that. No, as you’d expect, it’s the funding, location, and construction of a new ballpark.
(Sigh.)