RESTON, Va. -- The Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority is ignoring opposition from Arlington County and continuing to consider three county sites for a potential 40,000-seat stadium.
The authority, a state agency that receives its funding from a private group of investors seeking ownership of a Major League Baseball franchise, met Thursday night to evaluate its options after the Arlington County Board told the authority last week it will oppose efforts to put a stadium in the county.
Northern Virginia is competing with Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore., for the Montreal Expos, a financially troubled franchise that was taken over by the other 29 teams.
I still think that the Expos will play all there home games in Puerto Rico next year...and will be in downtown DC after that....
[b]Useless Trivia of the day[/b]
England's Worcester Canoe Club set the world record for paddling a hand-propelled bathtub. The 25 man team covered a distance of 55 miles, 425 yards in 24 hours on September 28 and 29, 1979.
Shitney™ wrote:closest stadium is Carolina League Salem Avalanche (A houston astros)
I might be wrong about this, but didn't Chin Hui Tsao pitch for Salem.... I'll have to check that out....
[b]Useless Trivia of the day[/b]
England's Worcester Canoe Club set the world record for paddling a hand-propelled bathtub. The 25 man team covered a distance of 55 miles, 425 yards in 24 hours on September 28 and 29, 1979.
quite possibly, before this season it was col rockies farm team.. however, the only games i went to were for thirsty thursday.. and thus i wasn't very interested in the actual games..
portland does not have a viable stadium, and is not willing to spend money to build one. the end of the boom 90s has dried up financial resources there neccesary to build a stadium mroe than in virgniaia or DC. there is also the problem of putting an NL East team in geographic west.
DC has RFK stadium (about 45000 seats) which can be used as an interim home until a new stadium is built. DC generally supports building a new stadium despite the cost-but is trying to deal with MLB about how much the city should pay. DC is getting impatient though.
Youppi wrote:There is also the problem of putting an NL East team in geographic west.
I would imagine that the Expos would join the AL West and the Pirates would join the NL East if they were to move to Portland. Despite the fact that I'm an A's fan, something needs to be done about that situation anyway. I've always thought that the Diamondbacks should join the AL West (they're the newest team) and the Astos should go to the NL West.
If I were an NL Cental fan I would always be pissed that my team only has a 1 in 6 chance of winning the division while the AL West teams have a 1 in 4 chance.
Thought I'd weigh in here on a couple of posts regarding Portland, which are highly erroneous.
I have a bit of expertise in this dept. as I work directly in the relocation process and serve as the Information Director for the Oregon Stadium Campaign, the group on the bid for the Expos.
In this capacity I have access to all the documents etc. that the League has delivered to all three jurisdictions in what kind of information is needed to make the judgement ultimately on the placement of the team.
Youppi mentioned that there was no interim facility. This is incorrect, as a matter of fact, it's one of the biggest advantages that Portland has over DC and Northern VA.
PGE Park holds just under 20,000, but per MLB's request, it will be augmented with an addition 5,000 temp seats to bring it to 25,000.
It just recently had a $35 million renovation done to it, so there are Luxury Suites, Filed Level Suites, and box seats... nice revenue drivers.
while RFK holds almost 50,000, there needs to be at least $15 million in renovation work for it to be MLB ready. PGE Park was ready yesterday with the temps seats the exception.
I have come here to this site at the request of Arlo Vander, who has interviewed me for the site here a while back when I was the Information Director of a group called the Oregon Baseball Campaign. We are now fully dissolved into the Stadium Campaign.
I would imagine that the Expos would join the AL West
Bud has said that the Expos would remain in the NL for the near term once relocated. That does bring up realignment issues. One would be the Expos joining the NL West and the Rockies moving into the AL West. Dbacks are very much opposed to jumping leagues.
Plus, can you see how the DH would play out in Coors Field? Might help them. Biggest thing is it gets 5 teams in the AL West, which is badly needed.
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by DieHardCubbie » Sun Jul 27, 2003 11:52 pm 
I'll have to check that out....
