Off Wing Opinion

Recognizing that a growing number of its residents are passionately opposed to hosting a baseball stadium, the Board of Arlington County, Virginia told the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority that they would resist any attempt to place a stadium in the county.

For those of you unfamiliar with Washington, D.C. geography, Arlington sits opposite the District of Columbia on the other side of the Potomac River. A number of the sites that were under consideration for a stadium in the county would have provided some excellent views of the monuments on the National Mall.

The decision is hardly surprising, given the fact that Northern Virginians have proved particularly adept at foiling large scale development plans that don't suit their tastes. Back in the 1990s, the late Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke was prevented from building a Football stadium with his own money in the Potomac Yards section of Alexandria, Va. -- a site just a few minutes South of one of the proposed Baseball stadium site. In addition, community activists further West near the site of the Civil War battlefields near Manassas blocked Walt Disney from building a theme park.

The Stadium Authority has vowed to fight on, but the fact of the matter remains that the most attractive sites were all in Arlington, a bedroom community where local Democrats dominate politics. The only alternate sites ever mentioned for a Virginia stadium were near Dulles Airport in Western Fairfax/Eastern Loudoun Counties; or in Springfield in Southern Fairfax County near I-95. Neither area is well served by public transportation, meaning roads that are already overloaded at rush hour would have to accomodate thousands more locals rushing to a ballgame.

Baseball in Virginia was always a long-shot proposition. Now it's a no-shot, just like Washington's prospects.

Because I spent most of my evening reading, I didn't bother to watch ESPN's "mock trial" of Pete Rose. In case you missed it too, the 12 person "jury" voted 8-4 to allow Rose into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

As for me, I've changed my mind a few times. As a college senior in 1989, I was all about giving Rose a free pass when it came to whatever he might have done. After all, he was the prime example of how a player of limited ability could overcome his limitations and become one of the greats. And he did it all with guts and grit.

Characters like that make you want to forgive. But as I made the long march to my 30s, my feelings for Rose gradually grew colder. After all, I'd hear plenty of excuses about "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, but few seemed to care about getting him admitted to the Hall pothtumously. And betting on Baseball is the singularly most damaging act anyone involved in the game can commit. There is simply nothing else a player could do to more seriously undermine the game.

For a time some months ago, in the midst of Rose's negotiations with Bud Selig over a potential reinstatement, I seemed to settle on this solution: as long as Rose would admit to gambling and apologize, the Baseball writers ought to consider him for inclusion in the Hall. However, given his history of gambling, Rose should be permanently banned from ever holding a job in Major League Baseball ever again. The risk that he might have a relapse and compromise the integrity of the game is simply too great. Further, if he does manage to get elected (not exactly a sure thing, and time is running out for him), his plaque ought to include an explanation of his banishment from the game.

But after this latest round of televised silliness, I've felt my position harden once more. Rather than continuing to consider Rose for reinstatement back into Baseball, I think it's time for the Hall of Fame to create a permanent exhibit examining Rose's career in its totality: everything he achieved on the field combined with the issues surrounding Rose's gambling problem, and the late Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti's actions to eject Rose from Baseball permanently.

That way, Rose's achievements on the field (which, in an historical context ought not be ignored by a museum like the Hall) will be recognized, along with an explanation as to why the individual who did so much with so little raw talent would never been enshrined alongside his peers.

POSTSCRIPT: John Jackson of the Chicago Sun-Times actually liked ESPN's three-hour broadcast.

The widow of Steve Bechler, the Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect who died after collapsing during a workout in Spring Training earlier this year, has sued the manufacturer and distributor of the dietary supplement that a Florida coroner determined contributed to his death.

Kiley Bechler is seeking $600 million in damages from Cytodyne Technologies, the distributor of Xenadrine RFA-1, as well as Phoenix Laboratories, the manufacturer of the supplement. I've been following this story pretty closely for some time now. For a complete look at what I have in my archives, click here.

I was out at a work outing for most of the day, so I didn't have a chance to blog about Major League Baseball's announcement that the Montreal Expos might play their entire home schedule in San Juan next season.

To say the least, I'm not surprised. And I'd say that there's about a 100 percent chance that's exactly where the Expos will be next year. Why? Because putting off the move gives other potential cities and ownership groups a chance to get their acts together, and make bids for the team -- something that will obviously increase the ultimate sales price.

Here's the next bold prediciton Off Wing readers: Major League Baseball will never return to Washington, D.C. Turn out the lights. In the immortal words of Bill Paxton, it's "Game over, Man."

UPDATE: Check out the discussion in the comments box, especially the note left behind by Jay Sokoloff about how the Expos will probably wind up back in Montreal next year. Sometimes I become so absorbed in the Washington side of the story, that I can forget that there's still an actual team out there that I'm talking about.

After literally months of speculation, the New York Mets finally traded quixotic closer Armando Benitez to their cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees, in exchange for three obscure minor league prospects. Over in the New York Times, Rafael Hermoso is wondering if this will all work out:

A question for the Yankees was whether Benitez could succeed as a setup man for Mariano Rivera, the postseason antithesis of Benitez. As trade speculation began this season, Benitez seemed reluctant to assume such a role, but recently he has warmed to the idea in his public comments.

And why wouldn't he? Has everyone forgotten that when Benitez first arrived in New York with the Mets in 1998, he was the team's set-up man, and only gradually supplanted incumbent closer John Franco?

This is the role that Benitez ought be able to warm to easily. Now that the 9th inning pressure is off, I expect him to excel. And the Yankees ought to as well.

POSTSCRIPT: With Benitez gone, closing duties in Queens will fall to Franco, something that sets up a bit of an interesting conundrum for the Mets. Franco ranks second all-time in saves with 422, 56 saves behind career leader Lee Smith. Even with the Mets continuing to play their sub-.500 brand of baseball, he could very well finish the season with 20 saves, something that would leave him within striking distance of Smith by the start of the 2004 season.

In the past, Franco has exercised what one might term "outsize" influence on Mets owner Fred Wilpon. Might the Mets delay the development of any one of a number of prospective closers (Royce Ring being just one) they've acquired over the last two weeks, in order to give Franco a chance at the record?

Looks like baseball might have found their answer to the outspoken Brett Hull. Last night in Chicago, the Seattle Mariners second baseman Brett Boone, the son, grandson, and brother of major league ballplayers, took dead aim at Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig:

"I don't want somebody that's going to do what's best for the players. I don't want somebody that's going to do what's best for the owners," Boone told reporters at an All-Star press session. "I want somebody to make the decisions based on what's best for the game of baseball. "How fair is it when an owner is the commissioner?" he added. "`Oh, but he's not an owner. His daughter is.'" Boone answered himself, sarcastically. "Yeah, right. That's the No. 1 thing that's wrong with the game."

He didn't stop there, either. Later, he complained about the new All-Star Game format, the Questech strike zone, and much, much, more. As they say in the business, read it all.

Sure, at the last minute, thanks to Billy Beane and Ken Macha of the Oakland A's, Roger Clemens grabbed a spot on the American League All-Star Team, when they pulled a stunned Barry Zito from the game.

But the fact remains that nobody, not the fans and not the players, thought Clemens deserved a spot on this year's team in what will certainly be his last season in the big leagues. Bryant at Population One puts his finger on why:

Hint to Roger Clemens: nobody likes you much. Poor guy. He has a milestone season, gets his 300th win, strikes out his 4,000th man, and yet nobody wants him to get that final All-Star appearance in the final season of his career. The public didn’t vote for him, the players didn't vote for him, the manager didn't select him, and now Commissioner Selig doesn't want anyone to make an exception for him. Possibly all that stuff about not showing up for the Hall of Fame induction backfired, huh?

He may be the best right handed pitcher of all time. He's probably even better than my childhood favorite, Tom Seaver. But that doesn't mean that I, or anyone else for that matter, has to like him.

Remember that July 15th deadline that Major League Baseball (MLB) set to announce the decision on where the Montreal Expos will play in 2004?

Nevermind:

A decision on the future home of the Montreal Expos might not be made until September, a high-ranking baseball official said Saturday. The commissioner's office originally had targeted the All-Star break for a decision. Northern Virginia, Portland, Ore., and Washington all want the Expos to relocate to their areas for the 2004 season. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the commissioner's office now hoped to have a decision by Labor Day, and that the end of the regular season was the current "drop-dead date."

Labor Day? Last year, as July creeped into August, and August into September, it became clear that even if the Expos had been sold to a D.C.-based ownership group, that RFK Stadium couldn't possibly be made ready to host a game in time for the 2003 season. And that doesn't even begin considering the difficulties involved in getting a franchise up and running in a new city, and reconstituting the business operation you need in order to support it.

Here's a bet: look for the Expos to play even more games in Puerto Rico next year.

UPDATE: Some other stuff from over the weekend: D.C.'s quasi-independent agency responsible in part to bring baseball back to the city, the Sports and Entertainment Commission, is in a huge financial hole. This is the case despite the fact it recently brought in "professional" management.

And on Sunday morning, Ralph Nader chimed in with an op-ed piece, essentially demanding MLB sell the Expos to local investors at cost, without taking into account an losses the team might have accrued over the last two seasons:

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball should sell the Expos to new local owners for the amount it paid for the team -- $120 million, not the $250 million or more it will demand. The savings could be used by the private owners to build a new stadium or renovate an existing one, such as RFK, covering part of what baseball is now trying to squeeze from taxpayers.

Entertainment should be given the first privilege of surviving the tests of a free market.

I'm all in agreement with Nader on "squeezing the taxpayers," but MLB isn't going to let this team go cheap. Meanwhile, at the Washington Times, Eric Fisher makes an important point of one of the results of MLB's painfully methodical relocation process:

If you're a fan of Baseball history, you really ought to spend some time over at Andrew Clem's incredible labor of love -- his painstaking project to create a detailed history of every ballpark that ever hosted a Major League game. To read Andrew's profile of Metropolitan Stadium, the former home of the Minnesota Twins, click here.

Andrew has left little to chance in his histories, and one great example is the way he's accounted for changes in some stadiums' configurations. Want to see how Candlestick Park was configured when it was originally opened? Just drag your mouse over the diagram, and it morphs before your eyes. Neat stuff, chock full of interesting historical details. As a bonus, Andrew has even supplemented his splash page with a baseball blog. Be sure to stop by.