It looks as if after 33 years, the stars might be aligning to allow the return of Major League Baseball to Washington, D.C.:
Several baseball officials said Monday that the most likely day for an announcement that Washington, D.C., has been selected for the future home of the Montreal Expos is Thursday, although there was a slight chance the timetable could be moved up.After a meeting of the sport's executive council last Thursday, a high-ranking baseball official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said major league baseball would attempt to finalize negotiations with Washington within a week.
Click here for a look at the financing package that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams is offering. One question that I've asked before bears repeating: If building a baseball stadium is such a great idea, then why won't anybody put together a private financing package to build one here in Washington?
Case in point: For the entire length of Washington's courtship of Major League Baseball, there have been two main groups vying for the team -- Washington Baseball LLC, which wants to put the team in the District; and Bill Collins' group based in Northern Virginia. A third group, headed by New York real estate developer Mark Broxmeyer, has been involved as well, but hasn't made any noise until recently.
But now that the District has indicated that it will put up the money for the ballpark, any number of candidates are coming out of the woodwork. Here's the Post's Sally Jenkins on what's really happening:
To win a baseball team, the city has had to agree to publicly finance a $400 million stadium -- despite the fact that there was no other serious bidder. Meantime, Selig and the owners, who bought the dying, hapless Expos for $120 million and have been operating them at a loss, will relocate them here and try to sell them for at least $300 million. In other words, Washington is building a stadium so that MLB can sell the team at a huge profit, while city businesses and ticket buyers will be left with the debt, higher taxes, and spiraling ticket and concession prices, and a team with a tattered payroll and no prospects of winning anytime soon.
Meanwhile, MLB's Bob DuPuy and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos are still negotiating over a payoff to get Angelos to make way for Washington Baseball. Among the incentives: a regional cable sports network co-owned by both teams that would guarantee the Orioles a majority of the profits, as well as compensation for any drop in the value of the franchise when Angelos wants to sell.
Angelos gets an assist from Peter Gammons:
Anyone who doesn't think the Orioles franchise won't be impacted by the Washington Lobbyists -- or whatever they'll be called -- doesn't understand that Edward Bennett Williams changed the market when he Washingtonized them.
If the team does come here, I'd like to see it named after the Homestead Grays, the Negro League team that called Washington it's home away from home in the 1940s. Click here to sign the petition.
Then again, we could be jumping the gun, with all sorts of smaller hurdles potentially tripping up the deal. For a quick survey, click here to get the goods from Colby Cosh.
ben 
Eric 
“If building a baseball stadium is such a great idea, then why won’t anybody put together a private financing package to build one here in Washington?”
The simple answer to your question is that a private group could never get permission from the D.C. government to build a stadium. Having lived next to George Washington University for eight years and seeing the battles they have to fight just to get a dorm built, it’s pretty obvious that a private stadium wouldn’t stand a chance. The District grants small neighborhood groups an inordinate amount of power to challenge private property rights. And on top of that, the District’s tax and regulatory structure simply isn’t conducive to attractive and retaining businesses.
Mayor Williams has done little to change the District’s wealth-destroying mentality. Instead, he’s chosen to engage in central planning–taking certain large businesses under his wing and giving them political protection.