Off Wing Opinion

In a press conference yesterday, D.C. City Council Chairman Linda Cropp asked MLB for an extension of the December 31 deadline to pass a stadium financing bill, but it looks like the answer is going to be no.

And just minutes ago, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams called on stadium supporters to "speak up now," if they want to save baseball in Washington (though one wonders why Williams wasn't doing any grassroots organizing in favor of the stadium in the first place).

To listen to the Williams interview from WTOP, click here. WTOP's Mark Plotkin was scheduled to interview Cropp beginning at 10:00 a.m. -- I'll grab that link as soon as it's posted.

For a variety of views, be sure to check out William World News, Captiol Punishment, Ball Wonk and Washington Baseball.

UPDATE: WTOP is also reporting that much of the funding for the opposition to the stadium plan has come from one property owner who has a major stake in the neighborhood where the planned ballpark would be built:

Opponents of a publicly financed baseball stadium spent roughly $50,000, trying to sway public opinion.

In one method used to get their message out, opponents used an automated phone line.

The person on the automated phone call says he's from a group called Friends of the Earth, and he's opposed to a stadium built with public money

Friends of the Earth is part of a coalition called "No D.C. Taxes For Baseball."

And, WTOP Radio has learned up to 20 percent of the $50,000 came from Robert Siegel, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner whose business would have to move to make way for the stadium.

Siegel is a major landowner on the South Capitol stadium site, an area that Siegel calls "D.C.'s unofficial Red Light district."

He owns 11 properties, several of which house gay nightclubs. He also owns a gay porn shop and adult theaters.

I wrote about this issue a couple of weeks back, and it looks like it bit the Mayor in the behind after all. And when it came down to it, you have to wonder if Councilman Jom Graham, who first said he was neutral on the stadium, flipped to no in part because of this effort. More later.

UPDATE: There are five pages of Nationals memorabilia on eBay. Who knows, maybe one day some of it will be worth as much as those "Washington National League" cards from the Topps 1974 set are now.

And here's a link to a short item about Cropp's latest interview with WTOP, though I'm still waiting for the actual audio link.

UPDATE: Here's the link to Cropp's interview with WTOP via Washingtonpost.com. They've got three distinct clips from her interview with WTOP's Mark Plotkin. And here's a link to Plotkin's complete interview with Cropp on WTOP (realPlayer, 40 minutes).

UPDATE AND ANALYSIS: Some folks have said that Cropp was naive when she attached her killer amendment to the stadium financing bill. But after listening to these audio clips, I just don't buy it. As I've said before, Cropp knows exactly what she's doing, and this action has put her centerstage along with the Mayor and all the biggies in MLB.

During the course of the interview, Cropp admitted as much, including dropping the fact that she's been in contact with officials at MLB, even as she still has yet to speak with the Mayor in the wake of this week's vote.

One other thing ought to be clear: Cropp is running for Mayor, and she's going to run for Mayor either as the person who stood up to MLB and got them to give some significant concessions on the stadium deal, or she's going to run as the politician who told MLB to stuff it. Either way, she comes out a winner, and either way, Williams will emerge from this with some significant political wounds.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2004 at 10:29 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under D.C. Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.