Tampa baseball plan is dead
The plan to stage half the Tampa Bay Rays baseball games in Montreal was declared dead Thursday by the team’s owner, after Major League Baseball turned the idea down.
The Tampa Bay Times has a headline In Montreal, frustration and concern for the Rays’ future. Yes, we’re all losing sleep up here over the fate of a baseball team in Florida. Meanwhile, a Journal sports writer hangs on desperately to the hope of what he still calls the return of the Expos.
Update: Friday, Stephen Bronfman is quoted saying it’s a slap in the face and that he feels terrible for the Rays and their owner. I would suggest to Mr Bronfman that he look around the world. There may be people even worse off than the owner of a major league baseball team for him to focus his compassion and his largesse on.
Joey 11:44 on 2022-01-21 Permalink
Of all the ways this project could have died (who knows, maybe it’s death is grealty exagerrated and it’s all part of some ridiculous Kabuki exercise), I would have put “Major League Baseball isn’t on board” at the very bottom. The idea that the only viable plan was a “sister city” scenario, that Bronfman et al have been working for years with no Plan B – what happened to the previous Plan A, when the notion of a shared club was just a dirty look in Stu Steinberg’s eye? – and that they don’t have the resources to pursue an expansion team is totally nuts. How old is Stephen Brofnman? What else will his money do for him except earn interest to be squandered by his descendants?
Joey 14:22 on 2022-01-21 Permalink
Just to add… it seems insane to me that MLB didn’t push this forward. They could have extorted TWO new stadiums built on the public dime without increasing the number of teams (thereby reducing each owner’s future revenue by a fraction). Seemed like they had an evil-genius winner idea on their hands…
Dre 15:38 on 2022-01-21 Permalink
One underreported but very important factor was that the MLB players’ union would have had to vote in favour of the proposal to split a team between two cities. Can you imagine a bunch of millionaires deciding to inconvenience themselves (and their families) to such an extent? Plus, they’d have to pay tax in two countries! (This is where, for a split-second, we almost feel empathy for the players.)
Presumably, the league did not want to bother them by asking.