Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post


Monthly archives
(all categories)


December 1, 2005 [LINK]

Showdown over D.C. stadium

For the first time in several months, Mayor Williams has gotten involved in the showdown over funding for the new baseball stadium, calling on D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp to meet with MLB officials. He warned that failure by MLB to make concessions would jeopardize the project. The mayor was thoroughly exhausted from the battles he waged to get the deal through a year ago, but as a political "lame duck," his clout is limited. As a candidate for mayor in next year's race, meanwhile, Mrs. Cropp faces overwhelming temptation to "grandstand," appealing to populist sentiment. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who was in charge of the relocation process, is visiting Washington in hopes of overcoming the impasse. Both sides have dug in their heels, daring the other side to blink first in a classic game of "chicken," but we've been through this before. See Washington Post. A deal's a deal, of course, but the big honchos in baseball cannot ignore the fact that political atmosphere has changed since last year, nor the obvious huge commercial success that the franchise in Washington has become and promises to remain. They need to get off their monopolistic high horse and cut a deal soon, or risk spoiling the enormous goodwill the Nationals have earned with D.C. area fans.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 01 Dec 2005, 12: 03 PM

(unformatted URL)
      .



This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

Category archives:
(all years)



This (or that) year's
blog highlights

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)