Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``It's more likely than not,'' said Mike Scanlon.
Maybe the question should be whether any major-league team will be playing next April, considering the game's Grand Canyon of labor unrest. In the shadow of the nation's capital, a place baseball hasn't called home in a quarter-century, the only strike talk is about the one that crosses the plate.
Scanlon is the executive vice president of Virginia Baseball Club, one of two groups trying to bring a franchise to Northern Virginia. Scanlon is the No.2 man to telecommunications mogul William Collins III, who is chairman of a group that has become the frontrunner to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates - if they're available.
The Collins group and one headed by Washington attorney Bart Fisher are rivals for the endorsement of the Virginia Stadium Authority as the designated prospective tenant for a ballpark that is likely to be built in Fairfax or Loudoun counties, near Dulles Airport. The state commission, appointed by Gov. George Allen earlier this year, meets Oct.11 to stamp the winner.
Meanwhile, Fisher was rebuffed in his bid to buy the Pirates and keep the franchise in Pittsburgh, the Bucs' consortium of owners saying the bid lacked the necessary cash. Although a bid by publishing magnate Kevin McClatchy to keep the Pirates in a city where they've played since 1892 still is being studied, reports say the Collins group has made it known an offer of $100 million will be placed on the table to move the team.
The Collins bid process even stretches to the Roanoke Valley. Brian Wishneff, the former Roanoke City chief of economic development and director of the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission, is a consultant to Virginia Baseball Club. Wishneff's dealings with the Collins group are primarily on inner-workings of a potential public-private partnership that would be the plan for stadium financing.
Wishneff, a Norfolk native, was particularly charmed by baseball in 1960, when he ran home from school and watched Bill Mazeroski's homer win the World Series for Pittsburgh over the Yankees. He ``idolized'' the late Roberto Clemente. He's been a Pirates' fan since that day. Now, he's trying to bring them to his home state.
``Kind of ironic, isn't it?'' he said. ``Then, who wouldn't be interested in working on a baseball stadium for a major-league club?''
However, it may not be the Bucs who become the Beltway Belters or Virginia Wolves or whatever. Seattle and Milwaukee are grappling with stadium referendums, in which the votes are closer than the National League West race. The future of these teams, particularly Pittsburgh and Seattle, seems to waffle to one side or another on a daily basis.
The Pirates drew less than 13,000 spectators per game to Three Rivers Stadium this season. The Mariners' ownership, led by Nintendo executives, want a new retractable-dome stadium to replace the Kingdome, one of the game's truly bad facilities.
Scanlon explained that Virginia Baseball Club gets into the game in one of two ways. ``Either an ownership group has got to call us and say they've checked with the commissioner and want to put the team up for sale, or, the commissioner's office calls us and gives us permission to talk with a local ownership group.''
Meanwhile, as Harry Caray would say in the late innings of a one-run game amid pitching changes and pinch hitters: ``The wheels are turning.''
Collins and Scanlon are scheduled to meet this morning with the D.C. Sports Commission to discuss the potential rental for baseball at RFK Stadium. There seems to be no question that if Northern Virginia gets a team, it will eventually play in Northern Virginia, with RFK as a temporary home for two or three seasons.
The former home of the Senators would have to be altered from the permanent football configuration to a multi-purpose facility by moving sections of seats on a track, as they did in the '60s. There has been talk of the fledgling United Baseball League putting a franchise in RFK, which probably will lose the Redskins as a tenant by 1998, if club owner Jack Kent Cooke gets the stadium he wants in suburban Prince George's County, Md.
A Northern Virginia ballpark would probably look a lot like Camden Yards, with 42,000 to 50,000 seats and grass and dirt surface in a baseball-only facility.
One thing is certain about any prospective ownership by Virginia Baseball Club. It will be a National League team.
``No matter where the club is now, if we are successful in being approved for ownership and get a club, we would apply for National League membership,'' Scanlon said. ``We've made it known that if necessary, we would compensate any club in a way that would be up to baseball, for [changing leagues] to accommodate us.''
There is an unwritten rule in the American League that provides a club with a 100-mile territorial radius. Other club owners aren't happy with Baltimore owner Peter Angelos for his pro-labor stance and refusal to employ replacement players last spring, but they wouldn't approve another franchise in his backyard.
``Washington had a team first, and then Baltimore came in [in 1954, from St. Louis],'' Scanlon said. ``But we're kind of on new ground here.''
The Collins group reportedly also has spoken with owners in Montreal and Minnesota about selling. There has been speculation that if Virginia Baseball Club buys an AL team, the owners would approve a franchise switch to the National League, then move the Expos to the AL and create a Canadian rivalry with the Toronto Blue Jays.
And, if the capital region doesn't get a team immediately, it is certain of being in the next round of expansion because the owners want a club there as a lobbying effort to keep the sport's antitrust exemption. There even have been reports that Tampa Bay, granted an expansion team for 1998, may try to purchase an existing team for the Thunderdome in St. Petersburg, thereby leaving the expansion berth for Northern Virginia.
Scanlon, however, sees Northern Virginia having a team next season - and he wasn't referring to the Carolina League's Prince William Cannons.
by CNB