ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701270091
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Arizona and Tampa Bay are on-deck as major league baseball's next expansion teams.
Meanwhile, Northern Virginia still is trying to find the off-ramp to the ballpark.
Our commonwealth is the largest state in the nation without a major-league pro sports franchise, although Norfolk is trying to change that with a bid for a National Hockey League expansion franchise, the Hampton Roads Rhinos.
Baseball wants to put a club in Northern Virginia. The national pastime's poohbahs made that clear when the Houston Astros were looking at a potential new address before Harris County, Texas, voters approved a new stadium last year.
However, Northern Virginia isn't going to get a team unless it has more than an artist's rendering of a ballpark. It needs more than a financing plan. It needs one that's approved.
This is where the General Assembly can step up to the plate. If the commonwealth is to have any chance of making the majors, the legislators are going to have to pitch and catch more than words during their current session.
Virginia has a baseball stadium authority and last summer the General Assembly created a joint subcommittee to study stadium financing options. Each has done its work, and each has done it well. In telecommunications mogul William Collins, the Virginia Baseball Club Inc. has a prospective owner with baseball's ear.
What Virginia doesn't have is legislation ready to fund a ballpark via a public-private partnership. That's what baseball wants. That's what Northern Virginia needs.
It doesn't have to paraphrase a ``Field of Dreams,'' either, where Virginia would have to worry that if we built it, they might not come. In financing the future home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Phoenix figured out a way to force baseball to make a decision.
The Arizona legislation used a ``stand-by'' ballpark financing plan. If the majors didn't award a franchise to Phoenix by April 1995, the financing plan would be defunct. It worked.
While Northern Virginia's bid for the Astros forced Houston's hand on the voting-booth levers, there are other clubs that could be available, Seattle and Montreal perhaps the most likely.
The new basic agreement between the players' union and owners also offers hope to Northern Virginia, which is said to be the next market the game wants.
A piece of the basic agreement permits the majors to expand by two teams, which must be awarded by at least 1999 - perhaps sooner - to begin play in 2002. The application process for those teams is likely to begin late this year.
The problem is that Virginia can't seem to get out of the batter's box. There is a misguided notion that the commonwealth should wait until it has a team before approving stadium financing.
If that's the thinking, Virginia will strike out. ``If we do nothing, that sends a message to baseball that the torch is going out in Virginia,'' said Mike Scanlon, spokesman for the Virginia Baseball Club.
He's correct, and some of the competition is next door. In fact, it's already invaded the backyards of Southwest Virginia legislators.
North Carolina Baseball Inc. not only has the public and private backing of what seems to be the entire Tar Heel State, it is appealing to Virginia localities within a 100-mile radius of the Piedmont Triad, where a club would be located. That includes the Roanoke Valley.
Representatives of North Carolina Baseball are coming to the Roanoke Valley Sports Club meeting Monday night in Salem to present their hopes and plans and seek support from potential fans who could see major league ball with half as long a drive or less than it would take to get to Northern Virginia.
Perhaps it's because North Carolina has seen what an NBA and, in particular, an NFL franchise have brought to Charlotte, but the attitude about baseball there is more aggressive than in Virginia.
North Carolina already has a 12-county referendum on a baseball stadium financing plan scheduled for August, during the season, when interest will be at a peak. In Virginia, everyone seems to be waiting.
If that continues to be the mindset, baseball will get no closer to Northern Virginia than Camden Yards.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB