Las Vegas ploy is `bonehead move'

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/...on/10418381.htm

MARLINS

Las Vegas ploy is `bonehead move'

BY MICHAEL PUTNEY

mputney@local10.com

A deal for a new baseball stadium must be close, otherwise why would the Marlins make a bonehead move like sending some team executives out to Las Vegas for a chat with the mayor? We don't know what Marlins Vice Chairman Joel Mael and V.P. for communications P.J. Loyello talked about with Mayor Oscar Goodman, but you can be sure that it wasn't idle chit-chat about Siegfried and Roy or getting a ticket to the Celine Dion show.

The point, like Dr. Johnson's dancing dog, is not what they talked about but that they were talking at all -- and talking to the mayor of a city that desperately wants a professional baseball team and may be willing to build a stadium to get it.

Show them the money

Officials here reacted like jilted lovers. Miami Mayor Manny D?az called it ''very, very shocking.'' Commissioner Joe S?nchez, in whose district the stadium would be built, said that he was ''totally disappointed.'' Are they serious? Expecting loyalty from the Marlins, or any other professional sports franchise, is like expecting sobriety from a drunk or fidelity from a Casanova. Not gonna happen, as Bush 41 used to say.

Pro sports owners, with few exceptions are loyal to one thing: money. Show it to them, and that's where they go. Las Vegas, for example.

If that judgment seems harsh, consider some recent baseball history. The Marlins were previously owned by John Henry, who swore undying allegiance to South Florida and then split for Boston when local government leaders balked at building him a stadium in Bicentennial Park. Current Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria used to own the Montreal Expos. He, too, swore undying allegiance to Montreal, then dumped the team and moved to Miami, to which he has now sworn undying allegiance.

''We love South Florida and have no plan to leave,'' Marlins President David Samson (and Loria's stepson) assured us over the weekend, repeating a mantra that no longer has much zing. Samson also refused to answer questions about the Vegas meeting, snapping at reporters: ``What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.''

Samson may be a smart guy, but he often comes off as flippant. The original Marlins owner, Wayne Huizenga, signed the big checks that allowed the team to win its first World Series, then decided that baseball was a money-losing proposition and sold the team (but kept Pro Player Stadium -- and wants the Marlins out by 2010).

To his credit, Huizenga never pretended that baseball was ever much more than a business. Also, to their credit, Huizenga and his wife quietly give millions to worthy charities.

Loria's pledge

What has Loria given the community? A pretty good baseball team and a $192 million offer toward a new stadium. That's $192 million more than Henry ever offered, but most of Loria's pledge, let the record show, would come from revenue generated by the new stadium.

Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess says that he's not bothered by the Vegas meeting. He stops short of calling it an outright ''negotiating ploy,'' which means that that's exactly what he thinks it is.

He's right, of course. The Marlins are trying to pressure all their putative partners to cut them some slack and cut a deal, or they'll move elsewhere. They want Miami-Dade and the city of Miami to cave on the team's promise to pick up cost-over runs on construction, something that they've repeatedly said they would do.

Samson says that the team is willing to give the county a lien on the franchise, which would allow Miami-Dade to force the sale of the team should the Marlins default on payments. Now, there's a prospect that would guarantee years of litigation and heartburn.

The Vegas trip may prove to be a deal-breaker for several reasons. It clearly p.o.'d local government partners, and state lawmakers don't take kindly to pressure tactics, either. The new House and Senate leaders sent a positive signal a few weeks ago about being willing to consider a sales-tax rebate worth about $30 million, money that's critical to closing the deal.

Regional asset

But the Vegas talks may cool their ardor. Besides, the Orlando Magic of the NBA thinks that it's in line for that tax break before the Marlins.

It may be much too late, but I still think that the best solution to the stadium controversy would be creating a regional sports authority that would pool money from the Marlins, the state, hotel bed taxes and other funds from Miami-Dade and Broward, possibly even Palm Beach County, and build a new ballpark next to Pro Player. The Marlins are a regional asset and should play in a facility accessible to a regional audience.

Since that seems unlikely -- it just makes too much sense, doesn't it? -- then all parties have to get together and work out the hard details, especially the ones about cost over-runs, without further diversions such as trips to Las Vegas. And one other thing: The next time somebody from the Marlins steps forward to talk about the team's ''commitment'' to South Florida, could we hear from Loria himself? Samson's credibility has worn very thin.