Insider baseball: why a major league team is headed to Washington

Washington Monthly, Dec, 2001 by Dayn Perry

In the end, the smart money is on the District. Washington Mayor Anthony Williams has met with Bush to discuss bringing in a team. And the ability of Fred Malek to pull strings shouldn't be underestimated. Asked if his history with Bush, if he chooses to exploit it, might give him a leg up in the bidding process, Malek replies, "Of course it will."

The only real obstacle to baseball's return to D.C. is Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles. Angelos regards the D.C. area as his club's birthright (D.C. and Baltimore are only 40 miles apart), and in the clubby world of baseball owners, he has a case. Major League Baseball traditionally grants owners territorial rights in order to protect market shares and prevent teams from directly competing for revenues. Unfortunately for Angelos, the Expos are a National League team, and the prospect of moving them into the territory of the Orioles, an American League team, is viewed by owners as less of an infringement. Angelos is also a trial lawyer and major Democratic fundraiser, two vocations guaranteed not to endear him to President Bush.

One more element working against Angelos should not be underestimated: the desire among his fellow owners for revenge. Baseball owners have short memories for their mistakes, but long ones for their affronts. Privately, they're still miffed at Angelos for breaking ranks during the 1994 labor stoppage, when he was the lone owner to oppose the laughable idea of hiring replacement players to finish the 1995 season and break the players' union. While Angelos has done his best since then to win back the favor of his peers, his perceived disloyalty will hurt him when he seeks the necessary votes to block the Expos' relocation to Washington. As one major-league front-office source puts it, an Angelos countermeasure "won't have a fucking prayer."

No move of the Expos is imminent. Players and owners must first work out a new collective bargaining agreement, a process they've only just begun. Until then, owners won't relinquish the possibility of contraction, or the negotiating leverage which it confers. However soon a new agreement is reached, no move could be made before the 2002 season. And if the current collective-bargaining agreement is extended for another year, it could be 2004 before Washington gets its new team. But it's bound to happen. Because this time, baseball owners will have finally learned the rules of a different kind of inside baseball--the kind already played in Washington.

DAYN PERRY covers major league baseball for ESPN.COM