Twice-Stung, Baltimore Fans Fear the Orioles May Leave, Too

If the sports fans of Baltimore hadn’t already lived through the Bullets’ leaving town and the Colts’ leaving town, these might not be such nervous times.

They might not cringe when they read that the Orioles are committed to Memorial Stadium only through the end of this season, and that 10 months of negotiations have failed to produce a long-term lease for a proposed new downtown facility.

They know that Oriole owner Edward Bennett Williams has said he’ll never move his team, and that he’s holding it “in a trust for the city.” But they also know that he has had seven cancer operations in the last decade and has had two hospital stays the last 11 months.

He said in January the club will be sold when he dies, and two city officials said last week they know that the head of his estate would be obligated to sell the team to the highest bidder--not necessarily to the one that promised to keep it in Baltimore.

Those are frightening words for a town that already has been battered, especially with the 1984 departure of the Colts. It’s even more frightening because several cities--Phoenix, Denver and Tampa, in particular--are aggressively seeking a baseball franchise. So is Washington, which is considered by some Oriole officials an annex to the franchise. Nevertheless, Washington wants a team of its own.

Baltimore might have lost the Orioles in 1979 if Williams, a Washingtonian, hadn’t stepped in and paid the $12 million asking price. Now, the price will be $60 million or more, and city officials express concern that there may not be any local buyers willing to spend that kind of cash for a bad team in a relatively small market.

Some current estimates are that the Orioles now draw 25% of their home attendance from the Washington area, and, although Baltimore has been one of the nation’s remarkable urban renaissance stories, it is still no boom town.

Denver oilman Marvin Davis, a close friend of Williams, has tried to buy the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees and has told at least one friend he’d spend $100 million. If he bought the Orioles, Davis likely would move them to Denver, although he now lives in Los Angeles.

All of these doubts would be eliminated if the Orioles and Maryland Stadium Authority could agree to a long-term lease for the new facility. Not only would that lease secure the Orioles’ future in Baltimore, it would automatically begin construction on a new, baseball-only stadium near the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore.

At the moment city and state officials hope the Orioles will open the 1991 season in the new facility and say that if a lease is finished by mid-summer, the target date still should be safe. Even without a lease, work has been progressing, with the preliminary stages of land acquisition and stadium design already begun.

Further, Williams and Gov. William Donald Schaefer have agreed to meet next week and try to finish the lease. Schaefer was not available to comment; and Williams and stadium authority officials have agreed not to comment publicly.

“Optimistically, it could get done then,” a source near the stadium authority said. “There has been that much preliminary work done. The worst-case scenario is that it could drag on and on and on. The worst-case scenario is that the Orioles have no intention of signing a lease.”

For his part, Williams has said he intends to sign a lease and that he believes he will sign one. The city certainly believes that because it has proceeded with plans as if one is about to be signed.

There are two distinctly different schools of thought about this, though.

One is that the Orioles definitely intend to sign a lease and that a Williams-Schaefer meeting is the final stage.

“Look at the history of this thing,” a source near the governor said. “Each time the Orioles have agreed to anything, it has come down to Schaefer and Williams meeting. Remember the time Williams was giving a speech, and with a huge flourish pulled a lease and a pen from his pocket and asked Schaefer to sign? Williams likes that touch of the dramatic, and I’m sure it’s no different now. He has been a tough, tough negotiator, but a fair one. He wants everything he can get-and then some-and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

The people who expect Williams to sign the lease this month or in early April agree that a dramatic meeting with the governor is the way Williams typically does business.

“First, he wants to let all the little people know he’s the one who closes deals,” the source said. “That goes for people connected with the stadium authority and the people with the Orioles, too. He wants them all to know that he’s still the boss.”

But there are people close to Schaefer who disagree, and they say the governor is skeptical about getting Williams’ name on a lease.

These people say two things: First, Williams has never agreed to any kind of long-term lease on anything, and they doubt he ever will. They point to negotiations over a new spring training facility. A lease with the city of Melbourne, Fla., was completed last winter, but when Williams traveled there to sign on the dotted line he abruptly refused, saying the city was “nowheresville.”

Baseball people were stunned, especially those who had heard him brag about what a state-of-the-art complex he was getting. Now, he has resumed negotiations with the City of Miami along with his annual threat to leave the city.

“In the end,” said a lawyer who often has dealt with Williams, “he just can’t bring himself to sign a lease. When you have a one-year lease, you have leverage, and Ed loves leverage.”

People who believe the Orioles won’t sign also point to another factor: A lease isn’t all that complicated a document.

The team’s current one with the city is very simple, and, for the Orioles, very favorable. It’s unique in that specific revenues--parking, concessions, etc.--aren’t divided, Instead, the city and the Orioles are partners at Memorial Stadium, with all revenues from team operations put into a common fund. The Orioles take their expenses--travel, player salaries, etc.--from that pot, and what’s left is divided equally between the city and the club.

(Before the city gets its half, the monies it has collected for a 10% tickets-admission tax are deducted.)

“Listen,” a city official said, “a lease is the simplest thing in the world. The only way you don’t agree on a lease is if you don’t want to. Otherwise, it gets done.”

Herb Belgrad, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, disagrees.

“That’s just not true,” he said. “When you’re negotiating for a new facility, there is lots of work to be done. We’ve made significant progress . . . When Mr. Williams and Governor Schaefer meet, I see no reason why they can’t reach an agreement.”