COMMENTARY : Baseball Batters Washington Again

When on that spring day in 1993, fans in Denver and Miami exult at the sweet command to “Play Ball!” Washington will still have its face pressed against the window of the world of major-league baseball -- its fans battered anew, rejected once more.

Twice, the big leagues deserted Washington. But not in this instance. This time, it was jilted at the church for lack of a sufficient dowry, unable to match the money bags of the industrialists in Denver and Miami who won the smiles of the National League Expansion Committee.

So, the usefulness of money is affirmed once again. Shakespeare spoke of it when he characterized money as “an obedient servant.” Mark Twain, in his roundabout way, took the same viewpoint, although differing slightly from the aphorism that “money is the root of all evil.” The root of the evil, Twain said, “is not money, but the lack of it.” This view has won general agreement.

The NL could not afford to chance a team in Washington with shaky financing. Beyond the $95 million franchise price, there was the need of a $25 million cushion for operations. The league could perceive a Washington team in this era of $30 million payrolls struggling in the red for years, and then, heaven forfend, go belly up, having to be put on the market in a fire sale. It would damage the value of every big-league franchise, a most repugnant thought for all of the club owners.

It is a loss of innocence for Washington fans, who dreamed and were led to believe that the city’s bid for a franchise was solidly financed. How could they know that a John Akridge-led group of would-be club owners was chasing moonbeams instead of cadging the big dollars that the expansion committee would demand.

The city’s fans were led down the path by too many confident statements that the money was in hand or would be. As late as May 23, Akridge assured all that, “I know we have the money to do the deal.” More than once he said it.

This was as unrealistic as it was misleading, and a skepticism was noted here last April when it was said of the ownership group, “There seems to be something in the ointment, something hushed, something skirted by the group in too many instances. ... Where and who is the one they call the big hitter with enough money to catch the eye of the expansion committee? ... They have been very, very coy about identifying him, leading to, well, suspicions.” The distrust was appropriate.

The expansion committee didn’t say outright that Washington didn’t come up with enough money. But there was no need to say that. Against the Big Money, the ready money in Miami and Denver, the Washington group’s tentative pledges and thin up-front money were puny, Lilliputian.

The Washington bid simply lacked an ownership group with clout; big-time money raisers. They had a year to rustle up the funds and came up abysmally short. All the while they raised false hopes by continually pointing to season-ticket sales, which are no substitute for solid financing -- as the expansion committee could have told them. Their repeated pride in 20,000-plus ticket sales only added to the delusion that the committee would be impressed.

There is much to suggest that the campaign to get one of the two new franchises for Washington was in the hands of amateurs -- well-intentioned, but sadly naive in the art of the baseball deal. We deserve better.

It was late in the day when they finally were candid enough to admit that the big money had not been tracked down. Yet they still encouraged the city’s fans to believe that their dribs and drabs and tin-cup offerings of minority partners would add up to a sum substantial enough to interest a flinty-eyed expansion committee that had no mind to lower its price, what with solid bidding from other cities.

The sadness is that Washington could give Denver and Miami cards in spades and then beat them out easily in the demographics game, which shows the city having the most baseball potential. In that sense, Washington was shafted. In another, important sense, its failure to get the money up was contributory negligence, and devastating.

Now there is talk that it is possible to thumb the nose at the expansion committee by buying the for-sale Houston franchise. Even at $100 million, it is a better bargain than the $95 million expansion team, with Houston’s existing big-league roster and ready-made farm system.

The rub is that Tampa-St. Pete, Orlando and Buffalo also are alerted to the idea. But for Washington the challenge is there again, with the Houston situation offering one more chance, a reprieve, the opportunity for some determined group -- a realistic one -- to respond, to put its money where its dreams are. It worked for Denver and Miami.