Traffic Makes D.C. Top Choice

If you believe Commissioner Bud Selig, within a month’s time we’ll soon learn the fate of whether or not the Motreal Expos will relocate to the Washington, D.C. area. While several locales are in the running to be the future home of the team with the worst record and lowest attendance in the Majors, when you combine all the factors it’s my personal belief that the only logical location for the Expos is in the District of Columbia, not Northern Virginia, downtown D.C.

According to reports and some common sense factors, D.C. and Northern Virginia are the only logical choices for the franchise. The market in Norfolk is too small, I don’t care how many luxury boxes they sell. The Mexican economy is too weak to support a team in Monterrey, given that the peso trades at less than 1/10 the value of the dollar. Canadian teams, particularly the Expos, but also in the NHL have had similar problems with currency variations since players are to be paid in U.S. dollars while the take at the gate is in a weaker currency.

San Juan is just too far away for a team, not to mention the proposal for an owners group to buy the team just came within the past week, giving Major League Baseball less than a month to consider it before their self-imposed deadline for a decision.

And I don’t care who says Las Vegas is a front runner, there is no way that Bud Selig, who has spent the last ten years keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball, is going to award a team to the gambling capital of the world.

That just leaves Portland to contest with the D.C. area locations. And while Portland sports a very similar population figure to the District, D.C.’s tourism is exponentially larger.

With the wheat and the chaff separated, D.C. and Northern Virginia could be seen as roughly the same locales but anyone from the area knows there is a world of difference from downtown D.C. and Dulles, Virginia, namely in the form of traffic, both of the car and foot variety.

In a recent announcement delivered by the potential ownership group from Northern Virginia, the group argues that the site is sufficiently far away from Baltimore that it won’t encroach on Orioles’ owner Peter Angelos’ market. They are certainly right about that, because a team placed in Dulles would likely have a fan base of the AOL campus and other surrounding office complexes, but I for one, tremble at the thought of driving out of D.C. on I-66 and the Dulles Toll Road at rush hour.

The reason I was so excited about a baseball team coming to the district was that it meant I wouldn’t have to battle the soul-sucking commuter exodus to watch a weeknight game at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

When Peter Angelos initially made public his fears of D.C. divesting him of his fan base, I wanted to strap him into the backseat of my car and watch him slowly lose his mental faculties as we creep along New York Avenue and then 295, while a family of crippled snails streaks past us and has completely devoured a rack of ribs from Boog’s Barbecue before Angelos and I arrive … in the third-inning.

Unless massive changes are made, this same type of mind-numbing commute would be the only way to get to the stadium in Dulles, AND it’ll cost me $.75 on the way home (yes, $.75 makes a difference to me).

Meanwhile the D.C. proposal places the stadium at a metro stop (L’Enfant Plaza) and within walking distance from the National Mall. How many of D.C.’s tourists do you think might be curious enough to pop over for a game given that kind of proximity?

And don’t get me started on the scenery. Gorgeous marble monuments? Man-made lake and airport? You pick.

The fact of the matter is that the only possible advantage the current Northern Virginia proposal has on D.C. is that it requires no further legislation or taxes for Major League Baseball to move forward, allegedly a factor that Baseball finds extremely appealing. But how appealing will it be in five-years after the novelty of the team has worn off, and sitting in traffic for two hours to drive thirty miles is no longer tolerable and the Orange Line Metro extension is still nowhere near completion? Why would people endure the same trying circumstances to watch a foundering franchise when for the exact same non-monetary costs (time and traffic) you can watch the improving Orioles?

The determining factor behind the location should not be what is the most economically attractive proposal now, though I have to believe the D.C. site compares favorably in that realm as well, but which site will provide for an enduring franchise that will profit both the team, the league and the city for years to come.

Despite my gripes, it will be great to have another team in the area, particularly a National League team, even if I have to drive to Dulles. However, if Major League Baseball wants to make the Expos something really special, D.C. is where they should be.