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Major League Baseball dropped in on Washington and Northern Virginia late this week, just as the Montreal Expos relocation process is reaching critical mass.
D.C. and Northern Virginia are believed to be in a dead heat in the competition for the franchise.
And top baseball officials have been saying all year they hoped to decide by the All-Star break, which begins Monday.
A formal announcement by that deadline appears unlikely now. However, meetings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Houston, the site of the All-Star Game, could well be pivotal to any decision announced in late July or August.
Ultimately, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will make the decision.
And now, for the first time publicly, Selig has repudiated Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos' claim that the Washington area is part of his territory. Angelos insists that a team in the Washington area would lower the value of his franchise
But Selig told national reporter Barry Bloom of MLB.com that the Orioles have no rights to the area.
The long-defunct Washington Senators' territorial rights are still in effect--extending, in fact, to a point in Maryland just 10 miles south of Baltimore.
"I'm very sensitive to territorial issues," Selig told MLB.com. "But I must do what's best for all of Major League Baseball."
That simple statement might be the best indicator of all that the D.C. area tops the list of relocation sites, because Angelos has been the stumbling block for Washington and Northern Virginia.
As a decision nears, there is an increasing reluctance by Major League Baseball and officials in both Washington and Northern Virginia to talk about the process.
But, at the moment, there is apparently an even split between those members of baseball's relocation committee who want Northern Virginia and those who prefer D.C.
It appears that Las Vegas, Norfolk and Monterrey, Mexico, follow, in that order.
Portland, Ore., seems to have dropped off the radar screen due to delays in completing plans for a stadium. And San Juan, Puerto Rico, is not believed to be in the running.
But baseball officials deny reports that any possible sites have been eliminated.
The Washington area is the No. 6 market in the country and the biggest one without Major League Baseball. It is also highly affluent and is growing fast.
Baseball has said all along that full public financing for a ballpark is a prerequisite for awarding the franchise to a locality.
Selig has dragged the process out for several years in a successful effort to pit potential sites against each other in a ballpark-financing bidding war. The more a locality pays for a ballpark in public money, the more a new franchise's owners can pay baseball for the team.
Northern Virginia and Norfolk already have arranged to have ballparks fully funded. Washington would need to get a $20 million-a-year business tax through its City Council and then get the ballpark package approved by Congress in order to be awarded the Expos.
Las Vegas' problem is that baseball fears links to gambling. And it's likely that the baseball players' union would block any move to Monterrey.
Only Washington, Northern Virginia or Norfolk would allow the Expos to relocate without requiring a significant realignment of baseball.
The Expos play in the National League East; Las Vegas, Monterrey and Portland are all in the West. An award to any of those places would most likely mean that the Arizona Diamondbacks would have to be moved from the NL West to the NL Central and the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Central to the East. It's not clear how much owner resistance there might be to such changes.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ: 374-5408 mikez@freelancestar.com