Major League Baseball has talked for years about relocating the Montreal Expos. Now the game has taken a formal first step--most likely toward either Northern Virginia or the District of Columbia.
Rich Levin, baseball's senior vice president for public relations, confirmed that it has given written notice to Miami U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages of its intention to move the team.
"Yes, we did--that's the requirement," Levin said yesterday in a telephone interview from New York.
In July 2002, a group of 14 former minority owners of the Expos filed a federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against baseball, seeking $100 million in punitive and $100 million in compensatory damages. Last year, the judge ordered baseball to give the court 90 days' notice of any effort to move or sell the Expos.
The American Arbitration Association in New York is expected to decide in October whether the former owners have a valid RICO case. But a lawyer for the former Expos limited partners said yesterday that an injunction against the team's relocation will be filed, seeking a hearing in November, The Associated Press reported.
The Canadian businessmen owned 76 percent of the team before New York art dealer Jeffrey Loria took control of the club. Loria sold the Expos to baseball's other 29 owners in February 2002. He then bought the Florida Marlins.
The former partners who brought the suit accused Loria and baseball commissioner Bud Selig of deliberately driving the value and viability of the franchise down so that the owners could take the club from Montreal.
The lawsuit alleges that "From the beginning of Mr. Loria's involvement with the Expos, he and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme that had as its object the destruction of baseball in Montreal, so that Mr. Loria and his co-conspirators could justify relocating the franchise to the United States."
Bob DuPuy, president and chief operating officer of baseball, has said the lawsuit is "wholly without merit."
Loria himself has called the suit ridiculous because, he claims, the same minority owners had refused to spend money to re-sign star players, instead pushing to get rid of those players in what amounted to a "fire sale."
Baseball's action, despite the injunction threat, would seem to validate Selig's contention that he is serious about moving the team out of Montreal in time to begin play elsewhere when the 2005 season opens in April.
Brian Hannigan, a spokesman for the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority, called baseball's notification to the court good news.
"I think it is tangible evidence that Major League Baseball is moving ahead with the process, which we believe will ultimately result in the Expos playing in Northern Virginia," Hannigan said. "It's very good news for baseball fans throughout the commonwealth, as well as in the entire metropolitan Washington region."
Levin said yesterday that despite a recent flurry of meetings between relocation committee officials and the D.C. and Virginia groups vying for the Expos, Las Vegas, Norfolk, Portland, Ore., and Monterrey, Mexico, remain under consideration.
"No one has been eliminated," Levin said.
However, baseball's preliminary scheduling for 2005 has the Expos in the National League East, which would seem to doom the hopes of western cities Portland, Las Vegas and Monterrey.
Selig has said he hopes to make an announcement on the Expos' new home before baseball's postseason playoffs begin in October.
Hannigan said of Northern Virginia's meeting with baseball Tuesday: "Things are moving forward very well."
The relocation committee met with Washington officials about their proposal yesterday.
If Northern Virginia is awarded the team, it would play at RFK Stadium in Washington until a ballpark is completed near Dulles International Airport just west of the Loudoun-Fairfax line.
Staff librarian Craig Schulin contributed to this story.
To reach MIKE ZITZ: 540/374-5408 mikez@freelancestar.com