MLB Commissioner Bud Selig's office "was expected" to
make a decision yesterday regarding the league's "approval
of the business plan that will allow the Expos to survive in
Montreal," according to Stephanie Myles of the Montreal
GAZETTE. Though official word on a ruling "hadn't arrived
yesterday," Expos Chair Jacques Menard "pretty much
confirmed" to a Montreal radio station last night that the
team's business plan had received league approval two weeks
ago. Menard: "I have every reason to believe that baseball
is satisfied that the project is viable, that we know what
we're doing. ... We've never been so near, so close to the
goal. I have the feeling it's going to work. We have never
had as much support from [MLB] as we have now." Menard also
said that his ownership group "has managed to raise" two-
thirds of the C$75M in local investment it is seeking for a
new ballpark to "complement" the roughly C$75M that N.Y. art
dealer Jeffrey Loria is expected to provide (GAZETTE, 8/10).
DC STILL HOPING: In DC, Bill Brubaker profiles the
Washington Baseball Club looking to bring an MLB team to
DC/Northern VA. The six-member group, led by Thayer Capital
Partners Chair Fred Malek, "may represent [DC's] best chance
of landing a major league team," as it has a net worth of
"more than" $3B and has "connections that extend from [MLB]
to the White House to the boardrooms of billion-dollar
companies" (WASHINGTON POST, 8/10). Also in DC, Michael
Wilbon writes on the long absence of MLB from the city and
states that people in DC "don't fight for or through much of
anything." Wilbon: "Everybody senses our weakness, which is
why [MLB] doesn't take us seriously. It isn't that Selig
and his cronies aren't acutely aware of the per-capita
income here, or the market size. It's that they don't much
care. We haven't made them care like Cleveland made the NFL
care. Charlotte scares baseball because the banker boys
live in Charlotte" (WASHINGTON POST, 8/10).
