The sudden death of Triple-A Int'l League Pawtucket Red Sox President James Skeffinton on Sunday night "leaves negotiations over the team's potential move to Providence in no-man's land," according to a front-page piece by Paul Grimaldi of the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL. Skeffington was "not just one of the team's 10 new owners, he was the man with the 'vision'" for the downtown Providence home. He also was the team's "lead negotiator and a lawyer with a long history of pushing complex development deals through Rhode Island's parochial political system." While rumors were "rampant last week that an agreement between the PawSox owners and the state's political leaders was at hand, there's now likely to be a slowdown on the pace of talks relating to the team's stated desire to build" a $70M ballpark downtown and spend another $15M on "related infrastructure." Providence City Council President Luis Aponte: "I think we should all take a step back ... to see how (the owners) would like to move forward" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 5/19). In Boston, Callum Borchers noted Skeffington's death "stunned fellow PawSox owners and has, for the moment, taken their attention off negotiations with public officials." PawSox spokesperson Patti Doyle said that Skeffington’s partners were "still absorbing the news and had made no decisions about who will lead the club and represent it in stadium talks" (BOSTONGLOBE.com, 5/18). In Providence, Edward Fitzpatrick writes Skeffington "wasn't just the public face of the Providence ballpark proposal." Fitzpatrick: "He was its soul. He held the dream." Now, everyone is "waiting to see if Skeffington's dream will materialize." In the days ahead, "we'll find out whether the other PawSox owners will fill that void and bring Skeffington's dream to fruition -- or whether the other owners," such as Red Sox President & CEO Larry Lucchino, "will have too little time to close the deal or too little interest in keeping the team in Rhode Island" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 5/19).
POINT, COUNTERPOINT: In Providence, Kate Bramson noted a primary reason PawSox owners said that they must leave McCoy Stadium is that the facility needs more than $65.8M "in renovations before it can match the 'state-of-the-art' ballparks" where other teams play. But Mayor Donald Grebien's Dir of Administration Tony Pires said that the figure is "extremely high." Grebien said that he and other members of his staff believe it is "difficult to evaluate the estimate" because Skeffington had "declined to make public the feasibility study that produced the figure." Pires said that the fact the city "can't get the full study makes him suspicious" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 5/18). Also in Providence, John Hill notes a forum Sunday night on the ballpark proposal "drew more than 150 people," and "most of them told three of the city's legislators the state should pass on the deal." Most of those who spoke were "skeptical of claims of economic benefits" from the ballpark (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 5/19).
