Major League Baseball must force out one of its team owners. That owner is Major League Baseball.
For two years MLB has run the Expos, a team it took over because baseball owners wanted to clear up the mess in Montreal and couldn't use contraction to do it. The idea was to run the team for a year, then sell it to an owner who would move it to a market that promised more than Montreal's grim stadium and small crowds.
A year turned into two years and now threatens to stretch to three. The ownership search party has trekked through Washington, northern Virginia and Portland, but none of those localities has offered the specifics for ballpark financing that MLB craves.
In the meantime, the in-limbo Expos have become a road show of their own, playing about a quarter of their home games to enthusiastic crowds in Puerto Rico and the rest before a small contingent of loyalists in Olympic Stadium, a fittingly tomblike spot for major league baseball to die in Montreal. It's a slow death, though, and for the few local fans left it must be excruciating.
The time is coming fast for MLB to make a decision, whether it likes it or not. The reason is simple: This whole thing looks bad, and the longer it goes on, the worse it looks.
To run a league while running a single team in that league is an inherent conflict of interest. It might work for a start-up lacrosse league, but this is Major League Baseball. There's a higher standard.
By trading a talented player to the Red Sox instead of the Yankees, are the Expos getting the best deal or is MLB tweaking the competitive balance of the American League East? If payroll goes up, is MLB using its other clubs' money to make the Expos more attractive for sale? If it goes down, is MLB consigning the Expos organization (and the team's remaining fans) to loss upon loss just to save the other teams money?
Another trading deadline approaches at the end of the month, and MLB will again face the questions, regardless of what it does. The only way to set things right is to get the Expos into a new owner's hands.
In its defense, baseball has faced a depressed market for team sales and a roster of less-than-perfect sites. In addition, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos has arched his back every time someone mentions putting a team down the road in Washington. He's a lawyer, you know.
These aren't problems to be disregarded, but there's no guarantee that MLB can wait any of them out. The pool of potential cities is unlikely to suddenly expand. The economy will do what it wants to do. So, for that matter, will Angelos if MLB chooses D.C., and a big check will go a long way to ease the pain.
Sometime today, or maybe Tuesday, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig will address the Expos issue during the all-star festivities in Chicago. He probably won't say the team has a new owner, but that announcement must come soon.
The commissioner's job is to act in the best interests of the game, and it's in baseball's best interests to free the Expos.
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