Forty Under 40

SHERRY BAKHTIAR/SB IMAGING GROUP LLC

After playing a key role in the relocation of the Montreal Expos in 2004 to Washington, D.C., and the construction of Nationals Park, the Foley & Lardner attorney then worked on the forthcoming Florida Marlins ballpark on behalf of Major League Baseball, represented Chuck Greenberg, Nolan Ryan and their partners last year in their purchase of the Texas Rangers, and now is part of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s task force studying new stadium options for the Oakland A’s.

Each of these sagas were anything but conventional and at many times came perilously close to falling apart entirely. But baseball is now solidly in place in the nation’s capital, the Marlins’ ballpark will open next year, and the Rangers are rapidly ascending under Ryan and his team following a bankruptcy filing and high-stakes auction for the team.

And while public details are scarce regarding the A’s study, Raij hopes for a successful outcome there, too, in the coming months.

“There’s never any one way to do these deals. Every one is very, very different,” Raij said. “The landscape to do a stadium deal nowadays is incredibly challenging. But I still do have hope, always, and I’m still bullish on these deals. The key is finding what’s really important to each side.”

Raij has been widely praised by MLB and many individual teams for a cool, methodical approach to these highly complex situations. But the Miami native admits to some emotion, particularly with regard to the new Marlins stadium, being built on the site of the former Orange Bowl in Miami’s Little Havana.

“I spent a lot of time at the Orange Bowl as a kid, and have a ton of memories there. I loved it there,” said Raij, also student body president while at the University of Miami, which also called the Orange Bowl home. “So it was very, very strange to be part of the process of essentially tearing it down.”