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Nationals Reprise Role of Sosa Suitor

By Barry Svrluga and Jorge Arangure Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 12, 2006; Page E03

The Washington Nationals were in discussions yesterday with an agent for former all-star slugger Sammy Sosa, talks that could culminate in a deal in which Sosa would try to rehabilitate his career in Washington after one of his worst seasons.

"We're going to sit down and see what happens," Sosa said by telephone from Miami, his offseason home. "It's a good opportunity. It's a good chance. We don't know anything yet, but we're going to sit down and talk."

Sosa said the sides were supposed to discuss matters over dinner last night, but Washington Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden said from the team's spring training complex in Viera, Fla., yesterday evening that no face-to-face meeting was scheduled for last night. Bowden did spend much of yesterday talking with Tom Reich, one of Sosa's agents.

Two Nationals sources said yesterday that should the club sign Sosa, it would be to a one-year, incentive-laden deal. One source said that the Nationals wouldn't be willing to guarantee Sosa any money and, should a deal be completed, they would carefully monitor Sosa's health and ability during the spring. Sosa could get time in the spring when Alfonso Soriano, slated to be the starting left fielder, plays in the World Baseball Classic and Jose Guillen, the starter in right, recovers from shoulder surgery.

Sosa, 37, hit only .221 and earned a base salary of $18 million with the Baltimore Orioles last season. Now, his suitors are almost non-existent, and the Nationals might be the only major league team willing to give him a chance. Sosa could make guaranteed money in Japan, but he is intent on hitting 600 major league home runs; he needs 12 more. He would have to fit into an outfield that includes not only Soriano and Guillen, but Ryan Church, Michael Tucker, Brandon Watson and Marlon Byrd competing for spots. Byrd avoided arbitration yesterday by agreeing to a one-year, $800,000 deal.

Sosa became one of the game's brightest stars and bubbliest personalities in his 13 seasons with the Chicago Cubs. His 588 homers are fifth on the career list -- two more than Nationals Manager Frank Robinson -- and he was once best known for the duel he staged with Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998, when they chased and broke Roger Maris's magical mark of 61 homers in a single season. He is a .274 career hitter with 1,575 RBI in parts of 17 major league seasons.

But Sosa and the Cubs organization tired of each other late in the 2004 season, and Bowden -- who said at one point, "I love Sammy" -- pursued him aggressively before he was traded to the Orioles. That offseason, though, Sosa was one of four active players who testified in person before Congress on the prevalence of steroids in baseball. Under questioning, Sosa said he had never used "illegal performance-enhancing drugs," had never "injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything," and had not "broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic."

The careful wording of the statements stopped well short of an all-out denial, and left many to speculate that Sosa had, indeed, taken steroids at some point during his career. His production with the Orioles in 2005, the first season of baseball's tougher steroid policy, was his worst in more than a decade. His average, on-base percentage (.295) and slugging percentage (.376) were all his lowest since 1991. He hit 14 homers and drove in 45 runs in 102 games.

Sosa's season in Baltimore was as troublesome as it was disappointing. He went on the disabled list in May with a staph infection and in August with a toe lesion. The Orioles eventually decided it was best that Sosa not rejoin the team for the remainder of the season. Sosa said many of his troubles at the plate resulted from his various foot problems.

In addition, an alleged feud with shortstop Miguel Tejada, chronicled by late bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks, made Sosa's stay in Baltimore brief. Both players denied a deep rift, but at the very least it appears some animosity exists between them.

In other news, the Nationals named their minor league managers and coaching staffs. Tim Foli will remain the manager at Class AAA New Orleans. John Stearns is the manager at Class AA Harrisburg, and each of the three Class A affiliates will have new managers -- Randy Knorr at Potomac, Bobby Williams at Savannah and Edgar Caceres at Vermont.

skinsRin wrote:June 16th 17th and 18th the Yankees will be in town to play the Nat's. Looks like a sweep for the Yanks.

skinsRin wrote:June 16th 17th and 18th the Yankees will be in town to play the Nat's. Looks like a sweep for the Yanks.

WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia Council rejected a lease for the Washington Nationals' new ballpark on Tuesday, leaving the district's government and Major League Baseball headed to arbitration.

The council voted 8-5 against approving the lease.

As part of the deal to lure the Montreal Expos after the 2004 season, Washington agreed to spend money on construction and land acquisition for the stadium, to be built along the Anacostia River waterfront. The council voted then to authorize up to $535 million in bonds, but the price of construction is thought to have escalated.

"The majority of the council took a shortsighted view in denying this lease," Mayor Anthony A. Williams said. "We're not saving money for the district, we're not saving money for the project, we're not even really bringing economic benefit to our citizens."

The mayor declined to say whether he would seek a new agreement with baseball.

Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, was angered by the decision.

"Today's vote is a serious setback to all those in the Washington community who sought the return of a team to the nation's capital," he said in a statement.

After the council failed to approve a lease by the Dec. 31 deadline, baseball filed for mediation, a preliminary step before arbitration. The city and baseball then reached a revised agreement, which included a $20 million contribution from baseball for stadium construction. Williams also negotiated a side deal with construction companies setting a "guaranteed maximum price" for the city at $320 million.

Consultants hired by the council said Monday that the mayor's cap had loopholes, and urged the council to enact its own ceiling.

"I regret very much that D.C. officials have failed to honor the agreement they made when they successfully bid for the Expos to move to Washington," DuPuy said in his statement. "Baseball has no choice but to pursue arbitration so the terms of our original agreement can be honored and to begin to explore whatever options are available to us."

The Expos were bought by the 29 other major-league teams before the 2002 season, and commissioner Bud Selig has refused to sell the team until a lease is approved. Asked in a telephone interview whether baseball would reopen bidding on the franchise to other communities, DuPuy responded: "Our first remedy will be arbitration. I hope the council sees fit to honor the city's obligations at some point."

Councilman Jack Evans predicted that the city would lose the team if the lease was not approved.

"Baseball will finish up its run at RFK Stadium for the next year or two, and then have to move on," he said.

A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said his state could accommodate the Nationals.

"The governor has expressed a willingness to enter into a dialogue, should an opportunity to bring Major League Baseball to Virginia arise in the future," Kaine spokesman Delacey Skinner told radio station WTOP.

Council switches, approves ballpark
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

Just hours after rejecting an earlier proposal, the Washington, D.C., City Council reversed course early Wednesday morning and voted to approve a 30-year lease for the Washington Nationals to play at a still-to-be-constructed stadium on the waterfront, just a mile south of the Capitol building.
After first rejecting the lease by an 8-5 vote late Tuesday night, the Council then went into a three-hour extra session and voted 9-4 to approve a revised lease. In doing so, the Council added two significant provisos: a $610.8 million cap on the cost of the project and a drop dead date of March 6 for Major League Baseball to accept the terms of the revamped deal. If MLB fails to do so by then, the lease agreement goes away. If MLB agrees, baseball will no doubt ultimately conclude the process of selling the team, which it has owned since Feb. 15, 2002, when it purchased the faltering Montreal Expos.

"I think this is a deal that works for everyone," Mayor Anthony Williams said after the marathon meeting. "This is doable. The Council came through. I just want to thank the Council. [The cap] is in law. It's a real cap. It's been structured as a real cap."

MLB President Bob DuPuy was non-committal about the deal when reached on Wednesday morning after the lease agreement was finally passed. The Council stipulated that any overrun costs on the project would have to be picked up by the team, eliminated through savings on construction or paid by private sources. The cap, though, doesn't include about $80 million in land acquisition costs that will be paid by the city.

"We have not seen the legislation, which was repeatedly the subject of friendly amendments tonight and so we can't comment on its impact on our contract with the city, if any," DuPuy said. "We will study it in the morning and no doubt have a response. We appreciate the continuing efforts of the Mayor, the Chairman, the Commission and the members of the Council who support baseball in D.C."

The earlier 8-5 defeat was the same as predicted this past December when Mayor Williams pulled the lease from the docket before the final meeting of the year. Since then, officials for MLB and the District have been through mediation and the parameters of an adjusted deal emerged from those talks last week.

With MLB's approval, the city will sell $535 million worth of bonds to fund construction. The two sides agreed that the principle and interest on the bonds would be repaid through $92 million in rent payments made by the team over 30 years; fees on tickets, hotdogs and t-shirts sold at the ballpark projected to generate $369 million over the same period; a ballpark fee, affecting fewer than 2,000 businesses in the District, earmarked to raise $215 million over 30 years, and a utility tax assessed primarily on the federal government that is expected to raise another $215 million.

"This combined sum, $891 million, guarantees a revenue stream that will allow the District to build a beautiful ballpark, sparking a revitalization of an underdeveloped area of the District and giving people a new entertainment destination without ever having to tap into general fund revenue," Williams said.

MLB agreed to the cap on the construction costs of the new ballpark; to fund a local baseball academy like the one opening later this month in Compton, Calif., at a cost of $3.5 million; to increase its allotment of free game tickets to local underprivileged youth from 8,000 to 10,000 per season; that Nationals players would make a minimum of 50 youth, educational or charitable appearances a year in the District, and that the owners would hold one of their quarterly meetings in Washington before the summer of 2008.

"We took a big step forward today to invest in our future," said Linda Cropp, the Council chair, who saved the team for the city in late 2004 when she reversed her negative vote and supported the new stadium. "Our local and small businesses will reap millions of dollars. Major League Baseball did not get an open checkbook. I said from the beginning I would support the ballpark but not at any cost."

The final decision to move from Montreal to Washington came in December 2004 only after an 11th hour 7-6 Council vote in favor of building a $535 million ballpark on the banks of Anacostia River, an edifice that is the focal point of a major redevelopment project.

Since then the projected cost of has escalated by nearly $200 million. Late last year, MLB agreed to shoulder $20 million of the overruns as well as advance the city $24 million in rent. MLB has argued in recent weeks that it has no control over design, construction or bidding of the project and thus should not be liable for overruns created by the city.

Meanwhile, the Nationals are getting ready to play their second season in aging RFK Stadium where they drew 2.7 million and netted a $10 million profit this past season, MLB's first in Washington since the expansion Senators fled the city after the 1971 season for Arlington, Texas.

Eight groups have spent the past year bidding on the franchise, which is expected to sell in the neighborhood of $450 million. But those talks have been put on hold since last summer as the lease negotiations continued to drag on.

MLB said a condition of selling the team was signing the lease to play in the new ballpark, which was originally targeted to open in time for the 2008 season.

Williams, who is in the last year of his seven-year tenure as mayor, had hoped to list the permanent return of baseball to D.C. as part of his legacy. He's now nearly there.

"We're going to make this work," said Mark Tuohey, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, who helped hammer out the lease last year with Jerry Reinsdorf, the White Sox's chairman. "This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

Even in late 2004, opposition against building a new stadium nearly scuttled the move from Montreal. MLB announced its decision to return to Washington near the end of that season, but in early December, Cropp, was the swing vote in defeating the stadium proposal. MLB then halted all operations of the team in Washington. After an intense two weeks of negotiating, Cropp flipped and voted in favor of a deal she has been tweaking since then.

"We now have a ballpark agreement that is better for the District and is better in every way," Cropp said. "What it will do is bring in revenue."

Even former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, now a Councilman and a staunch leader of the stadium opposition, switched in the late innings on Wednesday morning and voted in favor of the lease agreement.

"This was a bad deal," said Barry, sporting a red Washington baseball cap during the overtime session. "But we tried to make it better and we did."

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. MLB.com reporter Bill Ladson and MLB.com contributor Jeff Seidel contributed. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

skinsRin wrote:I guess you guys might know this allready but the Nationals are in the works of getting Slammin Sammy Sosa. LOL Good luck with that guy he is so out of his prime, and such a has been.

skinsRin wrote:I didn't know this was mentioned allready, I'll look in the eariler pages, Thanks. Well, I think talks are back in the works because they mentioned it on Sportscenter today, that they are close to a deal.