Official Promises To Deliver Stadium – The Post
Mark Tuohey, the lawyer who runs the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission pro bono, is optmistic about getting the ballpark lease worked out:
“It’s going to get done,” Tuohey said recently over lunch at a downtown steakhouse. “People said we were not going to get the team, but I said we would, and we got it. People said we were not going to get RFK [Stadium] renovated on time, but we did. And people said we wouldn’t get the lease finished, but this will get done, too.”
Put that way, Tuohey has the track record. How he got that far is something that concerns the council.
“Did they take a hard enough line? The answer is no,” council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) said of Tuohey and the city’s other negotiators. “When were we going to say to baseball, ‘Okay, we’re going to walk’? It’s always, ‘Here’s the best deal we could get. We worked hard for it.’ It’s like they’re always putting a happy face on it.”
Stadium supporter Sharon Ambrose (D, Ward-6) defends Tuohey:
I have a feeling Mark might have been better off if he was left to do his own negotiating than to constantly have whoever’s turn it was from the mayor’s office to be the baseball person get involved.
David A. Catania (I-At Large) suggested the negotiating was an “amateur hour.” He might be right:
Not only did the city’s negotiating team agree to pay for the stadium and all cost overruns, but it even threw in the kitchen appliances, a concession that drew chuckles in baseball circles, according to MLB sources.
Tuohey counters those arguments with this
“Is Jerry Reinsdorf a more able negotiator than I am? Yes, he’s probably been better,” Tuohey said. “But we got two things that are unprecedented — the $20 million and a non-relocation agreement in which we have a lien on the team.”
If/when they ever get around to getting this done, I would expect Tuohey is out the door before the ink is dry. At least, that would be the smart play, methinks.
Federal Baseball alerts us to the list of Nationals on the preliminary World Baseball Classic roster (nationals.com). Here they are (so you do not have to scroll):
Ayala, Luis – Mexico
Cordero, Chad – United States
DiFelice, Mike – Italy
Rivera, Saul – Puerto Rico
Schneider, Brian – United States
Soriano, Alfonso – Dominican Republic
Vidro, Jose – Puerto Rico
No, I don’t know who DiFelice and Rivera are, either.