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'A big loss' Officials at spring training homes can only wait, worry
Updated: Wednesday November 07, 2001 8:24 PM
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Major league baseball hasn't said which two teams it wants to disband, but officials at Montreal's spring training home are already referring to the Expos in the past tense. "We like the fact that the Expos were here," Palm Beach County Administrator Robert Weisman said Wednesday in Jupiter. "They had the connection to Canadian tourism, which was important to us." It's an uncomfortable waiting game for civic and business leaders in the Florida cities where the endangered teams train. Montreal, the Minnesota Twins and the Florida Marlins recently have been mentioned as the likeliest candidates for elimination. Owners, who voted Tuesday to get rid of two teams, have not said which teams will be gone. The Twins train in Fort Myers, on the southern Gulf coast, and the Marlins near Melbourne, just south of Cape Canaveral on the central Atlantic coast. "The month of March in Florida is a big time for people coming in for spring training, so losing these teams is not something we'd like to see," said Nick Gandy, a Florida Sports Foundation spokesman. A city that has a Grapefruit League team taken away would suffer a significant financial blow. A study commissioned by the foundation found that spring training brought an economic impact of $490 million in 2000. Also, more than 5,500 full-time jobs are supported and attendance at the state's 19 ballparks was nearly 1.6 million. In addition to losing tourist dollars, communities that built or renovated stadiums for the eliminated teams are in danger of having to deal with collecting rent money they thought they had locked up for another decade. The Twins pay Lee County $300,000 in rent annually with its lease expiring in 2010, county Director of Economic Development Janet Watermeier said. The lease agreement between the county and the Twins states that if the team breaks the lease, "the club shall be liable to reimburse the county all regularly scheduled payments of principal and interest due on the bonds ..." "(The Twins) would still be obligated to pay rent until there was another team in there," Watermeier said. Contraction wouldn't be the only blow recently suffered by the Grapefruit League. Earlier this year, Arizona's Cactus League used the promise of a new stadium to woo the Texas Rangers away from Port Charlotte and the Kansas City Royals from Haines City. Those teams begin play in suburban Phoenix in 2003. "That would put (the Grapefruit League) down to 16 teams," Gandy said. "That's a big loss." In Jupiter, Montreal shares 7,000-seat Roger Dean Stadium with one of the Grapefruit League's top draws -- the St. Louis Cardinals -- so losing the Expos wouldn't be a crippling blow. "The Cards have been incredible," Weisman said. "We've gotten a lot of support from their ex-spring training site in the Tampa Bay area, as well as St. Louis." But Weisman added that the county wants another team to share the stadium, and officials believe the 4-year-old ballpark and surrounding facilities are good enough to get one. Fort Myers is another two-team town, although the stadiums are separate. The Boston Red Sox have trained at City of Palms Park since 1993, when they moved from Winter Haven. Also, March is the area's biggest tourism month, spring training or not, Watermeier said. And in Melbourne, Brevard County officials are confident they could attract another team if the Marlins folded. "Space Coast Stadium and the Carl Barger Complex combined are considered to be one of the top two or three spring-training facilities in the state," county manager Tom Jenkins said. But, Watermeier said, money concerns are secondary to the psychic effect on a city after it has a team ripped from its embrace. "Lee County has a fondness for the Minnesota Twins," she said. "It's going to be loss for the folks who really enjoyed going to the games."
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