March 23, 2005

Following the money

MLB and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos are reportedly on the verge of an agreement for how much compensation Angelos will get for the Washington Nationals moving in on his turf. (Of course, they were saying this last September, too.) When a deal is finally struck, it's likely to be a tremendous giveaway to Angelos, especially considering that he didn't have any legal territorial rights to D.C. in the first place - Baseball Prospectus subscribers can read my discussion of some of the likely ramifications in my hot-off-the-virtual-presses article at baseballprospectus.com.

In other Nats news, our old friend D.C. council chair Linda Cropp is back in the headlines, this time for claiming that her pet private-financing project was "misrepresented" by D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi, and demanding that it get a second look from the city. Unfortunately, this would violate the Constitutional legal principle of no backsies.