July 24, 2009

Tampa paper speculates on Rays move to Tampa

The Tampa Bay Rays owners haven't breathed a word about moving out of St. Petersburg, but that hasn't stopped the Tampa Tribune from speculating on whether they could break their lease and hightail it out of town, or at least across the bay to Tampa. Reports the Tribune:

Experts the Tribune interviewed hadn't studied the Rays' agreement and wouldn't give an opinion about whether a court would let the team out of it.

Okay, so that wasn't actually so dramatic. But, notes Trib reporter Michael Sasso, other teams have broken leases before, so it's at least conceivable, right?

Well, that depends on what's in the lease: With 18 years to go, if it has a strict penalty clause for what the Rays must pay if they skip town, then it would be prohibitively difficult to get out of it without St. Pete's permission. Though at least a move to Tampa would presumably forestall the threat of an antitrust lawsuit by the state of Florida, which is what kept the Rays off MLB's contraction list when contraction was being considered.

In any case, St. Pete officials promised to keep the team in town at all costs, with St. Petersburg City Attorney John Wolfe asserting, "We expect the Rays will honor their contract," and adding, "We expect that if the city and the Rays agree to a new stadium, it would be in St. Petersburg." Though he might actually want to reconsider: Having to drive across a bridge to see Evan Longoria could be a reasonable tradeoff for not having to help pay for the new place. Not to mention the city would get the benefits of reclaiming the Tropicana Field site, which was the whole point of the last Rays stadium plan — though perhaps it's too much to expect city officials to remember all the way back to 2007...