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July 21, 2010

St. Pete mayor to okay Rays move outside city limits

Stop the presses! Somebody has blinked in the standoff between the Tampa Bay Rays and the city of St. Petersburg, and it's St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster:

Mayor Bill Foster is proposing changes to the city's contract with the Tampa Bay Rays that would allow the club, for the first time, to explore alternate sites to downtown's Tropicana Field.
Foster said the amended agreement would permit the Rays to consider a stadium anywhere in St. Petersburg and the "greater Gateway area," which would include land outside city limits.

This is a minor blink, to be sure — Foster has essentially shifted from "only in St. Pete" to "only near St. Pete" — but it's a blink nonetheless, and it's not entirely clear what's in it for the mayor, who gives up a piece of leverage (the lease clause prohibiting the Rays from talking to any neighboring cities or counties) for nothing. Possibilities: 1) Foster was getting pressure from other local electeds to not be an obstructionist in getting a new stadium deal done; or 2) he figured it was better to throw a carrot to the Rays to at least talk about staying on his side of the bay, to head off talk about a move to Tampa. (Not that the Rays took the bait yet — team execs so far have had no comment.)

In any case, even though it's a potential stadium's site that has gotten all the media attention, the real issue, as Noah Pransky points out, is how to pay for one. And there they're still pretty much nowhere.

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