July 28, 2010

Rays to St. Pete mayor: Our way or the skyway

So much for that minor olive branch from St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, offering to let the Tampa Bay Rays consider sites just north of his city. After a meeting with Foster yesterday, Rays president Matt Silverman fired back yesterday with a terse "thanks, but no thanks":

To secure the long-term future of the Rays here, any search for a new ballpark site needs to explore all of the Tampa Bay region. This is what we repeated to Mayor Foster today. We thanked him for his gesture, and we conveyed to him again that we will consider sites in St. Petersburg and Gateway when we are considering all potential sites in Tampa Bay.

Our organization is singularly focused on the pennant race at hand. Come November, we will work to formulate a process for a ballpark site search with the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

That's not unexpected — the Rays management clearly wants to at least consider a move to Tampa, if nothing else to increase their chances of finding some government body that'll pay for the stadium — but it indicates that this battle is likely to turn even uglier, with the possibility of lawsuits coming into play. St. Pete city council chair Leslie Curran declared herself "extremely disappointed by the [Rays'] response," adding, "The Rays need to focus on St. Petersburg and exhaust all those opportunities." Looks like there's gonna be a gumfight.