The Washington Nationals are in Houston for a three-game series against the Astros at Minute Maid Park. They really should get a larger portion of the gate than the standard visitors cut.
After all, if it wasn’t for the Washington Nationals — more accurately, baseball in Washington — there might not be a ballpark or a team in the Texas city.
Perhaps no city in America has been responsible for more ballpark construction — and billions of dollars spent — than Washington.
Baseball in the District has resulted in the construction of at least four new ballparks — Nationals Park, Minute Maid Park, Safeco Field in Seattle and PNC Park in Pittsburgh — at a total cost of $1.6 billion.
Washington may have been the greatest stalking horse in the history of sports.
Following the baseball strike, the 1995 season was marked by the uncertain future of the franchises in Houston, Seattle and Pittsburgh. All three of those teams faced the real possibility of relocation unless new ballparks were built.
All three of those teams were rumored to be up for sale to several bidders seeking to bring baseball back to the District for the first time since the Senators left town following the 1971 season.
And in all three seasons, there was fear that those teams would move to Washington. Baseball used that leverage to get Safeco Field, PNC Park and Minute Maid Park built.
In Houston, though, that fear was grounded in reality. Reports surfaced during the 1995 postseason that Astros owner Drayton McLane had been in negotiations with communications mogul Bill Collins to move the team to Washington — and eventually Northern Virginia.
McLane — who just sold the team for $680 million (the sales price reported in talks between McLane and Collins in 1995 was $160 million) — told me during an Astros visit to Washington that “at one point, we talked about selling the team to Bill Collins and moving it here.”
McLane, who had purchased the Astros in 1993, was having no luck trying to get a ballpark built in Houston. So he used Washington to force the issue.
“We became frustrated, and Bill Collins approached me,” McLane said. “He and I started a conversation. We had not reached an agreement, but our conversation leaked out. I got a call from the mayor and a lot of business leaders, and that changed everything in Houston.”
With Washington hanging over the debate, a referendum for financing a ballpark just barely passed, and Enron Field — the original name for the facility — was built.
It would be 10 years before baseball would return to Washington — after the city had served its purpose as a stalking horse — in the form of the Expos, and a new $600 million ballpark opened in Washington in 2008.
Somewhere in Minute Maid Park, there should be a plaque that notes the home field for this Astros-Nationals series owes a debt of gratitude to Washington.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
