Canzano: Portland Mayor sounds off on MLB to PDX
"This is our time," Mayor Ted Wheeler told me.
I’ve called him an empty suit. I’ve railed about the frustration of lawlessness, boarded-up businesses, and the lack of support for those afflicted with mental illness and stuck without a roof over their heads.
On Thursday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler took my call anyway.
I respect that.
Wheeler has two months left on the job. He and the Portland City Council unanimously approved a resolution earlier this week to support the Portland Diamond Project’s efforts to bring MLB to PDX.
A hollow gesture, you’re thinking?
We’ll see. I’ve lived in the region for more than two decades and it’s the first time I’ve seen the current of the political river flow so obviously in the direction of professional sports. The mayor sounded wildly optimistic and enthusiastic in our 20-minute talk. It made me wonder what else he knows.
A 5-0 council vote? A viable piece of riverfront real estate coming under control? The city and state all smiling and nodding in approval? WNBA to Portland? Why not MLB?
“This is our time,” Wheeler told me, “we just need to keep pushing the ball forward.”
The Portland Diamond Project has work to do. I still need to see a shovel in the ground. But the vote this week signaled that the effort doesn’t just have investors and real estate, it now has political will in its corner. The city committed to a series of support moves and has its arms open for MLB.
What in the world is going on?
We’ve heard about MLB-to-PDX for years. The efforts have never felt quite this serious. I asked Wheeler what makes him optimistic that this baseball thing is actually happening. I barely finished the question and he began reeling off a series of points.
Wheeler said:
• “We’re now unified as a community.”
• “We have an ownership team that’s highly committed and passionate about bringing baseball to Portland.”
• “We now have a location with the Zidell Yards. That has been a big stumbling point up to this point.”
• “We have elected officials at all levels of government who are supporting this effort.”
• “This is the largest unserved market in the United States so it’s going to look attractive economically to the baseball commissioner and owners. Not to sell them short, but the economics matter very intensively to those folks.”
• “We passed a house bill many, many, many years ago that actually provides a source of funding for professional baseball to be located within the city limits of Portland. And that’s really helping us today.”
We… we… we.
Anyone else catch that?
Portland and the MLB effort used to be a “they” thing. Now, it’s “we.” It sounds like city leaders — including either candidate who will take over for Wheeler in January — are moving in lockstep.
The Portland Diamond Project has a design firm working on renderings of the ballpark they’d like to build. I got a sneak peek weeks ago. This week, the effort got some badly needed political juice. At a minimum level, it signals that there won’t be the customary political interference and static.
Las Vegas is getting the Oakland A’s (probably). Salt Lake City has an ownership group and has felt for a while like a more evolved MLB expansion candidate. But if the Portland Diamond Project can keep the momentum, buy Zidell Yards, put a shovel in the ground, and get MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to visit, they just might have something.
Mayor Wheeler said: “We’re the team to beat here.”
I spoke at length with Wheeler on Thursday. The full interview will air on my radio show at 3 p.m. (podcast link). But there was something about the way Wheeler talked about baseball that felt new.
I’m eager to see what comes next.
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My opinion? Nothing good for Portland will come from Mayor Wheeler. Once a radical, always a radical. If I were the business establishment, I would not believe anything he says. Wheeler has a track record at this point. One of the suburbs should take this on, with their friendlier business environment (Wilsonville would be ideal as closer to the rest of the Willamette Valley, and less an issue with traffic into downtown Portland)
"Salt Lake City has an ownership group and has felt for a while like a more evolved MLB expansion candidate." Those are sage words...SLC has everything, a stable and deep-pocketed ownership group, a designated stadium location plus advanced renderings of a stadium, public transportation already present to take people directly to the stadium's doorstep, massive community and political ($1B earmarked for a stadium from the legislature) support, etc...in my view, the only way that Portland, with all of its issues, supplants SLC as a contender is if it makes a massive donation to Rob Manfred's bank account. Most baseball people in the know will tell you that Nashville and SLC are 1 and 1A in any future baseball expansion or move location with other cities like Portland waiting on the bench.