Anaheim Should Take a Hint

News item: Major league baseball recommends Denver and Miami as expansion franchises, leaving St. Petersburg with a thoroughly modern, thoroughly expensive, thoroughly empty domed stadium that will now be used to hold white elephant races.

News item: Jerry Buss and Bruce McNall reportedly will team up to build a sports arena in San Diego so they can switch their present Los Angeles ownership roles--Buss gets the hockey franchise, McNall the basketball.

New question: Anaheim, is it too late to un-plan the arena?

Last week’s expansion announcement came accompanied by video footage of the St. Petersburg Suncoast Dome, a vision in future shock for Anaheim. Outside, the Suncoast Dome appeared to be wilting, like a slowly leaking balloon, until you realized that’s the way it’s supposed to look. The builders of the dome took a different architectural slant--they built it slanted--so the stadium resembles a giant opened clam, or an expansion bid somebody stepped on.

Inside, the view was more depressing. Folding rows of bleacher seats were folded against stark cement walls. The playing surface looked like AstroTundra. It was quiet, too quiet. At any moment, you expected the forklifts to come rolling in, moving pallets of unperishables around the world’s most overpriced storage garage.

In St. Pete, the only thing that expanded was the ire of citizenry. Ten years of promises, down the tubes. Millions and millions of dollars, still to be collected from local taxpayers. The same gamble Anaheim is undertaking--stadium first, team second--in a game of chance where it doesn’t pay to finish third.

Yet, compared to Anaheim, St. Pete’s request was modest. All it wanted was a major league baseball team in a state that previously had none. It was angling to bring its densely populated community a second professional sports franchise, more than 15 years after nearby Tampa landed the NFL Buccaneers.

Anaheim is asking for the moon, green cheese and all. At the moment, the 40-mile L.A.-Orange County axis incorporates two pro football teams, two pro baseball teams, two pro basketball teams and one pro hockey team. Anaheim wants a third NBA team and a second NHL team, ignoring the fact that the first one didn’t draw before Wayne Gretzky, and that Wayne Gretzky isn’t going to play forever.

Anaheim garnered much of its encouragement from the Forum acquisition group, Buss-McNall. Buss was talking about reclaiming his stake in the NHL, possibly in Anaheim, provided McNall relinquished the territorial rights. McNall was talking about relinquishing territorial rights provided Buss allowed him to set up shop in the NBA, possibly in Anaheim.

Buss and McNall are on the same page, only now in a different city. San Diego’s the place, despite what it did to the NBA Rockets and Clippers (lost them) and what it most likely will do to an expansion NHL entry (go sailing).

According to a report in the San Diego Union, Buss and McNall are negotiating with developer Ron Hahn to build a downtown arena that will serve as headquarters for their Operation Franchise Grab. Succeed or fail, their commitment to San Diego is a blow to Anaheim, perhaps a crippling one.

Assume they succeed. That would give Southern California three basketball and two hockey teams. Add one more, in either category, to Anaheim?

Assume NBA and NHL owners to be intelligent businessmen.

Buss and McNall could go 0 for 2 in San Diego and Anaheim would still lose. Buss and McNall getting involved in franchise procurement in any city other than Anaheim damages Anaheim. Orange County needs their interest, their influence, their finances.

So what does San Diego have that Anaheim doesn’t?

An additional 50 miles of freeway between itself and Los Angeles. Buss and McNall like that distance very, very much. It’s hard to hurt attendance in Inglewood when your other business interest draws its fan base from Escondido and Otay Mesa.

The extra miles also tend to make league commissioners less squeamish. Note again where the National League decided to place its 13th and 14th teams--in Denver, which is 600 miles from the closest big league franchise, and Miami, which will have Atlanta as its nearest rival.

Remember, too, that these are going to be bad teams. Exceedingly bad. Perhaps the worst teams to ever play major league baseball. But they will sell, because in starved Denver and Miami, god-awful baseball is preferable to no baseball at all.

Anaheim is a different crusade. Anaheim is tired of losing. Put an expansion basketball or hockey team here and before long, crowds would be so lean they’d have to sign Fernando Valenzuela.

Look again, Anaheim Arena. That reflection in the mirror is the Suncoast Dome. All dressed up with nothing going on.

If Anaheim isn’t on the road to nowhere, the road it’s traveling leads right to St. Pete.