Also, Angelos didn't destroy the O's, he took a team with a lousy farm system, spent money, didn't win, then didn't spend money, and didn't win, and is now spending some money while finally rebuilding the farm system (for the first time in two decades). Meanwhile, Tejada is a draw on a par with that other Crabtown shortstop, while Mora is... Mora.

Angelos is on his own for the firing of Davey Johnson and Gillick, but as owners go, he's been about average (and of course, Gillick and Johnson wanted to give up on '96...)

O's have an outside shot of finishing .500, and will absolutely contend for years.

Enjoy the Spos (and the Skins).

May go to one DC game from Rockville, but likely not two, and probably the one where the O's play.

I then went to the infamous Buzzard Point on the other side of Capitol St (where Marion Barry was caught). Coast Guard Headquarters, a marina, projects with plywood covering the windows, a gravel pit, warehouses, etc.

To me, the SW (Buzzard Point) area looked like it needs redevelopment much more than the SE (O ST) area.

With the Supreme Court just deciding to look at eminent domain issues, this could get very interesting.

The District is central and would be easier to work with, and the Metro, while not the best solution, would disperse the DC folks effectively and leave the VA/MD people the only ones driving.

Some other MLB cities (Seattle, Denver) have shuttles to/from regional park-and-rides. In Seattle, e.g., you can park your car in Bellevue or Redmond and get dropped at the ballpark gate in 30 minutes. It would seem that this would be an effective way to keep the traffic to the game down. That, and charging through the nose for parking. Despite the gawdawful traffic problems, the stadiums in Seattle have thrived because they are in downtown -- where people are already going to/from -- and are at the end of I-90, which channels all the Bellevue business traffic into the city. Coors has worked in Denver because it's in the hip LoDo area and is relatively close to I-25. The Anacostia site doesn't have near the freeway access you'd like, but neither does PacBall/SBC (in a city without freeways), and traffic in the China Basin holds up well.

One other thing.... When Denver got the Rockies, Philip Anschutz wanted the park built on a large parcel in Littleton. After initially trumpeting the "close to where the fans live" angle, he then started ranting about how awful crime was in downtown Denver and how no one wanted to be there after dark. He said all this ignoring the relatively decent state of downtown Denver nightlife and a crime rate that was comparable to Littleton's. The decision was eventually made to put the stadium in LoDo, and it's had a positive impact on the city since then.

Also, the Anacostia site is no better and no worse than the Dulles location. The traffic is a bitch, but maybe, just maybe, they can ease it with the use of the Metro stop and L'Enfant Plaza.

So, basically, I think any site would be equally horrible to get to/from, but at least a Dulles site would be close to the homes of more potential fans.

I'm *still* not convinced this will actually happen, though. Until I actually see a regular-season game at RFK, I will continue to believe, deep down, that something, somewhere, somehow, will go wrong, and the Expos will instead move to Chattanooga or something.

The reverse commute is almost as bad. I suppose people could stay in DC after work, but it's still a nightmare. I'm just saying that more people live in the Fairfax-Loudoun area than in DC proper. And Metro is virtually unusable for anyone not in DC proper.

The proposed site has two Metro stops, and per Wilbon, is a natural direction for commercial development to move in. And if you think it's hard to get a Northern Virginian to go into DC for a game, think how impossible it is to get a District dweller to venture outside the beltway (to coin a phrase.)