Baseball in Vegas? It's a sinful idea

PEORIA, Ariz. — Tommy Lasorda and Jack McKeon chatted away in one corner. Joe Morgan and Tony Perez engaged in deep discussion in another. These were baseball people, Hall of Famers and money-ballers mingling, and along came Oscar Goodman to crash their annual winter party.

Baseball had never seen an entrance like it. The mayor of Las Vegas charging like a WWE wrestler into the annual winter meetings, a showgirl hanging on each arm, an Elvis impersonator by his side and a message for the baseball world booming from his throat.

Las Vegas: destination relocation. Come one, come all, but please, come soon.

"I'm a mayor that has fun," Goodman said during a phone interview recently. "Las Vegas is all about it. I personify it. I go everywhere with showgirls. My wife has given me immunity. As a matter of fact, I ran into Dusty Baker and he was very appreciative of my showgirls."

Don Logan, general manager of Las Vegas' Class AAA team, the 51s, met Goodman at the door. Mouths dropped, heads turned, and missions, one in particular, were accomplished.

"He got what he wanted," Logan said. "Everybody in baseball was down in that lobby. Every newspaper carried it, every Fox and ESPN outlet talked about it. He put the place on its ear, which put the attention squarely on Las Vegas as a potential major-league baseball city."

Which is exactly where Goodman wants it. He looks at the Mariners' two-game exhibition set here against the Chicago Cubs tonight and tomorrow and salivates at the possibility of something permanent.

The question now is whether that translates into a major-league team relocating to Las Vegas. The city lost out on its recent bid for the Montreal Expos, who moved to Washington, D.C., and became the Nationals this season.

Las Vegas' road to relocation is pocked with pitfalls — including legalized gambling, the relatively small size of the market in general and the television market in particular, and the ever-present competition for the entertainment dollar.

That said, Goodman puts the odds on Major League Baseball relocating to Las Vegas at 5:1. As a longtime mob lawyer and a mayor who won reelection in 2003 with a landslide 86 percent of the vote, he's not used to losing, either.

"Las Vegas is a major-league city in all respects," Goodman said. "One of the components that we need to really make it complete is a baseball team. That's why I went to the winter meetings in Anaheim and told the world that any team looking to relocate has a home here."

Goodman says he has a financing plan already in place to build a ballpark without costing taxpayers a dime. He says Sin City embraces the idea, pointing to the games this weekend, which sold out in two hours.

Yet the only big-time professional sport to embrace Las Vegas so far is NASCAR, which has run a premiere-series race there for the past eight years. Attendance surged past 150,000 at the most recent race in March, and it brought in an estimated $142 million for the city, including about $55 million worth of gambling in the casinos.

Here are the potential pitfalls:

• There are about 1.5 million people living in Las Vegas, but Logan calls it a "three-shift town." Think about it. There isn't another city in the world that's open longer. At any given time, roughly 25 percent of the people who live there are working and another 25 percent are sleeping.

• The TV market ranks somewhere in the mid-50s nationally, and it would be far and away the smallest market in Major League Baseball. That would have an effect on how much the team makes in terms of broadcasting rights.

• Acts like Celine Dion and Elton John aren't going anywhere. So the almighty tourist dollar so important to the city — and it would be as important to a baseball team there — has plenty of means to spread.

• Baseball isn't commenting often on Las Vegas, and the commissioner's office did not return multiple attempts to comment, but one American League general manager said he worries about potential distractions for his players.

"That's a tough gig," he said. "I'm not sure it's going to fly. I do know they're being aggressive about it."

Aggressive is Goldman's middle name. This is the same man who appeared in a Bombay Sapphire ad campaign dubbed "Martinis with the Mayor," the same man who defended the mobster portrayed in the movie "Casino" in real life, the same man who will not accept the age-old argument that legalized gambling will corrupt whatever sports team lands in Las Vegas.

Nevada is the only state with legalized sports betting in the country. It's also the only state with a Gambling Control Board, which boasts a staff of more than 100 agents. That agency helped catch Arizona State players involved in a point-shaving scandal in 1994.

And still, NBA commissioner David Stern has said that legalized gambling remains a major-league issue. Baseball seems more receptive, interesting if only because it's the sport with the biggest fixing scandal — the 1919 Black Sox.

"That's an archaic argument," Logan said.

"It's draconian," Goodman said, taking the counter-argument one step further. "It makes no sense. Professional sports commissioners should be on their bended knees with their hands raised in supplication thanking the good Lord that Las Vegas exists as the only place that monitors for the potential for illegal conduct.

"They want to take it off the books? If you want illegal bookmakers and broken legs, that's a good way to go about it."

While Goodman waits for another major-league team to relocate, Logan wants Las Vegas to build the 51s a facility that can be expanded into a major-league ballpark. He calls Cashman Field, where the Mariners play tonight and tomorrow, "substandard."

In time, Logan believes Las Vegas will be a major-league market. He just doesn't believe that last summer or right now qualify as the right time.

"Vegas is in the chamber," Logan said. "Is it the next bullet? Or the second or third? I don't know, but Vegas is definitely on a short list of potential expansion cities.

"The problem is, the examination of Las Vegas as a potential market as related to the Expos was flawed. It gave a false sense of readiness to people. The worst thing that you can do is bring baseball here before it's ready. It has to be done with thought. It has to be done at the right time. It has to be done so it can sustain and work long-term."

So Goodman sits by the phone and waits for a call from a big-league president. In the meantime, he's throwing out the first pitch tonight. The dream waits, but he can see it.

"I've thrown so many of those, and I've yet to do anything that's honorable," Goodman said. "I always start with 14,000 applauding wildly and end with 14,000 boos. I might just have to bring my showgirls to take some of the attention off."

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com