ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ Would watching the Rays play along the St. Petersburg waterfront or amid booming downtown Tampa in an open air, 27,000-seat stadium that also hosted spring training and soccer games offset the frustration and, to use a French word, ennui, of seeing them leave each June to play the rest of their home games in Montreal?
There is still much we can't determine about the latest plan for the Rays to go not just outside the box but historical norms and the actual country in splitting their schedule between new stadiums in two distinctly different homes 1,500 miles apart, starting potentially in 2024.
Headline questions are the Nos. 1 and 2 starters:
_ Are they pure in their motives of pitching the plan as a way to save baseball in Tampa Bay rather than using this as a negotiating ploy or a plot to leave totally?
_ Is there any chance of actually pulling this off, given that most around baseball _ and even some of their own _ acknowledge it will be a significant challenge given a series of legal, financial, administrative and logistical hurdles that likely will grow?
The Rays will provide some clarity at a sure-to-be entertaining media session Tuesday being held for some deep-thinking reasons at the surrealistic Dali Museum along that downtown St. Petersburg waterfront.
It will take months, however, before they know if the payoff of such a radical move will make it worth proceeding as they report back next spring to Major League Baseball, which gave them permission to explore the idea.
But there are some things we have learned about their plan, illustrative of how they will be creative in their thinking, understanding of the opposition and willing to negotiate (read: pay heavily, in some form) to address the largest issues.
Those include wrangling permission from St. Petersburg to play games elsewhere before the 2027 end of their use agreement at Tropicana Field (which Mayor Rick Kriseman already has said isn't coming); procuring public and private financing and support to build new stadiums in both markets; assuaging major concerns from the players union and agents about the two-city concept.
Here, from what we can tell, is how it could work, some of the biggest issues and what conclusions can be drawn:
