Lee County officials confirmed what we’ve been reporting for weeks: they’ll make a play to bring the Baltimore Orioles to City of Palms Park perhaps as soon as 2010.
Lee County officials confirmed what we’ve been reporting for weeks: they’ll make a play to bring the Baltimore Orioles to City of Palms Park perhaps as soon as 2010. The greater Fort Myers area is becoming a center for spring training, with the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays already ensconced in the area. And we all know the Orioles will need to find a new home for spring training: the FAA wants more than a million dollars annually for a lease of the land currently occupied by Fort Lauderdale Stadium. Lee County won’t be the only city making a play for the O’s: Sarasota, Vero Beach and Tucson have already approached team officials about a spring move. All of these cities have something to recommend them. Sarasota can offer $30 million toward a renovation of Ed Smith Stadium, the current spring home of the Cincinnati Reds; the O’s are familiar with the market because their minor leaguers train at the city’s Twin Lakes Park. Vero Beach is offering $13 million and almost 40 acres of developable land in Dodgertown, but there’s some question whether that’s enough money to bring Holman Stadium up to date. Lee County can offer what the Red Sox have now: City of Palms Park and a nearby training facility. And Tucson can offer … well, it’s hard to say what Tucson can offer past an existing facility in Tucson Electric Park. One interesting twist: apparently the Red Sox have signed off on a plan to share City of Palms Park with the Orioles until a new spring-training ballpark for the BoSox is completed in 2012. Word is that John Angelos will be briefing Peter Angelos on the options shortly. One thing left unsaid in all this: the Milwaukee Brewers’ lease at Maryvale Baseball Park expires in 2012, and we’ve been told by some team officials they’ll be shopping around for a more advantageous lease — i.e., more in the way of revenues than they’re getting now.