Unfortunately, I had to leave the Governor's Baseball Dinner early because of breaking news, but my whirlwind night was nothing compared to St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster's.
He met with Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, and then the brass of the Tampa Bay Rays for the first time in a very long time.
According to the St. Pete Times, he didn't talk a whole lot about stadium stuff, but he did have a priceless retort for all the MLB-to-Tampa talk:
"Am I worried about people assembling land in Hillsborough and Tampa?" Foster said. "No. I've seen their budgets. It's not leaving St. Petersburg, I can assure you."
It echoes what I wrote earlier in the day...as well as back in July '09. Lots of people will talk big, but at the end of the day, St. Pete and Pinellas County are the only groups in the running to build a new stadium. It just becomes a matter of what percentage they'll have to pay.
Credit Foster for playing this poker hand the right way.
UPDATE: Another intelligent quote this week was from Tampa Councilman John Dingfelder in the Tampa Tribune, saying, "There's always a risk that the team would use the cities to up the ante." He deserves some credit too, for offering a voice of reason when the rest of his city is piling on the bandwagon.
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