Baseball's Back in Washington, But Diamond May Not Be Papers' Best Friend

By: Joe Strupp When baseball returns to Washington, D.C., next year, it may not be a home run for the city's two daily papers--at least in the financial arena.

While The Washington Post and The Washington Times will add coverage and possibly boost readership when the Montreal Expos relocate to the nation's capital, as was announced Wednesday, the papers are bracing for possible budgetary setbacks during the long baseball season.

"It's going to be expensive," said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Post sports editor, who hopes to add four new staff positions to cover the team, with at least two being new hires. "Baseball is a very expensive sport to cover."

Garcia-Ruiz estimated the additional staffing for the 162-game season, plus spring training, would cost at least another $200,000 annually, along with about $65,000 in added travel expenses to follow the team on away games. "Some of that would be offset by additional advertising and other income, but I don't know how much," he said. "We have nothing in our surveys that show people are buying us for baseball."

Post Publisher Boisfeuillet Jones did not return calls seeking comment.

Garcia-Ruiz, who is asking for an extra page in sports for the additional coverage, also plans to keep an Orioles beat writer on the job in Baltimore.

But the Post could also see added costs from the financing of a new ballpark, which is supposed to come from a $440 million bond issue, according to editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. Among the funding sources for the bond: a gross receipts tax on the top District of Columbia companies, "that could include The Washington Post Company," Hiatt said.

Hiatt said the paper has strongly supported the return of baseball to Washington, which last had a major league team, the woeful Senators, 33 years ago. Washington, back then, was known as "first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League."

Hiatt declined to say if the Post would take a stand against the funding proposal. "We will editorialize on it in the next few days," he said. "I don't want to get ahead of an editorial."

An Aug. 18 Post editorial urged the return of baseball to the city, but steered clear of commenting on a publicly financed ballpark.

"This is a city that's been aching for baseball for a long time, and it's ready to support the game," the editorial said, in part.

As for The Washington Times, editorial page editor Tony Blankley made no secret of his plans for a pro-baseball editorial in Thursday's paper, which he says will welcome the team, nothwithstanding the Times' long-running opposition to a publicly financed stadium.

"We have run a vigorous editorial campaign against the publicly financed mechanism," Blankley told E&P. "But, if the decision has been made, the battle is fought and completed, we look forward to cheering on the home team."

Blankley and other Times officials also expect nothing but a positive economic impact from the new team. "I'm sure there will be a cost there," said Times general manager Richard Amberg. "But I think it will help circulation."

Times sports editor Mark Hartsell also sees the new team as a readership aid, noting that the paper's annual baseball special sections always sell well. But he pointed out that the extra cost, which will likely include adding at least two new writers, would force him to stopping staffing Orioles games as a regular beat. "Baltimore is pretty far away for the vast majority of our readers," he said. "Baseball is really manpower intensive, it requires a lot of people to cover it well."