LOS ANGELES — Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s preferred location for a new Rays ballpark would be on the Tampa side of the bay rather than in St. Petersburg but he says the site alone won’t be a determining factor.
Tampa Bay’s lease at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the team has played since its inaugural season in 1998, expires after the 2027 season. The Rays said in January that Major League Baseball had rejected the team’s plan to split its season between Florida and Montreal.
Manfred said he had not spoken in recent weeks with Rays owner Stuart Sternberg for an update.
“I have always thought that a stadium on the other side of the causeway would be preferable in some respects,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday before the All-Star Game. “But there’s a variety of factors that have to be taken into account in terms of determining whether you’re going to be in St. Pete or in Tampa: What financing is available? What sites are available? How quickly you can get in the ground? It’s not just the location.”
Tampa Bay has drawn 676,296 at home this season and its 13,802 average is 28th among the 30 teams, ahead of only Miami (11,591) and Oakland (8,637).
ATHLETICS: Commissioner Rob Manfred said the Oakland Athletics need to quickly reach a binding agreement for a new ballpark and that relocation could be considered if a deal isn’t struck for a facility in the Bay Area.
“I was at the Coliseum myself recently,” he said. “The condition of the Coliseum is a really serious problem for us. I’ve said it, this is not news. It is not a major league-quality facility at this point.”
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is pushing for approval of a waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted last month to reclassify a 56-acre terminal at the Port of Oakland as a mixed-use area where a new ballpark could be built. The team, under controlling owner John Fisher, also has explored a possible new ballpark in Las Vegas.
An Oakland City Council vote on a ballpark is possible later this year.
“Mayor Schaaf continues to work hard to try to get an arrangement, an agreement to develop the Howard Terminal site,” Manfred said. “I’m hopeful that that can still happen. And I said this recently and I’ll repeat, it needs to happen now. It needs to be done.”
The A’s have played at the Coliseum since 1968 and their lease expires after the 2024 season.
After proposing and withdrawing plans for ballparks in Fremont and San Jose, the team announced in November 2018 it had found a waterfront location for a new ballpark at Howard Terminal, close to the Jack London Square neighborhood. The stadium would cost more than $1 billion, with views toward San Francisco, the Bay Bridge and Port of Oakland.
After trading veterans and cutting payroll to a major league-low of $48 million on Opening Day, the A’s are an AL-worst 32-61 and have drawn a big league-worst 362,756 in home attendance, an average of 8,637.
Actor Denzel Washington walks to the plate to address the crowd before the MLB All-Star baseball game on Tuesday in Los Angeles. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
THE ALL-STARS gathered on the field before the game to honor Rachel Robinson on her 100th birthday.
Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts led the tribute to the widow of Jackie Robinson, speaking to the crowd from the infield grass following the Canadian and U.S. national anthems. Players from both teams fanned out across the grass behind him.
“Today’s a special day. It’s Miss Rachel Robinson’s 100th birthday,” Betts said. “So on the count of three, I want everybody here to say: `Happy Birthday, Rachel!”‘
A video tribute followed on the hexagonal DodgerVision scoreboards in left and right field after the first inning.
Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, who moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.
Major League Baseball held a discussion of Robinson’s life on Monday.
Jackie Robinson died in 1972 and his No. 42 was retired throughout the major leagues in 1997. There is a statue honoring the Hall of Famer outside Dodger Stadium.
Actor Denzel Washington wore a No. 42 jersey when he spoke to the crowd during the pregame ceremonies.
UNION: Tony Clark appears likely to stay on as head of the baseball players’ association.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and I am more than committed to continue to do it,” the former All-Star first baseman said.
Clark, 50, took over as union head in late 2013 following the death of Michael Weiner. Clark led the union during labor negotiations in 2016 and during the deal in March that followed a 99-day lockout. The new agreement expires in December 2026.
Bruce Meyer headed the day-to-day bargaining during the most recent talks and was promoted last week to deputy executive director from senior director of collective bargaining and legal.
The union’s key decisions are made by a 38-man executive committee, which includes an eight-man executive subcommittee. Seven of the eight members of the executive subcommittee made $12 million or more in 2021 and the other made $3.5 million.
While the executive subcommittee voted 8-0 against approving the five-year contract, team player representatives voted 26-4 in favor, leaving the overall ballot at 26-12 for ratification.
METS: Jacob deGrom pushed back a simulated game scheduled for Tuesday after experiencing muscle soreness in his right shoulder.
New York said deGrom’s soreness was mild and the right-hander’s live batting practice was delayed to Thursday “out of an abundance of caution.”
The two-time Cy Young Award winner has been sidelined since spring training with a stress reaction in his right scapula. He made his third minor league rehab start last Thursday, pitching four innings of one-run ball for Triple-A Syracuse. He has been expected to return shortly after the All-Star break.
The Mets say he played catch Monday and Tuesday before opting not to face hitters at the team’s spring complex in Florida.
MARINERS: Outfielder Steven Souza Jr. has announced his retirement after playing parts of eight major league seasons.
Known best for his spectacular diving catch to preserve Jordan Zimmermann’s no-hitter eight years ago as a rookie, Souza said on Twitter he is calling it a career. He appeared in six games earlier this season with the Seattle Mariners at age 33, going 3 for 19.
Souza played 515 regular-season and playoff games with the Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and Mariners since making his debut in 2014.
MINORS: Rob Manfred defended the sport’s treatment of minor leaguers, prompting immediate criticism from the players’ advocacy group.
“I kind of reject the premise of the question that minor league players are not paid a living wage,” Manfred said. “I think that we’ve made real strides in the last few years in terms of what minor league players are paid, even putting to one side the signing bonuses that many of them have already received. They receive housing, which obviously is another form of compensation.”
MLB raised minimum salaries in 2021, increasing Class A pay from $290 to $500 per week, Double-A from $350 to $600, and Triple-A from $502 to $700 over the roughly five-month season. Players are only paid in-season.
Amateur players residing in the United States and Canada who are selected in this week’s amateur draft have slot values for their signing bonuses, which clubs use as guidelines, ranging from $8.8 million for the first pick to just under $150,000 for the last selections of the 10th and final round.
Last November, MLB announced it was requiring teams to provide furnished accommodations, with a single bed per player and no more than two players per bedroom. Teams are responsible for basic utility bills.
“Most minor league baseball players work second jobs because their annual salaries are insufficient to make ends meet,” Harry Marino, executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, said in a statement responding to Manfred. “His suggestion that minor league pay is acceptable is both callous and false.”
Papers filed Friday in federal court revealed MLB agreed to pay $185 million to settle a lawsuit by minor leaguers. MLB agreed in the deal to rescind any prohibitions against teams paying wages to minor league players outside of the season.
An early estimate is that perhaps 23,000 players could share the money with an average payment of $5,000 to $5,500, with $55.5 million going to the players’ lawyers.
Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked Manfred to explain by next Tuesday the impact of potential legislation stripping the sport’s antitrust exemption from covering the sport’s relationship with minor league players.
While players with major league contracts are unionized, players with minor league contracts are not. The Major League Baseball Players Association gave Advocates for Minor Leaguers $50,000 last November, according to a federal disclosure statement.
NATIONALS: The exploration of the sale of the Washington Nationals by the Lerner family remains in the early stages.
The family, which has owned the team since 2006, said in April it is exploring a possible sale.
“They are in the process,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday. “They’ve set up a data room. They have people who signed confidentiality agreements that are in the data room. Process ongoing.”
UNIFORMS: Major League Baseball is moving ahead with plans for advertising on uniforms next season.
The new labor contract agreed to in March allows teams to add uniform and helmet advertising patches. The San Diego Padres in April became the first team to announce a deal for 2023, with Motorola.
Major League Soccer became the first of the major North American leagues to allow jersey ads in 2007.
Among other North American leagues, the NBA started selling sponsorship logos for the 2017-18 season. The NHL launched helmet ads for the 2020-21 season and began jersey advertising last season.
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