Ah, the DC City council rejected the stadium lease in a mix of craven pandering and principled opposition. This effectively renegs on the agreement they signed last year and baseball will now take the city to arbitration, as per agreed upon remedies in the agreement. Almost certainly they will win, and get more money out of the city than that agreement stipulated, all in all. And, of course MLB still won't sell the team...obstensibly so that they can be the bad guys who forced the arbitration, and the new owner starts "clean". I still think a real owner would have gotten something worked out because it was in his best interests to sacrifice anything in the name of good relations.
Don't believe the "they're leaving" hype; they still have nowhere to go, and if anyplace becomes remotely plausible the Marlins have dibs. However, early this season Selig can notify the Player's Association that he intends to contract two teams, and the players cannot contest (per the last labor agreement.) Since Selig does not have to name the teams, I now expect he'll waive this baton to scare DC, South Florida and Minnesota into coughing up corporate welfare in the form of stadia.
UPDATE: Well, staying up later than even I do, the council approved a lease with a spending cap. Baseball probably won't be happy with that but they'll have to live with it, as they claim the construction company is already on the hook for some overruns as currently detailed. See Boswell's column for more info, but keep in mind that as he's been pining for basebal since the expansion Senators left, he plans to hold his breath and turn blue if the Nationals try to pull up stakes.
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