Wray Morrison: In the ballpark

Playing one against the other. It’s not always a nice practice, but it happens in business all the time.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has given the Tampa Bay Rays the green light to explore having half of their home games in Tampa and half in Montreal. The annual Blue Jays exhibition games draw very well in Montreal, and some have jumped to the conclusion that relocation is the  best idea. The Rays draw fewer than 15,000 per game in Tampa.

This looks like it’s about infrastructure as much as attendance. Tropicana Field, which opened in 1990, is already out of date. It’s an indoor stadium, not a ballpark. The Rays have an agreement in place which keeps them there until 2028. It can’t be renovated like Wrigley Field or Fenway Park.

While Montreal is the largest North American market without a major league team, it’s a market that is in need of a ballpark too, as the Big O isn’t practical.

It appears to be as simple as this: Whichever market gets a stadium built gets a ball team.