So much for protocol. Or class.
Move over, St. Petersburg City Council. You’re not the only off-putting fly in the Tampa Bay Rays stadium ointment.
What were the Atlanta Braves and Pinellas County officials thinking when they didn’t so much as accord the Rays a heads up about the Braves proposal to build a spring training complex on the former Toytown landfill? A county panel had actually ranked the SportsPark proposal first among three entries. And any such usage would be contingent upon the availability of county resort tax money.
This is land that could theoretically be in play as a possible Rays stadium site. And this is ($10 million) tax money that could conceivably be earmarked for a new Rays home. But nobody was involving the Rays until the news broke?
MLB, no less blindsided by the Toytown Braves maneuvering, had to issue an official statement saying that a new Rays ballpark in the “Tampa Bay region” remains “the most pressing need.”
Who knows what it said in private.