The untold story of the Dodgertown Spring Training negotiationsBy Ian M. Love, Managing Editor

The Baltimore Orioles are headed to Sarasota, and Vero Beach will never again be the Spring Training home of a major league baseball team. But could last year’s negotiations have brought the Orioles to Dodgertown to replace the Los Angeles Dodgers? Were the Orioles ever serious about Vero, or were they always leading Vero on while trying to leverage a better deal elsewhere?

At last, the detailed story of the negotiations can be told. VeroNews.com obtained the first look at hundreds of pages of confidential documents and e-mail exchanges surrounding the dealings between the negotiators representing Indian River County and the Orioles. Here is the inside story of what really happened.

In Part 1 we explored how the Orioles and the County first got together to talk about Dodgertown.

In Part 2, “The Devil IS in the Details,” VeroNews.com reveals some never before released exchanges between the parties and breaks down how the deal evolved.

Part 2: The Devil IS in the Details

After five more months of fitful discussions, the Orioles and the county on Dec. 10, 2007 entered into an option agreement whereby they would negotiate exclusively upon the Dodgers announcing they were vacating their lease. But ‘exclusively’ meant one thing for the Orioles, and another for Indian River County. The pact allowed Baltimore to continue to explore options at their current Spring Training home of Fort Lauderdale, while the county was not permitted to talk with any other teams.

County Administrator Joe Baird has been roundly criticized for signing a confidentiality agreement, and not keeping the county’s options open to talk to other teams.

“It was a judgment call,” he said. “We met with several people, we met with Maryland state Senator Frank Kelly with (Baltimore top negotiator) Alan Rifkin, the commissioners came in, and each one of them signed an agreement. I will say just about every company you are dealing with wants to have that done.”

Baird also disclosed for the first time that the county did put out back channel feelers to the Boston Red Sox when it briefly looked like they might be searching for a new Spring Training home, but the Boston brass quickly rebuffed those inquiries saying they preferred to stay on Florida’s West Coast.

Baird also is clearly pained by suggestions made in the wake of the collapse of the talks that he was outmaneuvered by a superior Orioles negotiating team. The county, he emphasizes, had its own high-priced negotiator – Robert Reid of Bryant Miller Olive, a Tallahassee-based law firm – who was paid $52,515 for representing the county in the talks. Reid earlier had negotiated the pact with the Dodgers.

During the first half of 2008, discussions between Reid and the Orioles’ Rifkin generated three drafts of a Memorandum of Understanding stating the terms and conditions under which the Orioles would come to Vero Beach. Among the things the Orioles wanted were significant improvements to Holman Stadium at the county’s expense and to obtain the adjacent golf course from the city to build a retail complex and perhaps a Cal Ripken baseball academy.

The Orioles were willing to accept the same lease terms for Holman Stadium as the Dodgers – rent the facility for one dollar a year and pay all expenses for Dodgertown’s operation – but they wanted to develop other revenue streams on the adjacent golf course.

At this point, the talks became two sets of negotiations. Rifkin was dealing with Reid and Baird on upgrading Holman Stadium and the Dodgertown grounds, and with Vero Beach City Manager Jim Gabbard and city attorney Charlie Vitunac in seeking development rights to the city-owned golf course.

For the facility, the Orioles wanted to extend the bleachers at Holman Stadium, enlarge the walkways and add luxury boxes. They went so far as creating drawings for the enhanced Holman Stadium (see the art on the front page) and put a price tag of $24 million on the improvements. Baird’s position was that the county could add 1 cent to the tourist tax, which is extracted from hotel room charges, but its budget for improvements was only in the $12 million range.