(From The Birmingham Post-Herald)
Watkins is buying, nobody is selling
Back Row
by BEN COOK

BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
We on the Back Row have been following Donald Watkins' bid to buy a Major League baseball team. We believe it would be a nice feather in our cap to have another baseball owner from right here in Birmingham.

When Charley Finley owned the Oakland A's, he lived in Chicago, but he grew up here so we claimed him.

But now we have a chance to have a Birmingham resident in the ownership circle.

But something appears to have gone wrong. Watkins keeps waiting with money in hand, but nobody seems especially anxious to sell him a team.

We have to wonder why.

Upon closer examination, we've come up with a number of reasons nobody is lining up to take Watkins' money, and none of them make us happy.

Let's look at the situation:

Watkins was ready to buy the moribund Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a team that was an ownership disaster. So why wouldn't the Devil Rays like to have Watkins as an owner? The answer is obvious. At the time, the residents of Tampa Bay felt Steve Spurrier was about to become the football coach of the Bucs and the residents of Tampa didn't want anybody living in the Bay area that had more money than Spurrier.

So, no sell of the Devil Rays to Watkins.

By the time they realized their mistake, Watkins had moved on and set his sights on the Minnesota Twins, a team that was designated in Bud Selig's master plan for contraction.

The Twins crotchety owner, Carl Pohlad, was all for the contraction deal because it would put $150 million in his pocket and bail him out of that dreary Hefty bag that doubles as a ballpark. Pohlad had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have the good folks of Minnesota foot the bill for building him a stadium even though he has more money than the cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul put together.

Watkins ponied up the money to buy the Twins, which upset Pohlad and Selig because it pretty much killed any hope for contraction. But Pohlad didn't sell and baseball didn't care. Veiled references were allowed to leak out about Watkins' financial standing, although to get this far Watkins had to submit extensive financial information. But the braintrust figured if it could plant doubt in Twins fans minds about the viability of Watkins finances, they could get away with not selling the team and keep the Pohlad-Selig dream of contraction alive.

So, no sell of the Twins to Watkins.

Watkins inquired about the Montreal Expos with the idea of moving them to Washington D.C., but baseball figured having 29 owners who didn't care about the franchise in a city that doesn't care about the team was preferable to having one owner who did care and possibly a city that would embrace them.

So, no sell of the Expos to Watkins.

Now Watkins is looking at the Anaheim Angels. The Disney Company has been trying to unload this white elephant for three years with no success, so why wouldn't the good folks with the mouse ears sell to Donald Watkins? Maybe they will, but don't count on it.

If it isn't Watkins' money or any lack thereof that has him still waiting for a team to buy, then what's the problem?

Could it be that the color of his skin is a problem? Could it be that the good old boy network of major league owners really doesn't want to allow an African-American into the inner circle?

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line on the playing field over 55 years ago. How long is it going to be before the color line is broken in the ownership ranks?

Back Row is an offbeat look at the sometimes all-too serious world of sports. It appears each day in the Birmingham Post-Herald.