In what seems like an eternity ago, Miles Wolff met with a group of councillors down at City Hall.  When the now infamous “notification” issue came up (as in, “we can’t do anything until the Lynx tell us they’re leaving”), I was unable to hold back.   I explained to the councillor that the City had been negotiating with the team and that should they accept the agreement, the team was willing to drop their lawsuit.  He responded by telling me that was the first they’d heard of such an offer and, if true, they’d not heard it from the team.  When I produced a cell phone and offered to call a representative of the team and have him reiterate the offer, I was rebuffed.  A verbal agreement, it was explained to me, was only worth the paper it was written on.  How clever.

So, given the level of distrust between the two main parties here, it should come as a surprise to no one that nothing will be done based on good will - and certainly, no agreement will be ratified based on a telephone call or a handshake.  But given their conduct, that appears to be exactly what one party expects, and while they fiddle, the opportunity to have baseball here in 2008 goes up in flames. 

There’s no point in playing the “blame game” - yet.  There’s still an opportunity to salvage something from this mess, but at this point, for whatever reason, it will require one side to pick up a keyboard, hammer out a proposal and then hit the “send” key.

TODAY.