Spring Training

The future of the Baltimore Orioles’ spring training in Fort Lauderdale took a big hit Friday, and that may bode well for Indian River County in its hunt to replace the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Federal Aviation Administration told Fort Lauderdale officials they won’t agree to the city’s deal with the Orioles for a new stadium unless the team’s annual payments to the FAA increase by more than 1,000 percent. Any plans to overhaul Fort Lauderdale Stadium need to be approved by the FAA because the facility sits on airport land.

“Unless the FAA changes their mind, I would imagine they (the Orioles) would move,” he said.

Craig Callan, Dodgers vice president of spring training and minor league facilities, said, “I think that’s great news for Vero Beach. There’s all good reasons for the Orioles to be in Vero Beach, and what a ‘wow’ that would be for the community.”

Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird has been negotiating with a team for the past several months.

TROUBLE IN FORT LAUDERDALE

• The Federal Aviation Administration told Fort Lauderdale officials they won’t agree to the city’s deal with the Orioles for a new stadium unless the team’s annual payments to the FAA increase by more than 1,000 percent.
• Any plans to overhaul Fort Lauderdale Stadium need to be approved by the FAA because the facility sits on airport land.

DODGERS’ PLANS

• The Dodgers have not yet notified Indian River County whether they will leave by 2009 or 2010, though their new facility in Glendale, Ariz., is expected to open in 2009.

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Vero Beach — zip code 32960 — isn’t going anywhere. It may even be reincarnated as someone else’s Spring Training base. Next year, it likely will at least host some country’s pre-World Baseball Classic workouts.

But it’s farewell to Dodgertown. Barring an unforeseen construction glitch in their Glendale, Ariz., destination, “Dem Bums” will draw the Dodgertown shades with Monday afternoon’s exhibition tilt against the Houston Astros.

Dodgertown is its own oxymoron. Charming, obsolete. Scenic, blighted. Comfortable, inconvenient. Hate to leave, love to go.

It has been the crib for generations of Dodgers players, and generations of Brooklyn and Los Angeles fans who have flocked to see them at this redeveloped vacant World War II naval air base. But it’s time for them all to come out from behind the Oz curtain and join the real world. It’s time to run after the parade that has passed them by, in that new $80 million Cactus League complex they will share with the Chicago White Sox.

Time to pull the covers. But, oh, what a storybook place it was.

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