Rays’ attempt to play in two cities denied by MLB

The Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed plan to split the season between Florida and Montreal has been rejected by Major League Baseball, writes Mark Didtler of the Associated Press.

Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg announced the news on Thursday.

“Today’s news is flat-out deflating,” Sternberg said.

The idea of playing in both the Tampa Bay area and Montreal has been discussed over the past several years after attempts to build a new full-time ballpark locally failed.

“Things had progressed nicely and things had been working nicely, and then recently it just sort of took a turn to the south and we don’t precisely know why,“Sternberg said. “I have no doubt that what we tried to accomplish with our sister-city plan will become accepted in all of professional sports.”

When asked if he felt somewhat betrayed by his fellow owners, Sternberg replied “that’s a word.”

“The game is peculiar in a lot of senses and things happen for a lot of reasons,” Sternberg said. “Sometimes for the good, but always with good intentions for the game itself. We quite often have differing opinions on what that might mean.”

“Sometimes people don’t like to be first,“Sternberg added. “There was a fellow on this call when we went cashless a few years ago said to me, ‘I get it, I understand, but why do you have to be first.’ It’s just people have different approaches to things. We don’t mind being first on things.”

Montreal had a big-league team from 1969, when the expansion Expos began play, through 2004. The Expos moved to Washington and became the Nationals in 2005.

“They were as, if not more, devastated than I was at the news,” Sternberg said.