Early this afternoon, a tweet by USA today baseball columnist, Bob Nightengale, appeared saying:
The Cubs likely will leave Mesa, Az. for Naples, Fla., for spring training barring the state of AZ coming up with unforeseen money.A number of people over the blogosphere were all abuzz about this, but Nightengale didn't give any source for clip and I thought that if this was the case, a local reporter would have said something.
Well, thanks to corncobdress at WPBC, I was directed to a blip by Paul Sullivan of the Trib posted later this afternoon saying this:
The Cubs haven't made a final decision on their spring-training home, though it appears they're leaning towards Florida.
One hotel general manager in the Naples, Fla., area said he was told by the Cubs that a local bed tax would seal the deal for Florida.
In an article on Marconews.com, Marco Island Marriott general manager Rick Medwedeff said Cubs president Crane Kenney told him it was up to the hotel association to push for the bed tax.
"Kenney said if he got the consensus of the lodging organization within the county, that it would support the project by virtue of bed tax funds," Medwedeff said. "It would be the last piece he was looking for to approach the owners, (and) that they submit their notice of termination with Mesa and start negotiations with Collier (County)."
Kenney was unavailable for comment.Wow, this is quite a good bit of info. I still think this isn't quite a done deal yet, but it is looking like Naples has a bit of an advantage now. I still would like Bruce Miles to get some info for us fans, because he's about the only writer I have any bit of confidence in right now. I doubt we will here anything from Carrie Muskat on this since she is a bit too close to the situation and may be told that this info is to be kept secret for now.
It definitely appears an announcement on this is coming soon...possibly even this weekend at the Cubs Convention, or at the very latest, early next week.
In theory, the decision is to be made tomorrow by the Ricketts's.
No matter what, the Cubs had better get one hell of a facility out of this deal.
