A historic day in baseball today. For the first time in over 30 years, a team changed cities. MLB announced today that the Montreal Expos would move to Washington, D.C., starting with the 2005 season. The Expos, of course, never really recovered from the 1994 strike, and have spent most of the last decade getting rid of their best players. Vladimir Guerrero and Orlando Cabrerra are only the latest example.

The Washington (Senators? Nationals?) will be playing in RFK Stadium for three years until a new stadium is built in the city. It will, of course, cost $400 million taxpayer dollars. Also, MLB had to pay a multi-million dollar ransom to Peter Angelos, owner of the Orioles, to remove the threat of any lawsuits over the new Washington team moving in only 40 miles away from Camden Yards.

I really object to taxpayers footing the bill for stadiums for privately held sports teams. While I don't have any problem with government money being used for infrastructure improvements (public transit, road improvements, etc.), but there's no reason we should have to pay for their ballparks. The Patriots and the San Francisco Giants proved that stadiums can be built with private money. There's no reason all teams can't do it.