MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - Las Vegas, Nev. - OPINION - MLB took a roll on Las Vegas and came up snake eyes with its selection of a host city for the Baseball Winter Meetings. Unfortunately, the dice split on to two tables twenty minutes apart, which caused all kinds of problems.

Each year, the owners of both Major League Baseball (MLB) and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) get together for the Baseball Winter Meetings with general managers, league presidents, and senior staff in tow. Many managers, farm directors, baseball scouts and even umpires also usually make the trip.  There is also a trade show, and the PBEO Job Fair, where those aspiring to work in MLB or MiLB come dressed for success and try to land a spot with a club.

Normally, these events for MLB and MiLB are all held in one common place.  In recent years, the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, and the Disney Swan & Dolphin resorts in Orlando have been host to the Baseball Winter Meetings. 

In a town where some hotels sport 9,000 rooms, and all of the new, shiny strip hotels have luxury suites that should keep the Steinbrenners and Henrys delierously happy, the decision was made to put MLB into the Bellagio, MiLB in the not-so-nearby Las Vegas Hilton, and put the trade show, job fair, and MiLB meetings in the Hilton-adjacent Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC).

I use "adjacent" loosely. Buildings in Las Vegas be verrry, verrry grand indeed. It is a long walk to anywhere, but the stretch of sky bridges between the Hilton and the meeting and convention space at the LVCC was a long distance, particularly for many of the more elderly owners.  When I first walked the building, I found one 70-ish owner leaning up in a hallway about a 1/4 mile from his meeting rooms asking in a winded-voice "Is it much farther?"

I felt bad telling him: "Yes, I'm afraid so."

Shoe leather wear aside, the big bust of the Meetings was the breakdown in the usual flow of communication all the way around.

Normally, the trade show is in the same building. People congregate there and get business done. At the lobby and bars of the hotel or the building assigned to the major league teams, everyone from the ticket guys to area scouts to minor league owners to farm directors, managers, to the media and even the occasional owner can gather, catch up with old friends, and then head out to club dinners, meetings, etc.

Ron Maestri, the COO of the New Orleans Zephyrs, was one of many who mentioned to me that having the major league owners a twenty minute cab ride away hit on a personal level.

"You don't get to connect up with people that you haven't seen for awhile this way," he said.

Snafus happen, but here, their after-affect was felt more. Farm directors were called over to the LVCC for a 7:30 am meeting which had been both changed and no longer needed them. Some did not get the memo, which happens.  At any other meeting sport, it would have been no big deal. They could go to another meeting, or back to their rooms to get some work done. The scheduling problem was, collectively, an hour-plus out of their day that could not even profitbaly be spent at the trade show downstairs because it did not open until 10:00 am.

Over at the major league side, after the meetings got under way, a sign went up at the Bellagio informing them about a shuttle bus between hotels.  It did not have a twin that found its way into the Las Vegas Hilton. Minor league owners and staff were taking cabs at $20-$30 per round trip, or taking the monorail to the Imperial Palace Hotel and walking the extra 20-30 minutes from the station, over the skybridges, through the Bellagio's cavernous front to the back of the building where the meeting space is located. Staff at the hotel informed numerous guests that there was no transportation, when there was.  There was no shuttle sign at the convention center until the end of the second day. Many particularly from the minor league meetings, exited the building from the rear skybridges and never saw the sign.

Vendors at the trade show were not happy with the arrangements either. Normally major league execs have a few minutes to duck into the exhibition space to either check something or meet with someone. The dedicated 40 minute round trip cut down on a lot of the traffic that the vendors would have seen at any other meetings.

Young men and women pay a few hundred dollars to attend the job fair.  While major league clubs came to the minor league side to do the meetings at the PBEO center or nearby, or called their interviewees to do meetings at Bellagio, it added both inconvenience and expense to the process, and reduced those times where visibility in the halls or in the trade show can even benefit a job seeker.

"It was wierd," said a minor league executive who did not wish to be attritubed for this piece. "I usually see these guys wandering around in the suits and dresses, and you see some of the people you are talking to out there talking to other people and it, in a way, kind of adds to their... value I guess.  You know that someone else is looking seriously at them too. The PBEO [Job Fair] was in one of the ballrooms at the Las Vegas Hilton which is a long way from our meeting rooms. We only pass there in the morning and at night, and you really don't see much of these people. There are so many places to be, too, that you don't have that flow that you saw at other ones of these that I've been to."

In most towns, when the Baseball Winter Meetings roll in, it is the big show. In Las Vegas, at the Hilton alone, there was the Las Vegas Rodeo, the Winter Meetings, an independent film festival, and a meeting on hybrid electrical technology all in the same buildings.

While people enjoyed the night life, the shows, the restaurants, and bars, those who had business to do, and those who look forward to the opportunity to connect with each other generally were looking forward to Indianapolis next year, and thought that the problems that cropped up in Vegas should stay in Vegas.

- Brian ROSS