Goodman misses mark for not pitching spring training facility

You have to hand it to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. He's incredibly consistent.

Here's a man who has never spilled a martini -- not even after consuming a pitcher of martinis. But hand him a baseball and ask him to throw out the first pitch at a spring training game at Cashman Field, and he's the sorriest hurler since Sisyphus.

On Saturday, before a capacity crowd of Cubs and White Sox fans, Goodman kept his incredible record of ineptitude intact by launching a pitch that left his hand like a fistful of mush and plopped on the ground before leaving the mound. The ball hip-hopped like a lame frog to the first-base side and died a pathetic death as the crowd groaned.

I've seen brides throw bouquets harder. Good lord, man, colicky 2-year-olds spit their peas farther -- and with more accuracy.

Goodman's second attempt went in the right direction but had all the velocity of an apple falling from Newton's tree. The fact he needed two tries to throw out a first pitch is lame personified. (Meanwhile, the Review-Journal's style diva, Xazmin Garza -- she's not only lovely and talented, but her name is also about 300 points in Scrabble -- peppered a one-hop strike that generated applause.)

For those who have followed Goodman's City Hall pitching career, the stunning mortification he endures each spring has become a tradition. (Goodman's wife, Carolyn, now refuses to accompany the mayor to baseball games, such is her shame.)

His desecration of the great American game, however, remains a testament to Goodman's popularity. A lesser politician would have resigned on the spot and hanged himself from the right-field foul pole.

Not the consummately confident Goodman. He can't hear the boos and is dizzy not from gin, but from dreaming of putting Las Vegas in a big league Hall of Fame. Which, believe it or not, brings me to today's topic: Oscar's obsession with landing a professional sports franchise for Las Vegas.

Like a rabid Fuller Brush man, for years he's relentlessly knocked on the doors of the commissioners of professional baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. He still has conversations with would-be promoters of NBA and NHL franchises. If it can happen, Goodman will make it happen.

Of Goodman's many downtown redevelopment successes in recent years, the one area in which I believe he made a mistake was not embracing a very real and attainable push for a stadium and field complex that would have caused four major league baseball teams to move their spring training homes to Southern Nevada. As far back as the Jan Jones administration, big league teams have shown an interest in warming up in Las Vegas. Among them: The Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds and White Sox. More recently, the Los Angeles Dodgers made it clear they'd consider moving their spring training headquarters to Las Vegas.

"The spring training idea is a fine idea, but it certainly doesn't go a long way to making us a world-class city," Goodman says. "If you have major league baseball, you have a world-class city. Nobody talks about Clearwater being a world-class city."

True. But I think there's something to be said for attracting thousands of tourists to Las Vegas for more than a month every year to watch their favorite teams and sprinkle the green-felt infield at our local casinos.

It's probably too late now. The recession has rained out most thoughts of a neon Cactus League.

I'm admittedly blinded by my baseball fanaticism, but I think locals would have embraced the spring training concept.

Not only would it have been good for the community, it would have given Goodman plenty of time to work on his fastball.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.