Responding to sweeping opposition, Major League Baseball said Thursday it is no longer looking to build a field in Grand Teton National Park.
“We obviously would not bring a game to a community that has concerns about the venue, and will not continue to evaluate Grand Teton National Park as a potential site,” reads an Oct. 1 letter from the MLB Commissioner of Baseball, Robert Manfred, addressed to the town, county and Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce.
The broad community pushback followed a Sept. 26 exclusive story from the Washington Post that outlined how MLB approached the Trump administration about hosting a game inside a national park.
The letter does not rule out a potential game in other parks.
Before the MLB said it was no longer evaluating Grand Teton, KHOL’s Sophie Boyd-Fliegel spoke with Jake Spring, the Post’s climate and environment policy reporter, who helped break the story.
This story has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.
Sophia Boyd-Fliegel: I’ll just read the headline here: “Trump administration considers building baseball park in Grand Teton National Park.” Jake, tell me how you were first put on to this story. What is the tip that got you started?
Jake Spring: It’s one of those things you hear and you think, ‘Is this for real?’ But, you know, with this beat, this administration, I’ve kind of learned that all sorts of things can be possible. So it was definitely something I wanted to pursue when I heard it.
A closely held source reached out, somebody I’ve spoken to before and trusted, and said, ‘Hey, this national park official, Deputy Director Frank Lands, was out in Grand Teton scouting three locations this past week for potentially building a ballpark that could host a Major League Baseball game.’ And that’s how it started. You know, I had to find a second source who could corroborate it. Then we took it to the government, and I got in touch with my colleague Stephanie Apstein, who got in touch with Major League Baseball. She’s a baseball reporter. We were writing it up based on the sources. And then, all of a sudden, got responses from the White House and Major League Baseball almost simultaneously saying, ‘MLB did approach the administration. This is a thing we’re discussing, having a game in a national park.’ The White House did confirm in a subsequent statement they sent me that Frank Lands was out there. That’s the name of the deputy director of the Park Service, and just happened to be out there at the same time as Major League Baseball representatives were. I feel like this story struck a particular chord, so I don’t know how MLB went into this and quite realized what the reaction might be.
SBF: The White House, in your reporting, distanced itself a bit from the idea, saying, ‘This is an MLB idea; it’s not our priority.’ But as you said, Frank Lands visited Grand Teton and looked at three potential locations inside the park. What should we make of that contradiction with the White House saying, 'It’s not our priority,' but also, 'We’re hearing them out' or 'looking into it?'
JS: I think they were just really trying to emphasize this: it doesn’t sound like, at least the way they’re saying it, it’s coming from the president himself or something like that. We’ve seen a lot of construction projects, especially in D.C., that seem to be coming from him, and that doesn’t seem to be the case here. It cannot be a priority, but it can still be something they’re considering.
I think him being out there, MLB being out there shows it is being considered. It hasn’t been rejected outright. I’m not sure it makes a difference to people – like, if the idea happens, it happens, regardless of who came up with it.
I guess the other thing they emphasize [is that] no decision has been made, and both on the MLB side and on their side, the [National Park] Service hasn’t issued a permit. I still felt it merited reporting because we see oftentimes by the time the decision is made, it’s too late for the public to weigh in on it. So I think it is still valid to bring this to public attention, even if no decisions have been made, and there can be public discourse about whether it’s a good or bad idea.
SBF: Well, it certainly traveled like wildfire in our community. I was also getting those texts the day [the story] published. Texts of disbelief, like ‘This cannot be real.’ A lot of people thought it was satire at first. And the more that we ask our Republican congresspeople in Wyoming, local leaders, and even some former Trump administration officials, they’re all saying this is almost impossible to come to fruition. How much is this story a far-fetched idea versus something that the public really needs to be concerned about?
JS: It’s really hard to say. I’ll go back to just like, if it’s something under consideration, then I think that it should be also considered by the public, and they should be able to weigh in on it. There are things that five, 10 years ago, people would say in politics, ‘That’s crazy. That could never happen.’ And things have a way of becoming real if you repeat them and think about them and consider them long enough.
I suspect, talking to my colleague Stephanie Apstein, talk[ing] to a baseball expert, what would be involved: probably spending at least $50 million; it would be a tremendous undertaking. The feasibility is really an open question, I would say. But I don’t think we could say it’s entirely impossible. My understanding is [that] MLB and White House didn’t put an exact timeline on it, but it’s been weeks before Lands did the scouting. So it’s been around for a little bit, and it’s kind of hard to know how long the idea has been kicking around and how for real or not it is. Or, even if they’re considering other parks, that I don’t know.
SBF: We tried to ask Lands about that, and that’s when he cut us off, because we were interested in the other parks too.
You have been reporting these big stories on the Trump administration’s relationship and changing of the Department of the Interior and National Park Service for a while. That includes removing and changing exhibits on history that they don’t consider palatable, blocking park funding and internal memos ordering park staff to not reveal certain deaths inside the park. Help us understand how this event, this story, fits in with what you’ve seen broadly from the Trump administration’s approach to national parks.
JS: The throughline is just using the broad authority of the executive in a very strong, pointed way to try to do things differently. Public comment periods can often be a lot shorter under the Trump administration. There are rules about [how] you can’t pre-make up your mind about decisions when making regulations. But I’ve seen time and again where the administration clearly signals, ‘We’re going to get rid of [something].’ And they go through the process anyway, but it’s clear from the start of the process that their mind has already been made up and there aren’t going to be changes. The initial policy announced will be basically the final policy. A lot of advocates, whether on public lands or related to the Environmental Protection Agency, say that they’re not following the way decisions should be made and input should be taken on board and policies should be revised based on public comment. They feel that the administration just moves ahead, doing what it wants without good-faith engagement.
