By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

The Washington Nationals have explored moving their spring training base out of Brevard County. The are interested in coming here, and Osceola County is listening.

At the July 26 Board of County Commissioners meeting, County Manager Don Fisher presented a letter from the Washington Nationals baseball club, which outlined its interest in possibly relocating its spring base to Osceola County.

Tom Lang, director of the Kissimmee Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that the Nationals’ biggest issue is that they feel they are on an island among Florida spring training sites.

“The Nationals are saying that Viera is far from the mainstream,” he said, noting that the Astros, the New York Mets in Port St. Lucie (a 90-minute ride) and the Florida Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter (about two hours) are their closest spring partners.

“Their goal is less travel, and they would like to talk to us if there is a facility for them that puts them closer to the I-4 corridor.”

Lang said that the letter from the Nationals is just the first step in exploring their spring training options.

“The discussions are so preliminary right now. They are more interested in talking right now than in moving,” he said. “But we will talk with them; it makes logistic and economic sense.”

According to published reports, the Nationals have also been wooed by Fort Myers to become a tenant at City of Palms Park when the Boston Red Sox are expected to vacate it after 2012 Grapefruit League play.

Earlier this year, the Nationals prepared a list of proposed upgrades to Space Coast Stadium to Brevard County, which made some improvements to it in 2005, as part of negotiations on an extension to their spring training lease.

Thomas Bell, the Nationals' director of Florida operations, could not comment on the matter, aside from confirming that the team's current lease at the complex runs through 2017.

“I know (Nationals owner) Stan Kasten has done his due diligence on this matter,” he said.

Lang said that in a perfect world, there would be four teams training in Osceola County, meaning another team would also come in to join the Astros and the Atlanta Braves, who train at ESPN Wide World of Sports, to complete that picture of perfection.

“Those teams would only be 20 minutes from each other,” he said. “Then there'd be the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland and the teams clustered around Tampa.”

Bringing another team to the U.S. Highway 192 corridor would mean building that team a practice facility, Lang said, and that team would share Osceola County Stadium with the Astros to play games.

Tourism Development Tax revenue — a rather shallow pool in this economy — would be used for that capital building, but Lang reported that the building of a professional sports complex would have access to the fifth and sixth cents of the Tourist Development Tax.

Osceola County Stadium Facility Manager Pete Rod-riguez said as long as the Astros would not be adversely affected by a change like that, he'd be in favor filling off-days at the park in the spring.

“My allegiance is to the Astros, we're going on 27 years of a relationship with them,” he said. “But if we could play here every day in March, we'd love to. It would be hard to do, we'd need to increase staff, but Jupiter does it. The economic impact of two teams here would be fantastic.”

The Astros and Nationals brought up the rear in 2010 Grapefruit League attendance per game. But the Astros' figure of 3,986 per game is factored on the 5,100-seat stadium (78 percent of capacity), the smallest in Florida's spring training sites. The Nationals' averaged 4,538 per game at the 8,100-seat Space Coast Stadium, for just 56 percent capacity.