Baseball may still be America’s game, but news about it apparently isn’t fit for the masses. Two weeks ago, D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission member William Hall gave a briefing to the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, a city-planning watchdog group, on the District’s efforts to attract a major-league baseball team and build a new downtown stadium. The talk was declared off limits to reporters (Loose Lips, 4/28). Then, last Thursday, the D.C. Building Industry Association held a meeting on D.C.’s baseball prospects at the National Press Club featuring Stephen Porter, who is chair of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce’s base-ball committee, a partner at the tony law firm of Arnold & Porter, and a close

personal friend of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. After partaking in cocktails and prime rib, Porter promised to give the inside pitch to the chummy assembly of construction company execs and downtown real estate developers. Before he began, the moderator declared Porter’s comments off the record. But don’t look for the Washington Post editorial page to come thundering in about the people’s right to information about such a massive project in their midst. As a member of the building association, the newspaper was co-sponsoring the event, not covering it. When it comes to baseball stadium news, if you’re not a fat downtown developer, you don’t get it.