Dave Stewart, a former All-Star pitcher who played 16 years in MLB, is leading an initiative to bring a Major League Baseball team to Nashville, according to Howard Bryant of ESPN.
While expansion is one of MLB’s priorities, the sport has not added any new teams since 1998 when the Diamondbacks and Rays joined the league. Music City Baseball, an organization composed of Nashville business, sports and music leaders, chose Stewart to take charge of in hopes landing a team in Nashville within the next several years.
If Stewart is successful, the team would become the first majority minority-owned team in MLB history.
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Stewart, who helped lead the Athletics to a World Series victory in 1989, told ESPN that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is still looking to resolve stadium issues with the A’s and Tampa Bay before an expansion team can take place.
“Those are his [Manfred] priorities to make sure those places have homes to play in,” Stewart told ESPN. “But once they do, expansion becomes the next thing on the agenda.”
The suggested name for the team is the Nashville Stars, which harkens back to the Negro Leagues team that resided in the city nearly 70 years ago.
“We started this process four years ago,” Stewart told ESPN. “Nashville is a fast-growing city. It has a beautiful population of people. There's so much going on here. So, MLB put Nashville as one of its top places for expansion, and I think that triggered the idea to go down this path.”
