Yet more in the continuing saga of the Portland stadium efforts. Don Garber has now appealed directly to Dan Saltzman, a City Commissioner and the man with the swing vote that may hold the future of the Timbers as a Major League Soccer franchise in his hands.

Garber wrote a letter to Saltzman, a missive outlining the importance of renovating PGE Park in order to properly maximize the soccer atmosphere.

It appears that Saltzman inquired with Garber and the league on the possibility of both the Timbers (MLS version) and the Portland Beavers baseball team continuing to share the stadium.

Garber didn't mince words on the league's position:

As I said during the March expansion announcement, the selection of Portland is contingent on the renovation of PGE Park and the relocation of the Beavers to another venue outlined in the deal between the City of Portland and the Paulson family. Without the fulfillment of this plan, MLS cannot expand to Portland.

While it's been known that an agreed and approved stadium renovation plan was a prerequisite for the Timbers joining the league, this is the first instance since the expansion announcement of the league clearly stating this in publicly available communication.

Garber goes on to outline three areas that make a soccer/baseball ground share distasteful to the league. These include "seating configuration", a concern that speaks directly to both revenue and atmosphere. In the current setup, PGE Park has no sideline seating on the east side of the field. Not only does this limit the higher cost seats that the Timbers could sell, it also creates a noise void and bad television broadcasts (as the TV cameras would point towards the empty side of the stadium).

The league's other concerns are "field surface" and "schedule", two aspects of a baseball stadium that create havoc for professional soccer teams. Almost as ugly as American football lines in places like New England and New York are the infield-outfield transition and pitchers mound eyesores in baseball stadiums. Scheduling conflicts are pains that league would like to avoid at all costs; while they desperately try to move teams out of stadiums where clubs don't have scheduling control, it would be a massive step back to have the Timbers in situation that would lead to potential problems.

You can read Garber's letter here (pdf)