The right way for N.C. to chase Major League Baseball

The General Assembly should keep Raleigh’s MLB bid alive without rushing into a taxpayer commitment

North Carolina’s General Assembly was so excited about hoisting the Stanley Cup that it nearly swung for the fences, too.

In the final days of budget negotiations, lawmakers reportedly considered a framework for a $1.7 billion Raleigh baseball stadium that could support a Major League Baseball expansion bid. The Senate wanted to move forward, while the House had concerns.

Baseball didn’t make it in the final budget released this week, and that’s for the best. The budget is already nearly a year overdue, and it needs to pass. We didn’t need another thorny disagreement holding up the process, and besides, the MLB proposal is too big, too expensive and too complicated to be handled so cavalierly.

Even so, there is now real momentum behind the push to bring Major League Baseball to North Carolina. The General Assembly can still support Raleigh’s baseball dream this session. It just needs to do it in a way that respects both the ambition of the project and the risk to taxpayers.

That means a c…