It’s sounding more and more like there’s very little hope for a new minor league baseball stadium in downtown Nashville.  Well, at least under the current group that owns the Sounds.

In this morning’s Tennessean, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said, “We’re certainly not going to offer a better deal, and we may not be able to offer the same deal.”

Team owners met with Dean yesterday to disucss an extension of the lease at Greer Stadium or a new ballpark.  The current lease runs out at the end of this season.  No decision has been made, though Dean said he wants to work to keep the team in Nashville.

However, reading Gail Kerr’s column this morning, things may not look good for the team.

The mayor told The Tennessean that he and Gordon didn’t discuss the lease, but it’s the buzz of Nashville: City officials are about to wash their hands of the current Nashville Sounds ownership. Gordon blew it last year, by letting the deal fall apart to build a new ballpark on riverfront land that used to house a garbage burning plant.

Gordon has shown himself to be arrogant. He has rarely shown his face in Nashville while, at the same time, having this sense of entitlement that we owe him a stadium, land, tax incentive financing and, perhaps, our first-born child.

So it’s no surprise that he’s getting the cold shoulder.

It could be an interesting season for the Sounds–and that’s just off the field.