The Baltimore Orioles and Lee County continue discussions about a move by the Birds to City of Palms Park for Spring Training 2012, with Lee County officials continuing to be optimistic about adding a third team to Fort Myers.

They estimate the chances at 80 percent the team will move to City of Palms Park after the Boston Red Sox depart for a new suburban training facility. Not bad; but let's not forget Vero Beach and Sarasota officials were similarly optimistic about landing the team in previous discussions.

Still, there may be more reason for the optimism here. For starters, the Orioles really don't have many alternatives, at least in Florida; where there have been overtures from Arizona Indian reservations looking to build new spring-training complexes, nothing has been firm. (Before you dismiss out of hand the Orioles training in Arizona, remember that it's been done -- the team previously trained in Scottsdale.) And some in baseball question whether Fort Myers is large enough to host three spring-training teams: hotels rooms are already expensive and at a premium during spring training as it is.

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