Indianapolis chosen for 2009 baseball winter meetings

INDIANAPOLIS -- Baseball's 2009 winter meetings will be in Indianapolis, the northernmost venue in more than 40 years for the annual gathering of major and minor league executives.\nMore than 2,500 people are expected to attend the Dec. 7-11 meetings, including team representatives, baseball trade show exhibitors and participants in the pro baseball employment job fair, officials said Thursday.\n"This is a fantastic city. It's a jewel of a community," Jimmie Lee Solomon, Major League Baseball executive vice president for operations, said at the announcement in Victory Field, the home of the Indianapolis Indians of the International League.\n"We're trying to do this a little differently," he said of the change in selection from a warm-weather city. "We're going to use four or five hotels. But they're all connected to the Convention Center through walkways. You never have to go outside. So weather should be totally a moot point with us."\nThe last time the winter meetings were this far north was in 1966, when they were in Columbus, Ohio.\nThis year's meetings will be Dec. 4-7 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.\n"Our job is to make Indianapolis feel like a warm-weather city," Mayor Bart Peterson said of the hospitality planning.\n"This is something we've wanted for a long time," he said. "We are known as a city that is a great host. ... The people of baseball are going to find a very warm and hospitable city"