Michael Hiltzik: As taxpayers tire of handouts to billionaires, Major League Baseball demands public funding for a Vegas stadium

The longest-running melodrama in sports is less about events on the field of play than on machinations in the ownership suite of baseball's Oakland A's, who are close to finalizing a move to Las Vegas three or four years from now.

At least, that's the hope of Major League Baseball and the team's billionaire owner, John Fisher. That the deal will ultimately close as expected is the way to bet, to speak the language of Las Vegas.

But increasingly there are grounds to take the under. As my colleague Bill Shaikin reports, two challenges to the public funding for the team's proposed new Vegas ballpark have emerged from a Nevada teachers union.

Strong Public Schools Nevada, a political action committee of the Nevada State Education Association, has filed a lawsuit questioning the public funding as unconstitutional. A separate committee of the union is pressing to qualify for November's state ballot a voter referendum on the funding.

At issue is a measure signed last year by Nevada's Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, authorizing $380 million in public funding for a