The 1993 Major League Baseball expansion resulted in Major League Baseball (MLB) adding two expansion teams to the National League (NL) for the 1993 season: the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins (now known as the Miami Marlins). Background Talks of expansion began on August 8, 1985, when the players and the owners agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The basic agreement allowed the National League to expand by two members to match the American League, which had done so in 1977. Details of expansion were hammered out in the 1990 CBA. Ten cities were considered serious candidates for the two spots: Buffalo, Charlotte, Denver, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, Tampa Bay, and Washington, D.C. The Florida Suncoast Dome in St. Petersburg and Pilot Field in Buffalo were built specifically to lure an existing or expansion MLB franchise. The National League expansion committee consisted of Pittsburgh Pirates Chairman Doug Danfort, New York Mets president Fred Wilpon and Houston Astros owner John McMullen. On December 18, 1990, the committee eliminated Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix and Sacramento from consideration to cut the list down to six finalists. With three sites from Florida remaining in contention it became apparent that one would win out while the other spot would go to a non-Florida team. Denver, Colorado After previous failed attempts to bring Major League Baseball to the state of Colorado (most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates nearly relocating to Denver following the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985), by the late 1980s a team seemed to be a possibility in Denver. The Colorado Baseball Commission, led by banking executive Larry Varnell, was successful in getting Denver voters to approve a 0.1% sales tax to help finance a new baseball stadium. Also, an advisory committee was formed in 1990 by then-Governor of Colorado Roy Romer to recruit an ownership group. The group selected was led by John Antonucci, an Ohio beverage distributor, and Michael I. Monus, the head of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. Local and regional companies—such as Erie Lake, Hensel Phelps Construction, KOA Radio, and the Rocky Mountain News—rounded out the group. Eugene Orza, associate general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association, stated that he expected Denver would receive one of the expansion franchises. Miami, Florida U.S. Senator Connie Mack III from Florida, the grandson of baseball great Connie Mack and a member of the Senate Task Force on Major League Baseball,