Let's be clear on a couple of points:

No. 1, Bill Edwards is absolutely right.

It's time for St. Petersburg to stop thinking of Al Lang Field as a baseball stadium.

The place has not been the permanent home of a minor-league team since the Class A St. Petersburg Devil Rays were sold off in 2000. And it has not had a regular spring training tenant since the Rays moved to Port Charlotte in 2009.

There is no cornfield nearby where mythical ballplayers will suddenly appear to remind us all why we fell in love with the park in the first place.

It is a viable baseball stadium only in our memories.

No. 2, Bill Edwards is a bit misguided.

He has to know it's silly for St. Petersburg to devote any money to Al Lang Field.

Yes, the Rowdies have been a nice addition to the downtown scene. And the soccer team has a devoted, if tiny, following that has come to appreciate a waterfront stadium.

But it is a minor-league team in a second-tier sport in America. There is not nearly enough evidence that St. Pete should devote its valuable waterfront property to a soccer stadium, and it makes no sense to reconfigure an old baseball field in the interim.

It is a viable soccer stadium only in Edwards' dreams.

Which brings us to today's impasse.

A deal that would have allowed Edwards to take over the running of the stadium for a few years has hit a snag at the 11th hour.

Maybe it is the fault of the St. Petersburg Baseball Commission, which currently controls the stadium. Maybe it is the fault of Edwards, the Rowdies owner and St. Pete entrepreneur. Or maybe the planets just refuse to align.

The cause isn't as important as the possible result:

And that's another downtown stalemate.

Like the Pier, Tropicana Field, the police station and the master downtown waterfront plan, we might be stuck in the weeds when it comes to the future of Al Lang.

That would be a shame, because the proposed deal with Edwards has promise. It moves the city away from the tired search for quality baseball events, and it put the success or failure of soccer squarely in Edwards' hands.

He was supposedly prepared to invest his own money to make the stadium more soccer-friendly, and the rumor is he has designs on taking the Rowdies out of the North American Soccer League and into the more prestigious Major League Soccer.

If that is his plan, I wish him well, but it is up to Edwards to convince us a soccer stadium on the waterfront is worth the investment. Pro soccer has had too many false starts in the United States for St. Pete to commit either land or money prematurely.

In a way, Edwards has done the city a favor by forcing this conversation. The sad truth is St. Pete needs to stop treating Al Lang like some family heirloom of baseball memories.

A new future must be plotted, and this argument has made that apparent, even if it might mean ending a precious love affair with baseball on the waterfront.

Yet Edwards cannot mistake a baseball stadium's demise as a positive affirmation for soccer. If he believes in soccer's future, he needs to make the necessary investment.

And if he decides he wants to take his team and go somewhere else, that is his right, too. Somehow, I think St. Pete will survive.