Link: OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland Athletics owner and managing partner Lew Wolff announced today the A’s have reached an agreement to purchase a 143-acre parcel from Cisco Systems with the intent of constructing a baseball park in the City of Fremont. The state-of-the-art baseball-only stadium will be named Cisco Field as part of a 30-year [...]

From the A’s press release: Oakland A’s Owner and Managing Partner Lew Wolff will be making a major announcement tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. PT regarding the team’s quest for a new ballpark in the Bay Area. The announcement will be available live on oaklandathletics.com at 11:30 a.m. PT. FSN Bay Area will also show the [...]

The sheer number of articles covering the A’s-Cisco deal can cause anyone to miss a few not-so-minor details, including yours truly. The biggest one comes from Barry Witt’s 11/9 article (emphasis added in bold italics): Lew Wolff has said he would fund part of the expected ballpark’s expected $400 million or more price tag through [...]

Rumors about the A’s-Cisco partnership and the team’s possible move to Fremont took less than 48 hours to be overshadowed by another team’s announcement: The 49ers were giving up on San Francisco and were leaning towards a Santa Clara home near their training facilities and Great America. 49ers owner John York and his staff hastily [...]

Fixation on BART has made it seem like the other transportation solution in the area, good old-fashioned rail, has been ignored. That’s easy to do since the Capitol Corridor and ACE systems are less than twenty years old and neither is as visible as BART in the East Bay. Trains can help fill the gap [...]

One couple of housekeeping note first: The long dormant “Scoreboard” feature on the sidebar has been redone with a different question, “Does the outlet/media figure support the A’s-Pacific Commons ballpark plan?” The question and the associated reactions may change as details are revealed. I’ve linked the columns by Gwen Knapp, Ray Ratto, Carl Steward, Mark [...]

Update 11:27 p.m. – Trib reports that the Alameda County Board of Supervisors has approved the Coliseum lease extension, finalizing the A’s stay in Oakland through at least 2010. Also, according to Chron the 49ers have given up on staying in San Francisco. Santa Clara may be next. I hope that the Yorks aren’t trying [...]

Tuesday’s midterm elections didn’t have any issues that directly affected the A’s, but some legislation passed that impacts the market enough to make ownership notice. In Sacramento, voters soundly defeated Measures Q & R, which would have raised and allocated money for a new Downtown Sac arena for the Kings. Over the last month, both [...]

Update (10:22 PM) – Matier and Ross chime in. I’ve now heard 35,000, 40,000, and now 36,000 as the capacity. Ray Ratto also makes sure that Fremont knows its place in the pecking order. Update (3:05 PM) – Paul T. Rosynsky and Chris De Benedetti report that the press conference could take place at Cisco [...]

Not much has been heard from the Vegas camp for several months. In SI writer Ian Thomsen’s Inside the NBA column, flamboyant mayor Oscar Goodman talks about Sin City’s prospects for a pro sports franchise, namely a NBA team such as the Kings. While commissioner David Stern’s stance on not allowing a team in Vegas [...]