As Santa Clara prepares to “finalize” its stadium deal, Lew Wolff will be on SVLG head Carl Guardino’s “The CEO Show” tonight on KLIV (AM 1590). Wolff’s been making the media rounds every so often, though the tone of this interview should be different from Rick Tittle’s excellent work from two weeks ago. Last September SVLG officially came out in support of an A’s move to San Jose, and sent a letter to Bud Selig urging him to make it happen.
Update 7:05 PM – Interesting, Mike Crowley is on with Wolff.
7:17 PM – Wolff answering a caller’s question about Oakland’s issues with attendance and retaining a team: “I don’t think the situation in Oakland is that bad as far as the fanbase. The difficulty is in putting together a privately financed stadium.“
7:27 PM – Wolff talks about Cisco’s technology push, which uses concepts seen in Minority Report, probably via near field communication.
7:29 PM – If you’re thinking the callers so far are all ringers, they are. Except maybe one.
7:30 PM – About the Quakes and the $60 million investment for the stadium there: “$100 million for 17 homes games a season is a bit of a reach.“
7:35 PM – Time to build the ballpark: 30 months, assuming (the A’s) don’t get sued, as long as we get the process going.
One of the interesting asides from the interview came in Guardino’s 10 questions segment. Asked what was his favorite book, Wolff replied that it was an out-of-print autobiography of developer William Zeckendorf, who built Century City in Los Angeles and owned the land on which the UN headquarters in New York would eventually be built. As is often the case with many CEOs, he makes his employees read his favorite book.
newballpark.org 
Thanks, ML. Pardon my digression, yet on the topic of interviews, here is _Baseball Oakland’s_ recent one with Jean Quan:
http://baseballoakland.blogspot.com/2011/02/baseball-oakland-interview-with-mayor.html
If you want to post it on the blog and delete my post here, no offense taken at all– just an FYI. Thanks for considering.
@DavidL – I’ll probably put it into a news post tomorrow. Interesting interview. I wonder what caused them to put Peerless at the top of the list? And how does EBRS feel about that?
Saw an article about the Yankee$ complaining about revenue-sharing yesterday. Wonder if they are against the A’s moving to San Jose and making money rather than staying Oakland and being a league welfare recipient.
Pjk,
I saw the link in the Kings/Anaheim thread. At this point in the game, its a no brainer as to what should be done with the
A’s: revenue welfare recipient or revenue contributor? RM, can you make that Steinbrenner interview part of tomorrows news as well?
I would love to hear Steinbrenner’s answer to the question, which is more important, not doing anything that could potentially weaken the Yankees’ territorial rights or getting the A’s off the dole and on a solid footing? If he is really a free market guy, for his own interest, he has to answer the latter.
A followup question would be to ask him that about the Rays, since they’d be much stronger in northern New Jersey. Here I think he departs from the free market principles.
@baycommuter–it would seem to me that a standard for two team markets is that they “share” the territory (which is the case everywhere but the bay area). This would resolve the A’s issue while not weaking the concept of territorial rights at all–from my perspective they are mutually exclusive–
Why can’t Carl Guardino say “Oakland” Athletics? Nice interview other than that.
So then groundbreaking for Cisco Field needs to happen before September 2012 for an Opening Day 2015.
By the A’s being “sued”, I assume Mr. Wolff means local SJ lawsuits, ie classic NIMBY, EIR related stuff.
By the way, he seems very calm doing these things and describing the committees work.
Mr. Wolffs “frustration” sure doesn’t appear genuine, and that’s a good thing.
Lew Wolffs autobiography will one day be one of my favorite books (if books are still in existence then).
@TonyD–read his book?..lol. You’re crazy about this guy, huh? I don’t find him all that interesting and can barely tolerate him as an owner, and just want him to retire and get out of baseball altogether.
A Jean Quan autobiography would be very interesting. The recent Charlie O.Finley book was very good; he was quite a character. Love him or hate him, his impact on the game of baseball was enormous. The nostalgia of the early A’s days was pretty cool.
Though I admittedly favor the A’s moving to San Jose, Mayor Quan seems to get how a ballpark can be used as a catalyst for development in a city. I wish she was in office when the stadium should have been built in Uptown.
@ML: Quan makes it clear that no matter how many feel that SJ should be the A’s new home, that she will keep Oakland in the running until a final decision is made; I like that about her, as with Perata, Oakland would have been a dead deal back in November. I don’t know what to say about Pearless, yet she seems optimistic that the business owners would be satisfied further south along the estuary. I am not sure what makes her think that, unless she means close to the Oak to 9th development further along Embarcadero East (near the cove).
@Nathan: I agree, that having if JQ had more of a voice years ago, perhaps as mayor instead of Brown, that we could have had the Uptown site. However, I am more of a fan of Victory Court’s site than Uptown if they can negotiate with the building owners, and whatever other steps make it reality.
Mayor Quan’s stance is admirable but she like all Pro-Oak fans do not realize that building privately in Oakland is impossible.
If Oakland or MLB (Dare I say it) can subsidize half of the stadium I am sure Lew Wolff would be “all ears” and stay in Oakland as now he can build a ballpark within his own assigned territory.
The Giants stance has always been that since nothing can get done in Oakland hold San Jose hostage so that the A’s leave the Bay Area.
It seems to me if Oakland could get something done then the Giants would be dealt a major blow with ATT Park-East Bay opening up 10 miles away. How does that make sense??
Only then would the Giants come to the table and negotiate San Jose as the A’s and MLB would have major leverage at that point.
Peter Magowan was in talks back in the mid-1990s about selling Santa Clara (49ers site) to the A’s but backed out once he saw Oakland was no longer going to be an option because of the political well being “poisoned”.
I do think the A’s will end up in San Jose but only after a nasty lawsuit where MLB loses their anti-trust exemption as they do not deserve it if the NFL, NBA, and NHL cannot get one themselves.