Author Archives: Marine Layer

04.25.12
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A’s not on May owners meeting agenda

Small item in John Shea’s report today:

Managing general partner Lew Wolff, who attended Tuesday’s game, conceded that the A’s stadium issue won’t be on the agenda at the May 16-17 owners’ meetings, and he wouldn’t guess whether it’ll be included at the next owners’ meetings in August.

As long as Bud Selig keeps leaving the A’s and Wolff twisting in the wind like this, he’s the one who’s going to have to fix it. The A’s lease runs out after 2013. Selig should have to be the one who negotiates any short or long-term Coliseum extension, not Wolff. The Coliseum Authority and Wolff aren’t exactly buddies these days. Then again, Wolff and Selig supposedly are. With friends like these…

04.24.12
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AEG looks to add NorCal to its empire

A very clever strategy is emanating from facility operator Anschutz Entertainment Group. It’s a two-pronged affair based in Sacramento and Oakland. The movement draws upon what can be considered serious deficiencies in both markets in their inability to attract certain types of events and visitors. Most importantly, it offers hope to both cities, which are both in danger of losing their respective pro sports franchises.

For San Jose Earthquakes fans, AEG may as well be a four-letter word. The company owned the Quakes franchise as part of its initial MLS holdings. When AEG was unable to forge a new stadium deal in San Jose, the team was abruptly moved to Houston in 2006, making the parent company persona non grata in the South Bay. AEG came back in 2008 with a small move, taking over for Live Nation as the operator of The Warfield in SF.

In Sacramento, AEG is seen as the facilitator for the Railyards Entertainment and Sports Complex. The backing out by the Maloof family has for now killed the plan, though it’s possible that AEG could resurface as a key driver with or without the basketball Kings. Should Sacramento lose the Kings, they’d have the option of building an on-spec arena, similar to former Kings home Kansas City when it built the Sprint Center. That’s a far different scope from Oakland, which is looking to keep three franchises at home via at least two new venues plus a convention center and hotel. Oakland’s model is the AEG-run LA Live complex and LA Convention Center.

AEG is the premier arena operator in the country, with Staples Center as its crown jewel. It has the experience to make cities listen when they come calling, and the weight to make cities cower when threatening to attract a team, as evidenced by AEG’s NFL pursuits. While dangling its own success in front of potential suitors, it forges ahead with its plans to expand its SoCal empire by working on a football stadium-cum-convention hall. While not a short-term likelihood, the threat and possibility remains into the future, and would hugely benefit AEG in two key ways: it would make LACC more competitive with San Diego and Las Vegas for conventions, and it would create the ultimate flexibility for all of its LA venues, which happen to be within blocks of each other.

AEG's Downtown LA operations provide great flexibility and huge traffic

To understand what make LA Live unique, it’s important to look beyond Staples Center. LA Live has two venues of its own: the 7,100-seat Nokia Theatre and 2,500-person Club Nokia, both of which are essentially auditoriums. They slot in below Staples Center for booking concerts, which is necessary because Staples is home to three pro teams and at least 126 home dates per year. In most other cities an arena operator would use a curtain system to reduce capacity at a large arena. AEG doesn’t need to do this sort of “half house” setup with Staples much, instead it can push a show to the Nokia Theatre. Staples famously hosts the Grammys every year, while Nokia hosts the Primtetime Emmys, MTV VMAs, and the finale of American Idol. Club Nokia mostly serves as a venue for up-and-coming and smaller acts. The Convention Center churns plenty of day business and drives demand to local hotels. Both convention and entertainment visitors benefit local restaurants and bars, some of which are in LA Live. It boils down to the equivalent of the population of the Bay Area visiting downtown LA every year, spread out among 2.5 events per day.

Oakland wants this kind of traffic, so they’re looking to drop SMG like a bad habit then partner up with AEG now and into the future. It’s going to be difficult to pull off. A third of AEG’s visitors come from the convention center. To build a competitive center in Oakland, the facility would have to surpass Moscone, San Jose, and Santa Clara in terms of space. It would require at least one, probably two anchor hotels attached to the convention center. A thriving commercial and retail district wouldn’t hurt attracting people and conventions. Oracle Arena is a good, modern arena thanks to the 1996 renovation, and AEG is promising to maximize utilization of the arena to its full potential and provide consulting for the Coliseum City concept.

The inherent risks are timing and cost. AEG built Staples Center prior to the 1999-2000 NBA and NHL seasons. The Nokia Theatre didn’t open until 2007, after Staples as AEG responded to market conditions. Club Nokia opened the following year. For AEG to be that involved and willing to invest in Oakland, it would have to recognize similar market potential and a chance to dominate the market the same way it does in LA. The arena part will be difficult to pull off as Sharks Entertainment will always be competitive with HP Pavilion. The Warriors could build an arena in SF, relegating Oracle Arena in the process. Another Planet Entertainment controls several smaller theaters throughout SF and the East Bay, providing natural competition in the process. There is no proper 7,000-seat auditorium in the Bay Area, pushing shows of that size to the arenas unless AEG sees fit to build one (the Bill Graham Civic, as historic as it is, is really a gym). Plus there is no shortage of 2,500-seat venues in the Bay Area: Fox Oakland, Paramount, Warfield, SF Masonic Auditorium, and the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. AEG isn’t going to bring a fully-formed Coliseum City on Day 1. It would have to be phased in over many years, with no guarantee that much of what’s being promised will be built.

For AEG, the best part is that in making these deals, it’s getting exclusivity for usually a year or more for a very small price while making a little money to boot. AEG has been willing to invest in venues to some degree as it did with Sprint Center. However, Phil Anschutz is not about giving away the farm, as witnessed by his hardball dealings with the NFL and the contribution cap AEG paid for Sprint Center. Maybe something will happen, maybe not. Either way AEG is the first one in and keeps competition out, while getting a better understanding of how to exploit a particular market. As great as LA Live is, it shouldn’t be considered easily repeatable. Sprint Center is a more realistic and perhaps cautionary example. The arena is the second busiest in America according to Pollstar and is highly profitable by AEG’s standards, though it’s a $13 million annual drain on the city’s coffers. Sprint Center is well integrated with KC’s $850 million Power and Light District development. There remains no major pro team. AEG appears to be happy with whatever business model works best for it whether it’s three teams or none, civic pride not being a great priority.

One other curiosity about AEG: as interested it is in the NFL and as extensive as its holdings are in hockey (LA Kings), basketball (Anchutz’s minority share of the Lakers), and soccer (LA Galaxy, Houston Dynamo), there’s one glaring omission on its resume: baseball. Does AEG care about baseball at all? It doesn’t operate any ballparks, nor does it own a minor league team. It doesn’t seem to have any relevant experience with baseball. Its new AEG Sports division has no baseball interests at all. Judging from AEG’s track record, I have to think its priority list would look like this:

  • Concerts
  • Soccer
  • Conventions
  • Hockey
  • Football
  • Basketball
  • Baseball?

Judging from that, maybe AEG would be more interested in bringing a MLS team to Oakland than in keeping the A’s there. In regards to the A’s, AEG’s presence is similar to Larry Ellison in that certain factions would love for either of them to be interested in the A’s, but neither has shown any sign of interest to date. A clause in the Coliseum management contract dictates that AEG can’t talk to teams about moving, which I suppose might have teeth if a team were bound to a long-term lease (only the Warriors are). It gives a new twist on the Coliseum City exercise being a feasibility study.

04.21.12
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What the NFL wants, it gets

You have to hand it to Roger Goodell. He has a playbook for getting stadium deals moving, and by God it works. Goodell lets the team owner come up with a proposal, and if it stalls he comes in with Goldman Sachs in tow and/or a threat to move, implied or otherwise. As a result, Santa Clara put up $900 million in public loans and cash for the 49ers stadium project, while the Vikings – after much debate – are getting a deal crafted in the Minnesota legislature that could provide up to $800 million in public assistance for stay home.

In the Vikings’ case, all it required was a little open-ended discussion about Los Angeles and a sighting of owner Zygi Wilf’s private jet in SoCal. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has become the Oscar Goodman of football, an outsider but serious power player whose city’s existential threat to other cities forces them to the table. The Vikings deal is by no means complete, but it’s further along than any talks to date, so that has to be encouraging for both Vikes fans and Wilf.

On Thursday, the 49ers officially broke ground on their new home as of the 2014 season. The stadium will undoubtedly be impressive and significantly better than Candlestick Park in just about every way imaginable, except affordability. (I thought I was going to get some pictures of the event but that fell through, sorry.)  Now we can talk in earnest about the Bay Area hosting a future Super Bowl or World Cup matches. It’s pretty exciting, despite my misgivings about the finances.

And it’s with that news that I can sit back, somewhat detached from the plan and say that I’m jealous of the 49ers right now. I don’t want a major handout for the A’s or Goldman Sachs waiting in the wings. I don’t need a stadium that costs more than a billion dollars. I just want a new place where I can take friends, where it doesn’t feel like pulling teeth to ask them if they want to go. A place that celebrates baseball, not merely hosts it at best adequately. Despite what some readers think, I don’t care where it’s built. If that’s Oakland, great. If it’s San Jose, so be it. Even Sacramento I wouldn’t mind so much at this point. My stance has always remained steady all this time – as long as it’s privately financed and I can get to it locally, I’m all for it. On this blog and elsewhere we have these endless debates about what it will take, territorial rights, what resources specific cities can offer, and there will be plenty of time for that later. For now let’s simply look at the leagues.

Mostly, I’m jealous that the NFL can get its stuff together on stadia so much better than MLB. It doesn’t matter that on the whole NFL stadia cost twice as much. The projects should be far riskier because of the expense and the inherent lack of utilization. In the post-downturn, post-redevelopment California, the toughest market to build anything new, the NFL will have beaten MLB by at least two years, maybe more. In the time that Bud Selig has had his panel discussing what to do about the A’s, we could’ve had a fancy (or not) groundbreaking. We could be talking about the future. Instead, we’re treading water as usual. No one can tread water forever.

04.19.12
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A Streetcar Named Aspire

Today the commissioner said that the A’s need a new stadium… and that’s about it.

In Billy Beane’s weekly slot on The Drive, he mentioned that the team/ownership is at “the end of the process” and that regarding the recent news “there seems to be a lot of smoke, and where there’s smoke there’s fire”. Not exactly revealing, but at least it lines up with Selig trying to broker a deal between the A’s and Giants.

Added 8:50 PM – Joe Stiglich has more on the negotiations that may or may not be happening that no one officially wants to talk about. 

I did find out something revealing about the Coliseum City project. Turns out that as part of the planning for the project, the City is looking at putting in a streetcar or trolley. The streetcar is not part of the Oakland Airport Connector, which is currently under construction. It wouldn’t go downtown or to Jack London Square. Instead it would be a very short trolley, running around one mile in length between the Coliseum BART station and the Edgewater area on the other side of the Nimitz. I’ve racked my brain and haven’t heard of a streetcar or trolley built for what is primarily a sports complex.

I can only assume that the project’s principals and supporters want this streetcar to improve the project’s attractiveness as a potential corporate and commercial hub, since it would provide a direct link to BART and the other parts of the Coliseum City. What’s not clear is why they’d choose a streetcar. A people mover like the Airport Connector would make more sense. An extension to the Airport Connector from the BART terminus through the complex (creating a “U”) would make the most sense, except that station’s design (see pic below) prevents that kind of alignment.

The Airport Connector's alignment runs perpendicular to San Leandro Street and the BART alignment, making it difficult to extend and turn the system.

The crazy thing about this streetcar idea is that it creates a third, disjointed transit option in this relatively small area. Meanwhile, there are far better places to use resources on a streetcar project, such as Broadway (which is getting yet another separate study). Clearly, if the streetcar option gains traction it’ll add a quarter-billion to the project’s $2 billion price tag. Yet it might be considered a necessity if the City wants to lure a big corporate fish.

As Marin County rejected George Lucas’s long-gestating studio expansion project and then ran back to Lucas in desperation only to be rejected by the filmmaker, Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan wrote an open letter to Lucas encouraging him to take a tour of the city. Coliseum City has to be at or near the top of places the City would offer to Lucas. Now, it’s hard to envision any locale in Oakland comparing to the pristine Skywalker Ranch or the wonderfully preserved and adapted Letterman Center at the Presidio. And Oakland’s already tried to push Coliseum City in its bid for the Lawrence Berkeley Lab expansion and lost. But if you’re gonna dream big, you might as well go fully preposterous. I know of at least one reader, native Oaklander, and Lucasfilm employee who would weep tears of joy if Oakland got Lucas’s blessing to build the new studio in Oakland.

I couldn't resist.

04.19.12
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KQED debate + Andy Dolich’s game

KQED’s Nina Thorsen finishes off her three-part series (1, 2) on the A’s future with a San Jose-vs.-Oakland debate. Featured prominently is our own Jeffrey and his dulcit tone.

As much as I would love for this to be wrapped by the end of the owners meetings next month, it doesn’t appear that it will. That leaves us A’s fans twisting in the wind yet again. Thanks ever so much, Bud.

—–

While I was in transit yesterday, the Merc published an op-ed by Andy Dolich. In the piece, Dolich predicts that the A’s will stay in Oakland long-term.

His last gig was as an executive for the 49ers, keeping the seat warm for Jed York. Interestingly, Dolich’s job was to advocate for the ‘Stick while the Yorks pushed hard on the Santa Clara stadium plan, which undoubtedly led to some conflict. After Dolich was dismissed, he continued to advocate for a SF stadium instead of Santa Clara. Ann Killion wrote two years ago that the firing of Dolich by the 49ers would come back to haunt them and hurt the Santa Clara plan. Amazing how a winning season and help from the NFL proves pundits wrong, eh?

Dolich gets a few facts wrong in his impassioned plea. The South Philly sports complex has four teams, not three. Staples Center on its own has three team tenants. That’s not significant. I’m in complete agreement that the Bay Area can support all of the pro teams that currently reside in the Bay Area.

Reading between the lines, it looks like Dolich is appealing to someone in the East Bay to become a frontman for the Coliseum City plan – if not now, when the plan has legs. That would be a great idea assuming that Coliseum City got off the ground. It’s always good to have someone who has credibility in the sports industry, a history of past successes, and local ties. In December 2010, Dolich floated the idea of a new multipurpose stadium in Oakland, one with the technology to be less of a “neither fish nor fowl” problem than the 60’s-era stadia. I deconstructed the concept and explained why it wouldn’t work. Dolich read my post and sent me an email, which led to a very pleasant exchange on stadia and arenas. I think I even promised to meet him for lunch to talk shop, which never happened, unfortunately.

The bottom line is that it’s nice to hear someone advocating for Oakland and the East Bay, even if his office is actually in the South Bay. Those putting together a Coliseum City plan wouldn’t hurt themselves by having Andy Dolich in a prominent position. To be clear, that’s probably at least a year down the road if it happens at all.

04.17.12
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The San Diego (and then some) trip

…a simple prop to occupy my time…

I’m headed down to San Diego on Wednesday. Thanks to the magic of the internet and remote access, I’ll still be working and updating the blog from here just as I would from home. Normally my trips down south haven’t been scheduled to coincide with much baseball action. This time I made sure to get that straightened out. I expect to attend at least seven games at different venues, up to eleven if the logistics work out right. The main purpose of the trip is to attend my brother’s wedding on the 22nd, though I’ve managed to schedule it so that it could include a long Padres homestand and two series in which the A’s visit the Angels.

Games in italics are optional or tentatively scheduled. Games in bold are booked.

While I was planning my post-wedding itinerary, I found out a few nice gems that could be helpful for you if you should decide to make a trip south.

  • The Pads are a cellar-dweller team this season, and their attendance shows it. That makes it easy for me to simply walk up and grab whatever seat I like. However, when I sought out a ticket online from the team website, it gave me a pop-up advertising a “Pick 4 Pack”. If I picked four games at virtually any price level (except the Park pass), I’d also get a ticket for the stadium tour and a cap. Clearly, such a deal is meant for locals, not visitors like me. It just so happens that my schedule fits perfectly with it, so I intend to take up the offer. I’ve taken the Petco tour before, yet I’m a sucker for any stadium tour so if I can get a free one I’m doing it.

Offer good for 4 games. Not good if buying 4 tickets to a single game.

  • I’d just as soon not drive the two hours to Anaheim or LA to catch games there. My initial public transit choice was going to be the Pacific Surfliner, the Amtrak California line that runs from Santa Barbara to San Diego, through LA and OC. The cost of each trip looked a bit steep ($28 each way), so I looked at alternatives. I found that the LA area’s train system, Metrolink, runs a special weekend pass in which you can go everywhere on the system (that runs weekend trains) for only $10 on both Saturday and Sunday. It even includes travel starting on Friday night at 7 PM. The pass allows me to drive from San Diego to Oceanside, then take the train for Sunday afternoon games. I might also be able to pull of a Friday night game, we’ll see.
  • Included in the trip are two games at San Diego State and University of San Diego. USD’s Cunningham Stadium is a special curiosity for me because of its unusual layout. Tucked into a hillside, it has one narrow bank of bleachers and two rows of seats near the dugouts. It also has great hill views.
  • I haven’t been to Dodger Stadium in a decade. I’m fully aware of how restrictive it’s been historically, yet I want to sit in the Top Deck because I’ve never sat there before. Any tips on what I should do there?

If this works out right, the game experiences shouldn’t be significantly more expensive than what I normally get going to A’s games. There will be review of every stadium during the trip. During the “down” time I’ll be hanging out with friends in North Park, sampling lots of tasty beer. And yes, pilgrimages to one or more Pizza Port locations are in the offing.

04.16.12
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The Reckoning in May?

Update 3:45 PM – Slusser just tweeted that the issue will not be on the agenda even though Wolff has requested it. And the beat goes on…

Susan Slusser reports that the A’s are putting territorial rights on the owners meetings agenda next month. Will we finally get a resolution? We just might.

Back in December I had heard that ownership had the option to put the matter on the February meeting agenda. For whatever reason that didn’t happen. My guess is that the acceleration of the Dodgers’ sale and bankruptcy resolution came somewhat unexpectedly, which forced the A’s back onto the backburner once more.

There is an inherent amount of risk to making this move, as a vote could go against Lew Wolff and John Fisher. The big unknown is whether this vote is being shepherded by Bud Selig, who generally tries to build consensus before doing anything. Considering how long this has taken, anything’s possible. If this goes according to Selig’s M.O., he probably has both the votes and at least some kind of framework in place for a deal to compensate the Giants, whatever that is. If not, Wolff could lose and be left with no other option than to work something out in Oakland.

Slusser cites the Tracy Ringolsby article that we mentioned here last week, along with the threat of a San Jose antitrust lawsuit should the vote go against the A’s and San Jose.

Either way, I’m glad we’re finally getting somewhere with this. It promises to be a very exciting and newsworthy next couple of weeks. I’ll be back from San Diego the day before the meetings start, so I’ll be able to give it the attention it deserves.

P.S. – If you’re wondering whether or not a vote will actually be taken, just remember that the executive council had a report presented by Selig’s 3-man panel during the winter meetings. If the owners didn’t have the information necessary to vote on the issue before, they most assuredly do now.

04.16.12
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Getting ready for a groundbreaking, 49ers style

I’m leaving for San Diego on Wednesday, so I won’t have a chance to check out the 49ers’ groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday. So I decided to walk by the construction site to see what’s going on. Demolition has been completed, and a large section of the site has been graded and paved. A crew worked through the weekend to put up a big tent, bleachers, and an artificial turf field which I assume is the where the actual field will stand when the stadium is completed.

View from Tasman Drive

In the picture above, a piledriver stands at the left edge. You can see a small patch of green (the field) in the middle, then the bleachers and tent. 49er headquarters are in the background.

View from along San Tomas Aquino Creek trail

Enough bleachers are being brought in to host a high school football game. There also appear to be some auxiliary structures. Fancy groundbreaking, this is.

Back side of the site

Construction equipment sits lined up behind the tent, along with various materials.

A while back I put up a poll asking readers which project would be done first, the 49ers stadium or the A’s ballpark. Clearly, the winner is the football stadium despite its enormous cost. Being first has everything to do with the NFL stepping in and recognizing the opportunity in Santa Clara. MLB? Not so much.

P.S. – If any readers attend the groundbreaking ceremony, I’d love to get pictures to post here.

04.15.12
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Dedication of a NRAF

Today we have a guest post from Stomper00, who invited me to last Monday’s game. He told me of his upbringing as a NRAF (non-resident Athletics fan), and I found it so compelling that I asked to him to write something about it that I could put in a guest post. I think you’ll find it interesting too.

– Ed./ML

2012 is my 25th year as an Oakland A’s fan and the start of my first year as a resident of the Bay Area. I was born and raised in the LA area and for the last five years I lived in Orange County. I knew that I loved baseball once I started playing in little leagues but I never grew up as a fan of the Dodgers or Angels because they never really appealed to me for some reason. In 1985, shortly after I started playing baseball, I started to collect baseball cards like most kids. It was a cool way to learn the sport, and where the other teams were located. Plus it was a sneaky way to score a stick of gum. During the 1987 season, I accumulated quite a few cards so I started to organize them by team. There was pretty much an equal distribution of cards for each team except for one, the Oakland A’s. For whatever reason, I had a significantly greater amount of A’s cards than any other team.  At the same time, I also noticed that their team colors were not like everyone else, with their standard green and gold colors. So I decided that I was going to be an Oakland A’s fan because they were different. The timing was perfect too; the A’s started to dominate MLB shortly thereafter.

In 1988 I was kind of excited to see the Dodgers in the World Series against the Athletics. Game one was a game that I would never forget. We had a family gathering at my parent’s house and I was playing hide-and-seek outside with my cousins while my uncles were watching the game. I really wasn’t paying too much attention to the game but I would check in every so often to find out the score or to watch the Dodgers come up to bat. I came in just in time to see Kirk Gibson hit that infamous home run and I was jumping up and down in excitement because I was rooting for the home team. That’s when one of my uncles said “Hey, I thought you were and Athletics fan.” I replied “No, I’m an A’s fan.” He started laughing and said, “They are the same team!”…I went from pure joy to confusion, shock, anger, and sadness in a matter of minutes. I never realized that the A’s and Athletics were one and the same. All the baseball cards I collected at the time said “A’s” on the cards. I had a few “Athletics” cards but I just filed them away with the rest of my other non-A’s cards. At the time, there was no Internet or MLB packages on TV to watch out of market games, so my only exposure to A’s info was the league standings in the LA Times or whenever they came to town to play the Angels. Even today whenever I see that Gibson home run I can still feel that emotional rollercoaster inside me.

I’ve seen the A’s countless times in Anaheim since 1989, but I never got a chance to see a game at the Coliseum before Mount Davis was built, it’s something that I’ll always regret. I told myself that once I was old enough I would drive up to Oakland to watch a game to cheer for my team. My first A’s game in Oakland was Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS where Derek Jeter made that crazy play. It was a really cool experience; I woke up around 4:30am for no reason on game day thinking that I should be at the game so I got ready and drove up to Oakland with nothing planned out. Once I arrived, I got a hotel room near by and scalped a ticket to get in. I was in awe because I was finally in a place where there’s so many A’s fans and I could feel comfortable cheering for my team, to be in a place where so much history took place, and finally a place where I could stock up on A’s gear. Being from SoCal, it’s pretty hard to find anything A’s related.  It would have been a perfect day if only Jeremy tried to slide home. Since 2001 I’ve been to 45 home games, sometimes with friends but mostly solo. I’ve even drove up a few times for afternoon games and drove back home to SoCal immediately after the game was over and would listen to Chris Townsend at the start of my long drive home until I lost the signal. Unfortunately the signal usually lasted about 15-20 minutes for me. Now that I actually live here, I’ll be at the majority of the games during the season.

Most of the games I’ve been to were generally sell-outs because it was either a playoff game or there was some special event or giveaway at the game. I know that I’m an exception to the rule, but I never really understood why attendance was/is low at the Coliseum. You can say its ownership (Maybe, but I disagree for the most part), the Coliseum (One day we will all miss her), the team on the field (We’ve had some great ones) or anything really but does it really matter? This is our team and it’s our responsibility to support them through think and thin! When I hear that some people don’t want to drive 40 miles to see a game I roll my eyes…try 830 miles round trip! I hate seeing a division within the A’s fan base because of the stadium situation. Personally, I would love nothing more for the A’s to stay in Oakland but given the possible scenario of the team moving to San Jose or moving out of state, which would you rather have? It took me 22 years to find my way up here and the last thing I want is for my team to move out of the Bay Area! They say you never know what you have until you lose it, I know what I have now that live here and will cherish every moment until the stadium decision is made. I only wish that everyone else could see it like me.

Go A’s, Go Athletics!!!

Stomper00

04.14.12
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A’s break out their own legal heavyweights

The Merc’s Internal Affairs column has revealed that A’s ownership has brought a big gun to what could be future legal proceedings against the Giants – or at least the Giants’ astroturf group, Stand for San Jose. In this case it’s trial lawyer Allen Ruby, best known in the sports world as Barry Bonds’ attorney in the slugger’s perjury case. Ruby is a partner at Skadden Arps, one the largest law firms in the world.

Ruby successfully defended the NFL against the Raiders, as well as former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales when he was brought up on corruption charges. MLB teams can’t sue each other or baseball due to a clause in the sport’s constitution. MLB tends to handle its business within the confines of its ownership ranks, a method furthered under Bud Selig. That doesn’t leave out the possibility of a team going outside to sue a city or team on non-baseball grounds, as the Giants have done. If anything, bringing on Ruby is like a country stockpiling nuclear weapons during the Cold War. No one intends to actually use them, but the possibility is there. Personally, I don’t think this ever sees a trial, so we won’t get to see Ruby in a courtroom representing the A’s.

Also onboard is Cecily T. Barclay, a partner with Perkins Coie whose specialty is land use and entitlements. Coie was named 2012 San Francisco Land Use & Zoning Law Lawyer of the Year by industry website Best Lawyers, and has worked on a number of large projects throughout the Bay Area, including the Lennar/Hunters Point project, the Cargill Saltworks/Redwood City plan, and Rivermark in Santa Clara.

As impressive as this legal firepower is, I hope it never has to get used, because if it does it only means more delays for the A’s.