Category Archives: Athletics

08.07.12
by

Howard Terminal Revisited (Again)

Yes, we’ve been here before. I suppose it’s time to discuss Howard Terminal yet again.

In June I attended a weekday afternoon Rangers-A’s game, followed by a ferry trip from Oakland to South San Francisco. San Francisco Bay Ferry was using that week to launch the new service, which to that point had its southernmost terminal at AT&T Park. I noticed many people who, when they learned of the free promotional ferry ride, decided to take a quick cruise across the bay.

While I was waiting for the ferry, I walked around JLS and near Howard Terminal to take some updated pictures just in case.

howard_term-07-overhead

Overhead view of Howard Terminal, with power plant and ferry terminal included for comparison. (via Google Maps)

The best place for a ballpark may be the southeast corner, where the two cranes are located. The cranes can be and often are relocated. The area designated for auto processing is about 9 acres and is surrounded by the rest of Howard Terminal, a power plant, the Inner Harbor, and OFD property. The Trib’s Matthew Artz reported yesterday that tenant/operator SSA Marine (Matson) is suing to get out of the 25-year lease it signed only 7 years ago. Howard Terminal was chosen as a site for consolidated operations by SSA Marine. A planned multi-story auto processing/storage facility had to be scrapped amid NIMBY concerns and Howard Terminal only runs at 55% capacity thanks to market changes. Those may be the biggest factors in SSA Marine’s decision to file suit. The issue there is that while SSA Marine may ultimately want concessions on the lease, they may not necessarily want to leave or downsize their presence there. If the site I described as ideal were to be reused for a ballpark, SSA could only stage one large vessel at a time as opposed to two now. If SSA were to agree to relocate to elsewhere on Port property, it’s likely they’ll require a huge cut in lease terms while trying to maintain the kind of consolidation they were able to enjoy when they first inked the current deal. They’d also want to be able to expand if their container shipping business improves.

howard_term-13-water_edge

View of Howard Terminal from Ferry Terminal pier

If the City and the Port wanted to use all 50 acres of Howard Terminal, the solution is simple: tear up the lease and start the process on alternative development (planning, EIRs, infrastructure, identified projects). From looking at the Port’s budget documents, SSA Marine provides a substantial portion of the $10 million in revenue the Port derives from Inner Harbor maritime activities. That figure isn’t broken out by location or by company, so it’s hard to speculate further on SSA’s impact. Regardless, any disruption or change to SSA’s operations has to be considered an opportunity cost, since the Port would be foregoing that revenue stream to take on a ballpark lease and other commercial lease revenue. Currently, Inner Harbor provides nearly as much revenue as the entirety of Commercial revenue at the Port.

howard_term-05-train_power

Train passing the power plant along The Embarcadero. Part of Howard Terminal is behind the plant. Intersection is Martin Luther King, Jr. Way and The Embarcadero.

In the picture above, you’ll notice that along this stretch of The Embarcardero, only one side of the tracks is paved street. The near side is gravel. This continues to Jefferson and Clay Streets, where the Jack London Square streetscape as we know it begins. If a ballpark were to be placed at Howard Terminal, a great deal of new street and pedestrian infrastructure would have to be planned and constructed in order to safely accommodate the anticipated large crowds. That includes at least one pedestrian bridge leading from MLK, Brush, or Market. Additional acreage at Howard Terminal could be repurposed for parking, though that’s a double-edged sword. If a large amount of parking is built there, streets will have to be beefed up to accommodate traffic increases. There’s no obvious place north of Howard Terminal where parking could be built without the demolition of existing structures.

howard_term-10-ferry_landing

Ferry Terminal with Howard Terminal in background

East of Howard Terminal is a stark contrast. Jack London Square dominates and has a great variety of mixed uses. The waterfront building at 10 Clay Street is largely unused and could make a great A’s museum, as slo_town identified in June. Some negotiation would also have to be done with Oakland Fire Department because Station 2, where the Fire Boat is located, sits between HT and JLS.

10 Clay Street

10 Clay Street

Finally, there is the issue of the impact of the ballpark itself. Besides increased traffic and the distance from BART (3/4 mile to the 12th Street/Oakland City Center Station), the visual impact of a ballpark will be up for much debate. If the field is oriented to face downtown (away from the water), there’s a risk of a having a 500-foot-long, 10-12 story tall edifice bumping up against the water. If the field faces the water, the visual impact is much less since the ballpark will be “camouflaged” by the power plant, but the impact of lights on Alameda becomes greater. Either way it’s no slam dunk.

howard_term-14-boat_view

View from departing ferry

Still, when you look at the picture above, it’s easy to see why someone would advocate for Howard Terminal, challenges and all.

08.06.12
by

No stone left unturned

Two articles from Sunday (Chronicle: Matier and Ross, Mercury News: Bruce Newman/Sharon Noguchi) point to a special trip made to the Bay Area last week by Commissioner Bud Selig’s three-person committee. The committee, which has been studying the A’s stadium issue for more than 40 months, met with San Jose officials on Tuesday, followed by Oakland officials on Wednesday.

The M&R report indicates that Oakland’s bid is moving towards a potential deal at Howard Terminal, anchored by a $40 million sale of land there to help kick things off. Present were Clorox CEO Don Knauss and Signature Properties’ Mike Ghielmetti.

The $40 million part has me confused. To whom would Howard Terminal be sold? To the A’s or some ownership group? To other developers like Ghielmetti? For years, the minimal entry for any Oakland site had to be to take care of the land and any infrastructure at the very least. But if that responsibility has to be shouldered by whomever builds a ballpark, the price to build the venue will only get higher. Remember that at Howard Terminal, some amount of reconstruction of the site’s foundation will be required to make it safe and suitable for a ballpark and perhaps other surrounding commercial development. If the ballpark costs $500 million just in construction cost, and the land acquisition and site preparation costs $140 million, the final price tag is $640 million!

It would’ve been interesting to find out how much time Knauss & Co. spent presenting themselves as ballpark backers first before jumping to a different role as would-be owners. Assuming that they pay the full freight on a ballpark and a minimum $500 million for the A’s, they’d have to come up with $1.14 billion for the whole package. That’s a tall sum just to keep the A’s in Oakland, no matter how it’s sliced. A downtown site such as Howard Terminal was expected to be more expensive than the Coliseum because of the added complexity in pulling off the deal, but is that difference (at least $100 million) worth it? It’s hard to pass judgment on Howard Terminal until we know more specifics. Nevertheless, at this point the committee is probably of many of these details, and that will be important for MLB’s continued evaluation.

Last Tuesday’s meeting with San Jose seemed to be a more ho-hum affair, with the exception of the presence of Brad Ruskin, a very prominent lawyer who has at one time represented all of the major pro sports leagues other than Major League Baseball (he has also represented some MLB clubs). One of his specialties is antitrust law, and he is a trial lawyer, so his presence may be to show that he could represent MLB in an antitrust case if push comes to shove. Opposing Ruskin would presumably be Allen Ruby, who the A’s brought on board earlier in the year.

For his part, Lew Wolff continues to be defiant in the face of questions about selling the team. His angle is that, unlike much outdated criticism about his previous efforts to put together a ballpark deal in Oakland and Fremont, his plan is simply to build a ballpark. Ancillary development using surrounding land is becoming more increasingly difficult to pull off, yet that’s the formula being espoused by all of the Oakland bids: Howard Terminal, Coliseum City, and Victory Court. The committee has to be taking all of this into account.

Another factor is State Controller John Chiang’s review of the land transfers between San Jose’s defunct Redevelopment Agency and the son-of-redevelopment San Jose Diridon Development Agency. If the transfers are upheld, Santa Clara County has indicated that it won’t make any further challenges to the land deal so the ballpark could conceivably move forward. If the transfers are ruled improper, the land would go to the the redevelopment successor agency, which would subsequently auction off the land. The land would be sold to the highest bidder, who may be someone other than Wolff. Keep in mind that San Jose would still hold the final trump card as it was would have any final determination over what could be done with the land. As much as AT&T claims that its land is of paramount importance to its service delivery model, they’d have sold the land years ago if it could’ve been rezoned to medium-density residential as was considered a decade ago. In any case, Wolff seemed confident that he’d be able to get the land however Chiang’s office ruled. That ruling is due in the next couple of weeks.

The cynic in me looks at this trip with a simple explanation. Summer owners’ meetings are scheduled for next week, and while there will be more pressing matters on the agenda (Padres sale, national TV deals, Nats-O’s-MASN deal) it’s expected that there will be some sort of update on the A’s-Giants ongoing saga. What better way to look like you’re doing something than to have a couple of meetings right before the owners’ sessions? It seems unlikely that Selig will be able to render a decision or bring up a vote based on whatever new information was gathered based on the trip since it’s so fresh, so it’s just one more opportunity to kick the can down the road – at least until November. In the meantime, whatever’s happening to the A’s on the field can take precedence, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

08.03.12
by

Pick and choose your spots

The problem with having a 10-game homespan, like the one the A’s are on now, is that the casual fan has too many choices of games to attend. A fan might go to tonight’s game for the fireworks, with Dan Straily’s debut thrown in as a bonus. The same fan might go to one of two Wednesday day games to get $2 tickets in the warm sunshine. Or maybe a weekend game’s better because weekdays create scheduling conflicts, or because of the kid-oriented promotions on Saturday and Sunday.

It’s that range of choice that probably accounts somewhat for the somewhat disappointing turnout so far this homestand.

  • Monday: 12,564
  • Tuesday: 15,836
  • Wednesday: 18,161
  • Thursday: 10,823

Tonight’s attendance could surpass 30,000 because of fireworks night. Quantities of 2 or more tickets are tough to find except in some of the less desirable locations of each seating tier. There have been three Fireworks Fridays this season, and as you would expect, the attendance for all three has been much better than average.

  • Game 21 vs. Yankees: 33,559
  • Game 28 vs. Padres: 24,528
  • Game 38 vs. Red Sox (July 3): 35,067

Just from looking at crowds over the years, fireworks can bring out an extra 10,000 fans. It also helps that two of the games were scheduled against the beasts of the east, who can be counted upon to bring thousands of fans along with them. Funny that the A’s and Rays, teams with historically some of the worst turnout over the last decade, are the two teams most dependent on other team’s fans to bolster attendance. The Giants provide three guaranteed sellouts, with easily half the house dressed in orange and black. The Yankees are good for 10-12k per date, whereas the Red Sox are worth 7-8k. Add that up and it’s around 123,000 visiting fan attendees from just those three teams. That translates to 7% of overall home attendance during recent years.. The Giants get periodic invasions of Dodger fans, but those seats would sell regardless of the opponent.

Now Monte Poole’s Thursday column raises the “quandary” of fans who hate ownership so much as to not attend games against their better instinct of showing up to support the resurgent A’s. Everyone who goes or doesn’t go has every right to express their preference. But to eternally prosecute ownership, the front office, anyone involved with the team for every little decision (or non-decision) is seriously becoming tiresome. First it was that Lew Wolff, John Fisher, and Billy Beane have conspired to keep the fans away by intentionally fielding awful teams or by trading away talent. Now that the team has been hot, it’s either that ownership is seething that the wins work against their nefarious plan or the team’s success thoroughly discounts any arguments about the Oakland fanbase, or even more absurdly, the stadium. Look at the first four games of attendance and tell me that it’s working. Beane’s moves are being microexamined as well, with the lack of a deadline trade “proving” that the team is surrendering. Then there was this today, following the Kurt Suzuki trade:

Apparently the detractors are looking for any excuse to pile on. Can’t give credit, oh no. Poole himself can only rise to giving the backhanded compliment “making an effort”.

Right. It doesn’t matter that the team stacks one promotion on top of another to bring in fans. That it has a weekend dedicated to Moneyball and the Streak coming up. That inserting dynamic pricing deals on tickets for the last two homestands have done a bang-up job of bringing in fans (check the field and plaza levels for the on-sale sections for proof). I even got into a debate on Twitter with a fan who drove up to the Coli on Wednesday and was angry that the A’s ran out of $2 tickets – that were sold out days if not weeks in advance. Really? You can’t plan for that?

That points to the biggest problem that the A’s and the A’s fanbase face, and they face it together. Both ownership and the fans have taken the A’s – the team, the brand, the fact that it’s one of thirty MLB franchises – for granted. Even during the Moneyball era (1999-2006), the A’s had all of these same promotions and attendance was about 500k per year (6,000 per game) better. And no, the much larger Coli back then was nowhere close to selling out, except for those games where the visiting team’s fans took up the slack. The A’s can count on the 8-10k of season ticket holders to provide some revenue while at the same time showing Bud Selig that the hardcore fanbase is too small to be sustainable. For those on the fringe like me or casual fans, there’s always a plentiful supply of tickets so that during a six or ten-game homestand, we might be able to go once or twice and feel good about ourselves.

That’s not good enough. While ownership shrugs its shoulders, Oakland partisans and East Bay supporters thump their chests about how they’ll support the team “when it’s good, and ownership respects Oakland, the fanbase, and stadium” – and also keeps ticket prices low. You can’t have all of that and be taken seriously. This is Major League Baseball. It is the upper echelon of this great sport. Constantly, the whiners and whingers seems to be conveniently unaware of that fact. The average payroll is $100 million, a number the A’s would be hard-pressed to support at the current prices unless they hit 3 million fans. That’s how far behind we are compared to the rest of the league. And we, collectively, don’t care. It’s better to get a few shots in at the enemy.

I don’t know how the season’s gonna end. Maybe the A’s will make the postseason, maybe they won’t. Progress will be measured in part by the rise in season ticket sales. If subscriptions don’t grow it’ll tell me two things: that A’s ownership isn’t trying hard enough (hard to believe from the calls I’ve gotten from ticket services), and that the holdouts are hoisting themselves on their own petard. It would prove to me that both sides are fine with the status quo: low, non-major league prices, low season ticket rolls, and “disenfranchised” fans complaining yet again about being alienated. At some point, it comes down to how much you and I value this team as it’s currently formulated, the A’s legacy, and optimism about the future. It also matters how much we care about having a MLB franchise here. If that’s not enough, then well, the petard is waiting in the form of an empty Coliseum and no future ballpark. Though I’m sure there’ll be plenty of recriminations for that too.

08.02.12
by

Request to open gates earlier

A few weeks ago I contacted A’s veep of Stadium Ops David Rinetti to confirm if anything had changed during the season regarding gate opening times during the season. No, he replied, the schedule is the same as it ever was: gates open 2 hours before first pitch on weekends, 90 minutes on weekdays. I followed up asking if a change could be made this year to the weekday schedule as some folks might want to catch Yoenis Cespedes, Chris Carter, and Josh Reddick mash during batting practice.

Rinetti said that with two months left in the season, the franchise doesn’t plan to make any changes. Any change to the gate schedule would be reviewed during the offseason. He also mentioned that when the weekday times were changed to 90 minutes a while back, not many fans entered the Coliseum during that first half hour.

Now, I’d like to see the gates open 2 hours prior to every game, across the board. Yesterday I saw a queue of several hundred at the C and D gates at 11 a.m. I want to see parents bringing their kids to the front row to shag balls. I know that A’s fans will come early to games. Problem is that too many of times the early birds come for bobbleheads or other “high value” collectibles. That’s fine, even as so many of these so-called fans are jumping right back onto the BART bridge minutes after grabbing the item to stick it on eBay. We’ve got an entertaining team with budding stars. If we have the time, we should head out there every so often to check out BP, which for the A’s typically starts 2:05 before the first pitch.

Many of you readers are season ticket holders. If, like me, you would like to see gate opening times change to 2 hours across the board, inquire about it when it comes time to renew, at functions like the STH Appreciation Party, or other events. The players are here. Let’s show the team that we want this.

.

P.S. – Credit goes to the Chronicle’s John Shea (via Susan Slusser), who suggested this idea early in the season.

07.31.12
by

The future is temporary

Spurred by LoneStranger’s thought experiment on AN which carried over to here in expanded form, I had an email back-and-forth with him about what’s possible post-2013. I suggested a concept that he add to the post, and when I realized how long it would take to flesh out and how much longer it would make his post, I decided it deserved its own treatment. So here goes nothing.

First off, I have to say that I have no idea what will happen in the next 18 months. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was at the game last night and hung out in the right field bleachers for the duration, which was quite impressive. Lew Wolff will be on the broadcast in the third inning this evening to talk – something, probably about the team for the most part. For the A’s to stay at the Coliseum after the 2013 season, those two have to start negotiations on some kind of lease extension. I’ve heard out of Oakland that the City is going to play hardball and try to get the A’s to commit long term. Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan and others have been comfortable in claiming that the A’s have nowhere to go. I’ve also heard that discussions between the City and Raiders have been accelerating, perhaps to the point of getting something announced prior to the Raiders’ lease ends (also in 2013). Any future at the Coliseum for either team depends largely on what happens with the still nascent Coliseum City project, and we probably won’t know anything about that until the end of the year at the earliest.

The old Coliseum will have to be demolished to make way for a hotel or perhaps parts of two new stadia.

Knowing that new stadia for the Raiders and A’s can’t possibly be ready before 2016, the most practical solution would be to figure out a way for them to co-exist for another three years. Oakland and Alameda County want to use that extension as leverage against either team, but that’s not a great play. The Raiders could easily become roommates at the 49ers stadium for at least three years, leaving the Coliseum in the lurch. If the Coliseum JPA chooses to shut out the A’s, the decision will provide more than enough justification for MLB to hasten a move to San Jose – even while MLB is keeping Oakland in the game by not deciding anything yet.

Now, if circumstances conspire to have the A’s leave 2013 due to construction of a new football stadium or other reasons, the A’s will have to play somewhere. There’s no stadium in San Jose as Municipal Stadium is too small and unacceptable amenities-wise. They may be able to play at AT&T Park for a while, though as we’ve seen this week scheduling the two teams to not overlap schedules can be tricky.

Barnstorming for a series here or there can work from a marketing standpoint. The players union, on the other hand, will probably have considerable objections to a barnstorming team, especially one that has to do it for three or four years. The union and its members would prefer permanence. It’s not the minors, it’s the majors, and the players deserve major league treatment. While there’s been no poll on this, I imagine that free agents could look at the situation and declare it a organizational demerit, just as the Coliseum now isn’t exactly a selling point.

Then there’s the matter of cultivating the fanbase. If the team is going to stay in Oakland or move to San Jose, every effort has to be made to cultivate that fanbase. Having a traveling team hampers that effort significantly, so I would expect that the A’s and their civic partners would do everything possible to make a temporary home seem as permanent as possible. The transitional three years are very delicate. With the San Jose Earthquakes, we’ve seen what happens when the organization delays building a new stadium – the fanbase gets restless. The stakes are much higher with MLB, and Bud Selig isn’t going to approve a temporary solution that doesn’t at least attempt to maximize revenue.

Knowing all of these factors, I suspect that the A’s would play those transitional years in a temporary stadium. It may not hold more than 20,000 seats. It would be built in the vein of numerous temporary facilities such as the soccer stadia at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa or some of the venues at the London Summer Games.

London’s Olympic Stadium holds 80,000 for the games, but was designed to be deconstructed to a 25,000-seat permanent capacity by virtue of a large, removable upper deck. Some of the materials used are either recycled or are recyclable. Many concession stands are not permanently installed, which reduces costs and simplifies the dismantling process.

London Olympic Stadium is designed to be scaled down and repurposed. Note the very large upper deck. Image from London 2012

The Basketball Arena, which has been affectionately nicknamed “The Mattress”, is an entirely temporary structure. At 12,000 seats, it can be considered the bigger cousin of the 3,200-seat tent arena the Warriors are building in Santa Cruz. After the Olympics and Paralympics, the arena will be removed, though there doesn’t seem to be a fully coherent re-use plan in place.

Temporary basketball arena. Image from London 2012.

I think the A’s could easily build a 20,000-seat temporary stadium at either HomeBase lot next to the Coliseum or on the Hunter Storm part of the Airport West development near Earthquakes Stadium site in San Jose. Either site would work because it would be available for cheap or free and there would be no worries about competing development, at least in the near term. Infrastructure already in place for the nearby stadia could be leveraged (concessions, facilities) with potential additions easy to scale back or value engineer. In both cases, already approved EIRs or uses would already be in place, with supplemental studies possible but easier to anticipate and manage than completely new studies. And if the A’s plan properly, they could re-use parts of the old stadium in the new one, though that has proven trickier to execute than conceived. Once the temporary facilities have completed their work, they could be dismantled and re-used, donated, or recycled, leaving behind a perfectly ready-to-build site.

Airport West site. Temporary ballpark could conceivably be built on orange land if a lease agreement were worked out.

Cost would be the huge mover. The Quakes have spent the last few years ratcheting down the cost of their new stadium, only to introduce new features when demand arose. That, and the construction methods they’ll be using, could be very useful if they wanted to deploy a temporary stadium anywhere. How much of the stadium would be seats, as opposed to bleachers? What kinds of premium facilities would be built, and where would they be located? How fancy would the clubhouses be? These are all valid and hard-to-answer questions, and there’s no doubt that MLB would have a lot of input into how any temporary stadium would be situated and conceived. Chances are that the project would cost at least $30 million, and could escalate quickly. Would it be worth it? That’s for A’s ownership to figure out.

07.30.12
by

Tonight’s ticket

Over the weekend I bought an $11 Field Level ticket via Tickets.com. A new delivery option this year is the FanPass, which allows fans to either use the electronic kiosks for will call or scan their credit cards at the gate. I showed my credit card after passing through security and a few seconds later I was given this:

20120730-191524.jpg
Simple, convenient, easy. Good job, ticket services.

07.30.12
by

Back-to-back double-dips

Thanks to a bit of serendipitous scheduling from the baseball gods, we in the Bay Area have the opportunity to see the Giants and A’s play day-night, cross-bay doubleheaders – not once, but twice – this week. I’ve raved about these experiences before and I won’t stop now. If you’re a baseball fan and you have a some time to get away from the office to take in a doubleheader, you should do it. Put it on your bucket list. It’s worth it.

The happy scheduling quirk comes from the fact that the A’s and Giants have overlapping 10-day homestands. Normally the overlap is three games. In this case it’s four, which leads to the back-to-back double-dips. The Giants have a four-game series with the Mets starting tonight before going on the road, whereas the A’s have a three-game set with the Rays followed by a four-game set with the Blue Jays. No off days to mess with this schedule, which is a rarity in itself.

The schedule:

  • Wednesday, August 1: Rays @ A’s, 12:35 p.m.; Mets @ Giants, 7:15 p.m.
  • Thursday, August 2: Mets @ Giants, 12:45 p.m.; Blue Jays @ A’s, 7:05 p.m.

The slightly tighter scheduling of the Thursday doubleheader may prove more hospitable for some, while Wednesday may be better in the sense that the Coliseum is a vastly better as a day venue than for night games. I’m definitely going to Wednesday’s set, not so sure about Thursday. Thanks to the magic of dynamic pricing, no seat for the Wednesday night Giants game can be had for less than $40 at tickets.com, although at least SRO is available.

See you at the yard(s).

07.29.12
by

A Wandering Life

My thanks to Marine Layer for lending me his space to expand on my post over at Athletics Nation. I didn’t expect it to get this long, but as I dove into the subject, I found it more fascinating. I hope you find something interesting as well.

“There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.” –Homer

The A’s lease at the Coliseum runs out after the 2013 season. If they are unable to come to an agreement with the Coliseum Authority on an extension, or for some other reason are unable to play their home games at the Coliseum, what would they do? Where would they play?

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that as a result of not having a home after 2013, the A’s and any municipality you desire have come to an agreement to move forward with construction of a new baseball-only stadium. It doesn’t matter where it is, only that it will not be completed until Opening Day 2016. This leaves 2014 and 2015 up in the air.

To help guide us in the right direction, there are a few goals we’d like to meet. We don’t have to hit all of them exactly, but how close we come to meeting or exceeding them determines the level of promise of the plan.

  • MLB would like to keep the A’s nearby or in the Bay Area, to keep the local fan base participating.
  • One million in attendance is deemed sufficient for the seasons spent wandering, but one and a half million is better.
  • There are eighty-one home dates to be determined.
  • Temporary construction only, unless it is reasonable to expect permanent additions to be accepted by the landlord.

I expect that a solution will involve concessions from a few parties. Other teams will be asked to help the A’s in this predicament, and by extension, MLB. They would probably receive some sort of compensation, but would agree because it helps the entire league.

Before we can start looking, let’s define a required capacity range. Oakland Coliseum holds 35,067 at capacity. This year’s average is 21k a game so far, and the past few years have been around 17-20k. To get one million fans through the gates in 81 games, you need about 12k per game. (Actually, 12,345 per game. 1-2-3-4-5? That’s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!) For one and a half million, you need about 18.5K per game. I think if the A’s could pull in 18.5k per game in this situation, they’d be ecstatic. The best target stadium should have something around 20k seats, to take advantage of the larger draw for the big games and help pull up the total attendance and balance out the lower attendance games. Even though 20k is our target, we’ll still look at stadiums that can hold or be made to hold at least 12k, in the case that the A’s are ‘at home’ abroad.

We should eliminate some of the low hanging fruit. The largest of the college ball fields in the Bay Area, Stanford’s Klein Field at Sunken Diamond, can only hold 4k people.The rest of the collegiate baseball parks in the Bay Area are no larger than 2k. Looking at the aerials for Klein Field, I estimate about 3k in stadium seats with the rest being standing room or lawn seating. I just don’t see any way to add enough seats in temporary seating, so scratch that. The other big park, Cal Berkley’s Evans Diamond only holds 2500.

Minor league ballparks are usually one of the first places people mention as a temporary home. The only minor league ballpark in the Bay Area is San Jose Municipal, where the Single-A San Jose Giants and the San Jose State Spartans play. It holds 4.2k and could add temporary seating in the outfield at the cost of some parking, the scoreboard and lighting fixtures. There is probably enough room for about 4k bleachers. I estimate that there is enough parking, if you consider the parking lot on-site, the track across the street that is usually used for parking and the parking at Spartan Stadium a block over. Traffic might not be too much of a nightmare, since 880, 101 and 87 are all nearby, and in different directions. The room is there, but the work required to add the temporary seating wouldn’t be worth it unless the team was playing there for a majority of their home games. One advantage they might have is that the stadium is owned by the City of San Jose, and I expect they would enjoy hosting the A’s, maybe even bend over backward to make it happen. The problem is that you are still in the Bay Area with the potential to draw way more than 8k fans a game. This wouldn’t be a choice high on the list.

Outside of the Bay Area, we have another Single-A stadium, Banner Island Ballpark in Stockton, home of the A’s Single-A affiliate Ports. It can hold 5.3k fans. I don’t think it could add more than 1k temporary seating on the grass, which still leaves us short. John Thurman Field in Modesto, home of the Single-A Modesto Nuts, holds 4k. Even if they could add at least 4k more seats, I don’t see how the parking problem is solved in that neighborhood. None of these local 8k possibilities are adequate for anything other than a series or two against teams with a low draw, and likely only if there was absolutely no other place to play.

Probably the most  mentioned ballpark to host the A’s is Raley Field in West Sacramento, where the A’s Triple-A affiliate River Cats play. (Usually talk revolves around adding a second deck, but that’s impossible without a rebuild, and even if it were possible to just add on, it is out of bounds of our thought experiment.) It can currently hold 14k fans. That fact alone makes it start to look much better than any of the others we’ve looked at. Sacramento is a location that already has a decent A’s following, due to the relationship they have with the River Cats team (and the fact that many of the players wear both uniforms over the span of the season). It’s close enough that it allows existing fans in the Bay Area to go see games, even if it’s not the most convenient. As far as raising the number of seats, we have to actually take a step back. The capacity is 11k if you count only the fixed seats. The rest was lawn and standing room. Temporary seating is only possible in those lawn areas, and based on the size, you couldn’t add much more than you are taking away. We could probably conclude it’s not worth the effort, and the original capacity stands. While not a solution for every home game, Raley Field would likely be good for a couple weekday series or homestands scattered throughout the year.

From here we move to stadiums that are not as easily reached by the home fanbase, but are still within the A’s broadcast territory: Cashman Field in Las Vegas, Aces Ballpark in Reno, and Chukchansi Park in Fresno.

Cashman Field, home of the Triple-A Las Vegas 51’s, was previously a temporary home of the A’s in 1996 while the Coliseum was having the Raiders modifications done. It can hold 12.5k people if you include the berms and standing room, 9k counting just fixed. The outfield looks like it could manage some temporary seating, maybe 2k, bringing up the capacity to nearly 15k. We could consider that fans of both teams will fly out to piggy back baseball with their usual Vegas trip. The effect on parking could be mitigated with shuttles stops along the strip. While an argument against a permanent MLB club in Las Vegas is that there is not enough existing population, nor enough tourists to keep a club in business, I think the novelty could sustain it for a couple years as a second or third home.

Aces Ballpark, where the Reno Aces play, holds 9k fans, which includes 2.6k general admission. It sits along the Truckee river in downtown Reno. There is lawn in the outfield, but like Raley Field, probably isn’t worth converting into temporary fixed seating.

Downtown Fresno has Chukchansi Park, where the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate Grizzlies play. It can hold 12.5k at capacity, with about 2.5k additional standing room. There is room in the outfield for a few hundred temporary seats, but what I find interesting is the concourse along the third base outfield line. It’s flat, unlike the outfields of the previous stadiums we’ve looked at, which should make for easier installation and removal of seating. However, it’s still probably only an additional 1k seats, and would kill some of that standing room. I would probably rate Chukchansi as right below Raley Field if we’re looking for a baseball stadium to host a couple series.

I wanted to quickly mention another possibility, and that is the Spring Training facilities in Arizona. Phoenix Municipal, where the A’s currently play their March games, only holds 9k. The rest of the Spring Training field capacities range up to Camelback Ranch‘s 13k. The question is whether there is enough of a local following for the A’s and their opponents to cancel out the concern the Diamondbacks would have for the territorial invasion. I would guess there is probably not enough of a following to keep up attendance for more than a series or two. Still, it’s something to keep in mind should there be a real problem booking time in other locations.

None of these solutions are getting us close to the 20k target fan capacity.

Another problem with picking a baseball stadium is that it is already being used by a team to play games. Two different leagues with their own separate schedule patterns might be a difficult thing to manage for anything longer than a couple series. So what about rooming with another team in the same baseball league? That’s right, our neighbor across the Bay. That’s OK. I’ll wait. No, I don’t have a bucket. Ready? Oh, you still have a little spittle there… no right there. You got it.

AT&T Park is a perfectly acceptable park to host major league baseball, because that’s the reason it was built. Some would say it’s more than acceptable, but we won’t get into those details. For our purposes we’ll just consider it sufficient. It’s in the Bay Area so the existing fanbase has easy access. It can hold nearly 42k, not counting standing room. The main problem is that the Giants have their own game schedule, but a quick investigation shows it might not be much of a problem. On only a handful of dates each year are the two teams playing at home at the same time. The other problem is that there are only two locker rooms: one home, one away. Some kind of temporary locker room could be created, either within the bowels of the stadium by reallocating an existing room or by some portable structure on the outside. Another option is the magic of the equipment managers swapping everything when the homestands change. Is there another problem? Oh yea, the Giants might not be particularly impressed with this idea.

So what do we do? Let’s look at football stadiums.

The first one we should consider is Candlestick because it was built as a baseball stadium which later had football modifications. It’s last listed capacity for baseball is 58k. Since the Giants moved out, the retractable seating in right field stays in the football configuration all the time. I don’t know the last time they moved them back. It could be ten years or more. Does the mechanism still work? If the seating can be moved back into baseball configuration, then Candlestick could work really well. It won’t be as pretty or as fully featured in the off-the-field aspect, but it wouldn’t have any scheduling conflicts with another baseball team. The 49ers might complain a little, but I’m sure they could get some compensation for their troubles. The Giants may not like the idea either, as it would mean another MLB team is playing deep within their territory.

LA Memorial Coliseum during game four of the 1959 World Series.

Baseball in genuine football stadiums has been going on for a long time. (There is a joke here that the A’s have been playing in a football stadium for at least 16 years, right?) When the Dodgers came out west in 1958, they played four seasons in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum while Dodger Stadium was under construction. The left field wall was a mere 251ft away! Commissioner Ford C. Frick ordered a wire screen be installed to stop simple pop flies from becoming home runs. The Dodgers put in a screen that went 42ft high. (For a comparison, Fenway Park’s Green Monster in left is 310ft away, and just over 37ft tall.) Frick wanted a second screen installed in the stands to again reduce the number of home runs. Balls that fell short of the second screen would be ground-rule doubles. However, California earthquake laws wouldn’t allow the second screen to be built. Not wanting to deal with this again elsewhere, the leagues passed a rule that new ballparks must be at least 325ft down the lines.

So could we consider Stanford Stadium (50k) and California Memorial Stadium (63k), or most any other football stadium in the Bay Area with enough seating? I did a little Photoshop investigation and discovered that there would be even less distance along the left field line than there was at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. All three would be just about 210ft if you pushed the first base line almost up to the wall, which is not even legal for an MLB park as they want 60ft or more from home to dugout. Even if it were, it would would still need one really tall screen. Only 160ft width is required for a football field and stadiums like to bring the fan close to the action so there isn’t much leeway on the sides in those stadiums. We’d have to find one with a multi-use field footprint or at least one with a wider, rounded interior. Or is there something else that is wider, you say? How about a soccer stadium?

Comparing the left field line distances and fence heights.

FIFA recommends pitch dimensions of 105m by 68m, or translated into feet, about 344ft long and 223ft wide. (PDF, see chapter 4) They allow other sizes, but World Cup matches require the recommended size. They also prefer about 28ft on either side, putting the total width available at 279ft  If we can find a stadium that fits this bill, we may be able to squeeze a baseball field onto it.

Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara was actually a baseball field up until 2005, when conversion began to turn it into a soccer-only stadium. It holds about 10.5k fans, so like many of the minor league baseball parks it’s on the small side, and parking could be horrible. You can see in my overlay (and in the others), the diamond would have to be up against the wall to get 273ft, so the line in reality would be shorter. It wouldn’t be good for more than a small series or two. If only there was another soccer stadium with more fixed seating and better facilities…

Planned for construction a few blocks away near San Jose International Airport, New Earthquakes Stadium will hold 18k people and replace Buck Shaw as the home of the San Jose Earthquakes. I wasn’t able to find a confirmation on the pitch size, but it is reasonable to expect it to comply with what FIFA recommends. We know the relationship that the A’s and Earthquakes have with common ownership, but the best part? It’s scheduled to be open in 2014, should all go as planned, and that means the A’s could move directly from the Coliseum and use it as their main home for the next two years. It would fall 46ft short of MLB’s minimum distance, so would they waive the 325ft requirement in this situation? Would a screen about 40 feet high and 50+ years of advanced screen hanging technology help? And would Earthquake fans be displeased with this turn of events after waiting so long for their own place? Would the NIMBYs allow it? Lots of questions, but it is near 880, 101 and 87, with plenty of parking.

Rendering of the new Earthquakes stadium.

Since it’s in the Bay Area, we can expect that baseball games there could easily draw more than 18k. Is there a way we can get the capacity up? The most obvious location is on the open end. The grass planned there could instead be built with fixed seating and the scoreboard repositioned higher or pushed further back. It might be possible to up the capacity by 2k, and even add some temporary suites for additional revenue. With the overhang built over the stands it should be easy to suspend the required screen at any height MLB wanted. Making design changes to a facility that has yet to be built is much easier than shoehorning in temporary seating to an existing park, but there are still limitations to what can be modified and you don’t want to make them too permanent, as I’m sure they would want to revert back to the original design.

(Just for fun, sit back, close your eyes, and imagine the show Cespedes and Carter would put on, knocking balls onto the roof beyond left field. I wouldn’t park over there.)

One caveat about playing in San Jose relates to the Expos. They were the last team to play home games outside of their regular park when they were auditioning San Juan for a potential permanent move. In 2003 and 2004 they played 22 game at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It has a capacity of 18k and they only averaged 14k per game. While that is still 2k more than they were averaging in Montreal, it proved to MLB that the demand just wasn’t there on the island and killed any chance they had of earning the team. I think the chance of San Jose attendance faltering like this low, however it’s still something to be concerned with, and really could be an issue anywhere they play in the Bay Area. MLB is going to want to see sellouts often with such a low target capacity considering permanent major league stadiums hold at least 37k.

I think by this point we’ve run the gamut of stadia. It’s easy to dismiss most of them as not practical. While it would be fun to imagine a road trip where the A’s play in some interesting parks out of the Bay Area, there just isn’t enough seating to declare them more than “in case of emergency, break glass” locations. The larger stadiums have the most promise as long term temporary homes, and the most potential for revenue. I’m not sure how accepting the Giants would be of sharing their park or even allowing the A’s to play at Candlestick or the South Bay options, since they are technically in their territory. If, however, the territorial rights problem had been resolved in the A’s favor and they were granted San Jose, I could see MLB making cohabitation of AT&T part of the compensation package. Not only would the Giants receive some number of dollars, they would also have up to 78 extra events to sell where they could split the gates with the A’s but take all the concession revenue for themselves. If they really don’t like the idea, MLB could attempt to force them to be OK with Candlestick or the new Earthquakes stadium. None of these solutions would have to be one location only. Raley Field, Cashman or Chukchansi could handle a series or two if there were scheduling conflicts, and become a neat special event.

I’m not sure which idea I like the best for the A’s main temporary home out of AT&T Park, Candlestick Park or New Earthquakes Stadium. AT&T would draw a great crowd and is easy to get to, but the other two would put less money in the Giants pockets. Candlestick would be cold and harder to travel to, though easy to schedule. New Earthquakes Stadium could be an awesome way to jumpstart the SJ fanbase.

What do you think?

07.29.12
by

Hmmm…

I was digging around on the internets earlier tonight when I stumbled upon this:

Image titled “Pre Mount Davis Coliseum” from flickr user Photoscream

Take a long, hard look at the photo (click to enlarge). Then tell me what you think.

Update 9:50 AM – Okay, ready? The title “Pre Mount Davis Oakland Coliseum” is extremely misleading. There’s no date listed on the picture, but based on other pictures I have seen and archives, the pic goes back to the 1969-71 era. Here’s why.

1. The greater number of aisles on the lower half of the field level. Those were filled in around 1972.
2. The all-green-seats look was the original look to the Coliseum. The orange seats, as we remember them, were phased in over an almost decade-long period in the 80’s as the green seats deteriorated.
3. The exterior “hill” surrounding the Coli has no stairs! None next to the gate tunnels or anywhere else for that matter. There’s only a ramp and “trails” leading down from the plaza concourse, the latter of which may have been tough to negotiate if one were drunk following a game.
4. No DiamondVision!
5. Trees are very young.
6. The outfield fence is pulled in somewhat. The initial dimensions, according to Andrew Clem, were 330-378-410-378-330, not the 330-375-400-375-330 that we all knew so well. The former dimensions lasted only the ’68 season.
7. The few cars in the players’ lot in the upper left hand corner are pretty old.
8. The loge area had not yet been converted to suites.
9. The paths from the on-deck circle to the plate didn’t last long.
10. The dugout roofs are painted green and are otherwise unadorned.

In a few years, the Coliseum will be 50 years old. It’s lived a very full life – several lives, even. This version was the one that lured Charlie Finley, and you can see why he came. It was a pretty good spot back then – fresh, green, almost pastoral. The “Mausoleum” reputation it got wasn’t solely because of the stadium. It was because hardly anyone showed up.

If you want to see good closeup pictures of the Coli in its late 80’s glory, check out this flickr set by Jerry Reuss. That Jerry Reuss? Yes, that Jerry Reuss. Who knew the guy was such a stadium buff?

07.26.12
by

Slanted Orange and Black

During last night’s game I made an observation on Twitter that initiated a robust debate.

That begat the following responses from BANG’s Tim Kawakami:

and…

and a bewildered response from the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:

Clearly, I wasn’t referring to Slusser, who has been the best in the business for years, and her beat colleagues Joe Stiglich and Jane Lee. I was referring to columnists like Kawakami, or the Scott Ostler column from yesterday. To his credit, Kawakami’s interview with Billy Beane was very illuminating and should answer a lot of questions about the organization’s postseason intentions. That said, such columns are few and far between. What’s more common is the standard tripe proffered by Lowell Cohn or Ostler, who may have confused the column space for a long tweet.

I’ve been following the A’s for more than 30 years, well before the popularity of Sports Talk Radio and the Internet. I was aware as a kid of the coverage inequity between the two teams. It was something I simply accepted as part of the sports media landscape. Fortunately for A’s fans, the expansion of information sources and real-time availability has not only lessened the impact of the gruff, eternally cynical, cigar-chomping (or free-food chomping) columnist, it has made that character a dinosaur. The A’s get better coverage now thanks to the tireless work of the local beats and the added perspective of national writers who, frankly, love Billy Beane (which helps). I’m perfectly fine with that. I no longer worry much about the lazy, often provocative style of the local sports columnist. Well, enough to get it off my chest for two posts, but anyway…

FWIW – Kawakami’s best work was when he was covering the Lakers for the LA Times.

P.S. – If you want to see a lazy, provocative media type get thoroughly destroyed, check out former Merc columnist Skip Bayless shrink in the face of Mavs owner Mark Cuban’s withering commentary.