Category Archives: Giants

08.20.14
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Selig’s Lamentations and the Law of Unintended Consequences

To hear outgoing MLB Commissioner Bud Selig explain it, he was stuck in the middle. Powerless. The issue was forever “complicated.” He wished he could’ve resolved it. So when he rolled through Oakland on his farewell tour, there was no staged ceremony near home plate, no televised gift of a rocking chair made of bats. The only real exchange was a series of questions from local media, asking him if he could’ve done more get the A’s to a new ballpark. All he could say was that a ballpark was needed. Acknowledging that the so-called Blue Ribbon Commission/Panel/Tribunal was effectively shut down, the only thing missing was a hook to pull him off the podium.

Anyone’s thoughts on how the A’s (and Giants) should be treated are largely colored by three views:

  1. Oakland’s standing as a major league host city
  2. How much power the Commissioner has over teams and whether he should wield that power
  3. The sanctity of territorial rights and baseball’s antitrust exemption

There was never a question of whether the Coliseum is decrepit enough to be replaced; of course it is. There’s also little question of whether San Jose is large enough or wealthy enough to host a team if not encumbered by territorial rights; of course it is. The three items listed above, however, are up for serious debate. And despite the A’s 11th-hour lease extension last year and the hurried extension talks this year (done to give Selig something to hang his hat on as much as anything else), those questions will continue to dominate the discussion moving forward. All we get for the next few years as A’s fans get is a brief respite. Frankly, that’s rather welcome at this point.

Selig touted the 22 parks built during his tenure as head cheese. Virtually all of those parks have a single thread in common that Oakland can’t give at this point: public funding. The notable exception is San Francisco, where the Giants were somewhat ostracized for daring to privately finance their yard. The Lodge thought that baseball was on a slippery slope to No-Subsidies-Ville, with noted baseball town St. Louis playing hardball with its beloved Cardinals enough that the team financed $290 million for Busch on their own. They didn’t need to worry, as the extortion game succeeded in Miami and Minneapolis, even through the recession.

Oakland doesn’t have cash to offer. Despite their repeated shows of incompetence, Oakland’s pols are not crazy enough to offer cash straight up (I think). But they’re showing signs of being willing to offer up a big swath of Coliseum land, which in the long run is nearly as good as cash. If the City/County hadn’t gotten so legally entangled with the Raiders, Oakland would’ve been in the position to offer a Coliseum City-like deal to the A’s. Selig would’ve acknowledged the skin that Oakland was willing to wager, and I’d be watching the game in a new ballpark right now instead of an old one. That’s not to say it would’ve been a good deal for Oakland. It would still be a big-time subsidy. But it wouldn’t have been as disastrous as Mount Davis, that’s for sure.

Selig took the acting commissioner job in September 1992, as Bob Lurie was finalizing a deal to sell the Giants to the Vincents (Naimoli and Piazza). Still carrying the scar from losing the Braves to Atlanta, he purportedly held off the deal long enough (enduring a lawsuit in the process) to allow San Francisco interests to pull an ownership group together. After failing to save the 1994 season, he worked hard to avoid further work stoppages, though he sacrificed the Montreal Expos to do it. After he screwed over the original TB Giants owners, he settled with another group to get them an expansion team in 1998, helping to infuse baseball with cash after the Lodge took it on the chin with the owners’ collusion lawsuit. In the process, he bound the Rays to practically unbreakable lease at a domed stadium. Plus he forgot that San Jose and Santa Clara County, which were gifted to the old Giants ownership when they pursued a ballpark in the South Bay, remained granted territories to the Giants after the new SF-only ownership group took over. All of that happened while he was acting commissioner.

As the elected, properly sworn-in permanent commissioner, Selig orchestrated the Expos contraction-then-expansion ownership swap among three teams that netted baseball a handsome expansion fee and brought baseball back to DC. To satiate O’s owner Peter Angelos, he and his executive team cobbled together a deal that made the O’s majority owner of a new regional sports network, MASN, which owned broadcast rights to the Nationals. Apparently Selig didn’t see the TV rights bubble coming or the conflict such an arrangement might create. The Nats, whose initial term on MASN is now up, want in on that bubble while the O’s are unwilling to pay market rates. Naturally, the teams are in court. Selig, who gave Angelos MASN to get him to stop a lawsuit against MLB, now sees two teams stuck in trench warfare, arguing over hundreds of millions of dollars. To mollify the Nats, Selig is giving the team money from his eight-figures-per-year iscretionary fund. These days $25 million or so is small potatoes compared to the riches Ted Lerner sees going forward, so the struggle continues.

It’s with that perspective that Selig has found himself stuck trying to satisfy both the A’s and the Giants. There’s Selig the legacy-protector, who would prefer to keep the team in Oakland if they could just pull out their checkbook. There’s Selig the Lodge-unity-protector, afraid to take the territorial rights issue head on for fear of reprisal from one faction of owners or owner. Then there’s Selig the procrastinator, whose blind eye towards many baseball issues (PEDs, inner city youth development, growing economic disparity among teams) made this particular outcome entirely predictable. Some want to give Selig credit for MLB Advanced Media or growing TV revenues, when really he just stood aside and let his underlings innovate for him. I mean, really, Selig and MLBAM? The guy doesn’t even have email.

Complete conjecture on my part: I suspect there was a plan at some point in which the Nats-O’s TV issue was resolved permanently and the under-the-table payments could be rerouted to either the A’s or Giants as part of another temporary deal. If the A’s were granted San Jose, the Giants would be given a “refund” of their revenue sharing payment. If the Giants kept the territory, the A’s would get the piece of the discretionary fund as financial ballast as they built in Oakland (remember, per the CBA revenue sharing goes away if the A’s build anew in the Bay Area). Over time such payments would taper off as the teams adjusted. With such funds indefinitely in use for another conflict, there was no solution to be had. Another consequence of the Nats-O’s dispute is that any thought of creating a new Bay Area RSN with the Giants in control in a similar arrangement to the O’s now has to be considered verboten.

So yes, Selig is right to an extent. The problem is complicated. Still, all it would’ve taken is better foresight to manage this and all of the other problems. They are merely ways of moving money around a table, out of one pocket and into another. Some have argued for MLB to establish a stadium loan program like the NFL’s G-3/G-4. That’s not happening soon because the NFL’s TV dollars used to establish G-4 dwarf baseball’s national TV revenue $6 billion to $1.5 billion. The big market owners see the new TV contracts, in which each team receives $50 million per year, as enough in terms of support when coupled with revenue sharing and the luxury tax. That’s enough to give the sense of competitive balance that Selig likes to tout. Then again, we all know that’s an illusion.

Competitive balance means allowing the poor teams to play as if they don’t see the glass ceiling. That’s your Oakland Athletics, now and into the foreseeable future.

08.14.14
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Rob Manfred elected next MLB commissioner by owners

After a full day of deliberation and several trays of cookies, MLB’s owners finally approved MLB executive Rob Manfred as baseball’s next commissioner (NY Times/USA Today/LA Times/MLB/ESPN Sweetspot. Throughout the day, there were frequent reports that the vote was deadlocked at 22-8 or 21-9, 1 or 2 votes shy of the three-quarters of owners needed to approve Manfred. A late afternoon break preceded the final vote, which in true Bud Selig fashion, was tabulated at 30-0. Perhaps the so-called Reinsdorf block saw the writing on the wall and gave in knowing Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner didn’t have a chance, or they knew that Manfred, who has worked in the league offices for 15 years, was the more qualified candidate. Either way, in February Manfred stands to inherit a full plate of for now unresolved issues from Selig, who is now officially a lame duck.

Who was the swing vote that got Selig’s man, Manfred, over the top? It appears to have been Brewers owner Mark Attanasio,

Among the issues that need resolution sometime in the future:

  • Nats-O’s (MASN) television rights negotiations/lawsuit
  • The future of the Tampa Bay Rays
  • Negotiating terms of an Oakland ballpark, if it can come to fruition
  • The next collective bargaining agreement (current one expires after 2016 season)
  • Blackout rules for local broadcasts

Jerry Reinsdorf wanted to go hardline against the players’ union, despite MLB having one of the most favorable, cost-controlled deals in sports. He considered Selig to be too conciliatory in his dealings with the union. It’s hard to say how much more Reinsdorf would’ve gained in the next labor talks, though the obvious goal would’ve been a salary cap of some sort. Reinsdorf was considered the power behind Selig’s throne, the senior whip who got the votes Selig needed. Here’s to hoping that sanity, not greed, wins out in the next labor talks.

During Selig’s tenure, he sought to consolidate power, getting rid of the league president roles and the deputy commissioner, opting instead for a more vertical org chart with subordinates’ autonomy reduced. One of the rumored challenges for the owners in the upcoming CBA/Constitution talks is how to curtail the powers of the commissioner’s office, which now includes disbursements of a discretionary fund that runs into eight figures (see Nats-O’s).

Going in, it was thought that the Larry Baer and the Giants supported Manfred, while Lew Wolff and the A’s supported Werner. Early voting seemed to bear this out. They even had some discussions early in the day.

The official approval of Manfred would appear to confirm the status quo going forward: Giants not budging on T-rights, A’s forced to make a deal in Oakland. The recently approved Coliseum lease extension further keeps the A’s in Oakland at least for the next several years. After that, well, who knows? MLB has seen enough of the stadium saga to know that neither city is a slam dunk, so contingency plans are needed. And it was Manfred who affirmed the threat to move “out of Oakland” last month, supposedly going so far as to mention San Jose in the same breath. So if anyone’s thinking that any city has an ally in the MLB commissioner moving forward, they shouldn’t. Manfred’s on baseball’s side, not yours.

08.11.14
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What happened to the Stand for San Jose case?

I really should check into these court cases more than once every couple weeks.

While many eyes will be focused on the City of San Jose’s Ninth Circuit appeal against Major League Baseball this Tuesday, another case appears to have been resolved. That would be “citizen group” Stand for San Jose’s lawsuit against the City in Santa Clara County Superior Court. A hearing was scheduled for the end of this week, August 15. However, that was wiped away as the court vacated the hearing. In fact, the court now has the case status as disposed as of July 24. In other words, the case is resolved, over, done. Big hat-tip to Wendy Thurm, who alerted me to this on Friday.

The only recent action leading up to that point was notice that the Oversight Board of SARA (Successor Agency of the Redevelopment Agency) would file its own motion to dismiss by July 25. The idea was that since the Oversight Board was given the power to dispose of the Diridon ballpark parcels however it saw fit as long as it took care of financial obligations to the state. That was to lead for a motion for pleadings on August 15. Then suddenly, the dismissal on July 24. It’s important to note that it’s a dismissal without prejudice, so it could come back at some point. Regardless, it’s a surprising move for all concerned. I’ve asked around to understand what happened, and haven’t gotten any answers yet.

Besides the legal maneuvering, one other thing has happened this summer that might have brought all parties to the table. That would be the A’s and the Coliseum JPA approving an extension at the Coliseum through at least 2018 (up to 2024). Obviously that’s speculation, and the filings may reveal something else, which is why I’m heading to Superior Court tomorrow afternoon. Be forewarned: I don’t expect to get much out of my inquiry. When cases are resolved in a non-public manner as this was, the parties can sometimes choose to reveal little about the motivations to do so.

Then again, there’s this update which came in on Friday:

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Some day all this legal stuff will end and there will be a ballpark under construction. Maybe.

07.10.14
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Female A’s fan knocked unconscious trying to break up fight after A’s-Giants game (Update: 1 suspect arrested)

Update 7/11 2:30 PM – The female victim, an Oakland resident, has been released from the hospital. The male victim had chipped teeth. 

Update 7/11 9:30 AM – SFPD is holding a news conference. KTVU is carrying it live. The suspect is 31-year old Francisco Lopez of Sacramento. He was arrested for aggravated assault and conspiracy. The second suspect remains at large. The truck they got away in is registered to the Sacramento area. The incident is described as random and had nothing to do with one team’s fans fighting another’s.

Thankfully, the victim is reportedly responding well to treatment this morning. 

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Update 7/11 9:00 AM – KPIX is reporting that a suspect has been arrested in Sacramento:

A suspect was arrested Thursday night in connection to the injury of a woman after a fight outside AT&T Park earlier during the day, police said.

Sacramento police took the suspect into custody at 11: 46 p.m. in the 1000 block of Glenrose Avenue after a pick-up request was placed by San Francisco police, Sacramento police spokeswoman Michele Gigante, said.

The suspect, who’s name has not released, was taken into custody without incident.

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What was supposed to be a generally joyous day for A’s fans as the green-and-gold heroes trounced the Giants yet again turned tragic as a fan was beaten outside AT&T Park on King Street following the game. The victim, whose name has not yet been released, was wearing an A’s hat. Details are limited, but apparently she was trying to break up a fight between two men when she was hit in the face. She was knocked unconscious.

KTVU has the best description of the incident so far:

At approximately 5:50 p.m., officers responded to the intersection of 2nd and King Streets after receiving reports of an aggravated assault.

In the incident, two male suspects, a black male age 30 to 35 and a Latino male of approximately the same age, got into a verbal altercation with the victims. One of the suspects then punched the male victim in the face.

The female victim then tried to break up the fight when one of the suspects punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.

Both of the assailants then fled the scene.

According to CBS 5, the assailants took off in a gold Toyota Tundra truck.

The incident comes a day after Bryan Stow was awarded $18 million in his lawsuit against the Dodgers and the two men who severely beat him at Dodger Stadium. Another incident occurred after the final home game of the Giants’ 2013 season, when a Dodger fan was fatally stabbed. Media attention will be focused on the Giants and any measure they may (not) take in response to this incident.

Prayers and thoughts are with the victim, who is being treated at SF General. The suspects have not been identified. Besides the health and well being of the victim, the most important thing is to find these suspects and bring them to justice. If you witnessed this incident, please contact SFPD with any information you may have.

Incidents like these go beyond discussions about what teams’ fanbases are good or bad. It is only a game, one of 162. What makes this even more tragic is that the victim was trying to break up a fight. When I pointed this out on Twitter, several tweeps replied to me that they’ve been in the same situation and nearly didn’t get out of it. It’s very noble to try to play peacemaker, but unless you have specific training you may only be putting yourself in danger. Have fun out there. Be careful. Just because you’re a fanatic doesn’t mean you should lose your humanity. It’s just not worth it.

05.18.14
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River Cats may change affiliation from A’s to Giants (Updated with River Cats statement)

Update 5/19 11:15 AM – The owners of the Fresno Grizzlies aren’t showing concern about the future of their affiliation with the Giants. They feel that the long history of Fresno being a Giants’ town, going back to the Cal League in the 40’s, will win out in the end. In addition, the Angels have renewed their PDC with the Salt Lake Bees through 2016.

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Update 2:00 PM – The River Cats released a statement about their affiliation with the A’s.

“Though our player development contract with Oakland does expire after this year, we place the utmost value on our affiliation with the Athletics. This year, as in years past, we will perform an internal evaluation after the season has concluded. Our first priority has always been, and will continue to be, providing our fans with the best experience possible at Raley Field. This year is no different.”

That internal evaluation will probably include exchanging the more successful A’s-supplied rosters with the generally mediocre Giants-supplied Grizzlies rosters. While there would be a honeymoon effect, chances are it would be offset by fan response to bad play in the long term. Is it worth it? That’s for the Savage family to decide.

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Art Savage and Lew Wolff were friends going back many years, when Savage was the CEO of the fledgling San Jose Sharks. Seeing an opportunity to the north, Savage decided to gamble on moving a AAA baseball club from Vancouver to Sacramento, where there hadn’t been any kind of pro baseball in decades.  There was much shock and sadness when Savage died in 2009, at 58. Since then, his wife Susan and his sons have taken the reins of the River Cats, which are effectively the family business.

Despite the River Cats’ constantly excellent attendance performance (1st or 2nd in the PCL annually), the River Cats may choose to drop the A’s affiliation and shack up with the Giants after the end of the 2014 season, according to the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser. The River Cats-A’s Player Development Contract, which has been renewed with little rancor since the move from Vancouver, expires at the end of 2014. There is nothing stopping the River Cats from shopping around to hook up with a team that could provide maximum attendance and marketing opportunities, which in the NorCal market would clearly leave the Giants as the favorite, previous affiliations notwithstanding. 11 of the 16 Pacific Coast League clubs have their PDC’s ending this year, which will make the offseason a serious game of franchise musical chairs. A similar situation occurred in 2005 with few changes.

The simple fact of the matter is that attendance has dropped off from the 10k average crowds the Kitties experienced throughout much of their first decade at Raley Field, now at 8-9k per game. A trend of 10-15% drop off should be alarming for any club operator. If the move happens, it’ll be because Susan Savage felt that the best way to improve the bottom line was to work with the Giants. The orange and black fan base is extremely strong in Sacramento. Whether the team chose to keep the River Cats branding or switched to the Sacramento Giants, there would be more chances to leverage the Giants’ history and their greater ability (than the A’s) to keep stars. As Slusser noted, there’s also a chance for a more lucrative TV deal.

The Giants have every reason to pursue Sacramento if the Savage family is open to a new deal. Bringing Sacramento into the fold would further solidify the Giants’ hegemony in NorCal. It would provide a major obstacle to the A’s possibly moving to Sacramento, as the Giants could ask for unreasonable amounts of compensation if the A’s attempted such a move. The Giants would also have a better performing affiliate in a better market with a larger airport, a healthier financial outlook, and shorter driving distance for Giants farmhands.

Parent clubs pay for all player salaries and baseball operations, including coaches, for each of their affiliates. The minor league team’s responsibility is to cover marketing and ticket sales. Certainly the River Cats have been doing well, especially when compared to many of their PCL brethren. But there’s always the potential for more, so it would make sense for Susan Savage to at least take a cursory look. Sacramento is the belle of the PCL ball this offseason.

If the Giants got the River Cats and Sacramento market, that doesn’t mean that the A’s AAA affiliate could go to San Jose. While there’s no PDC for the San Jose Giants due to the team being owned by the SF Giants, there is a lease through 2018. Fresno would be the most natural alternative, although there’s a chance the Angels could also be interested as their PDC with Salt Lake City also ends this year.

One thing that could complicate matters would be if the Giants wanted to buy the River Cats from the Savage family. They already own the San Jose Giants, and they have the cash to buy any of their minor league affiliates outright if they chose to. If the Giants wanted to go that route and the Savages resisted, that would push them back into the A’s arms, since the A’s haven’t operated that way and probably won’t in the future. If the Savages wanted to cash out, there’d be no better time than this offseason. How chilling would that look? Giants surrounding the A’s on three sides: San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. The A’s would have Oakland, Stockton, and Fresno. Talk about haves and have-nots.

05.07.14
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Former Giants owner Lurie to be inducted into BASHOF

Bob Lurie spent much of his tenure as San Francisco Giants owner being vilified. After saving the team from moving to Toronto with his purchase of the franchise from Horace Stoneham in 1976, Lurie lost money nearly every year since then, declaring as early as 1984 that he was ready to sell the team. Despite having more competitive teams in the late 80’s, Lurie could not build enough goodwill to pass stadium proposals in San Francisco (twice failed), Santa Clara County and San Jose (once each). So when the 1992 season came and went and the Giants were headed towards a 90-loss season, a deal struck in the summer to sell the team to Tampa Bay interests appeared to seal the team’s fate. The $115 million sale price, which had the blessing of MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent, only required a vote of National League owners to move the team. When those winter meetings came around, the sale was rejected by a 9-4 vote, allowing SF interests one last chance to put together a local ownership group and creating a legal mess for MLB to untangle many years later.

During that ordeal, Lurie famously got the blessing of A’s owner Walter Haas to pursue the South Bay, which was during the late 80’s undesignated territory for MLB. After Lurie twice struck out in the South Bay and Peter Magowan’s group purchased the Giants for a lesser sum of $100 million (including $10 million of Lurie’s own money), the incoming group had South Bay territorial rights grandfathered. For years, the Giants have changed their rationale for keeping the territory, starting with the claimed inability to cover debt service payments on AT&T Park. Now the reasoning has settled with “half of the fan base” coming from the South Bay, or the Peninsula, or something else that sounds good. Lurie had something to say about that as well:

“It is the Giants’ territory, and they’ll certainly protect it. We used to draw at least half our attendance from the Peninsula, and I know the Giants don’t want to lose that association. At the same time, the A’s definitely deserve a much better stadium.”

In Lurie’s advanced age, he’s deserved the right to voice whatever opinion he likes about this and many other subjects, whether he sounds strident or diplomatic. Nevertheless, it’s interesting that he singled out the Peninsula, not the South Bay, which may sound like distinct areas but in terms of mindset have a tendency to blur.

Historically, the definition of the Peninsula begins with the northern limit of San Mateo County (Daly City, Brisbane) south along 101 and 280, past the Palo Alto-Menlo Park border (county line) and down to Mountain View. For many the Valley (somewhat synonymous with the South Bay) begins at Sunnyvale and Cupertino and covers the rest of Santa Clara County. Of course, Silicon Valley has an even more amorphous definition, with some saying it extends up to Redwood City, San Bruno, or even San Francisco. All of this confusion only adds to the sense of provinciality that pervades much of the Bay Area.

Lurie’s quote provides little insight into the inner workings of baseball, except that there’s something to be said for what may happen to your own initiative if MLB decides to wait a while. Perhaps someone at the BASHOF induction ceremony can ask Corey Busch about that. Busch, you may remember, is part of the three-man “Blue Ribbon” panel figuring out what to do with the A’s.

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P.S. – Speaking of opinions, Murray Chass has his own about Bud Selig and the mess the A’s are in. (Thanks Tony)

03.15.14
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Together We Are Giant-ly Ripping Fans Off

I was supposed to go to the A’s-Rangers game today. Delays at baggage claim forced me to consider a later game, the A’s-Giants tilt at Scottsdale. After a late lunch I headed over to Scottsdale Stadium. At the ticket window I was greeted with the grisly reality: no tickets for the near-sold-out game were available for less than $55. Just as bad, the cheapest ticket by face value was $30 for lawn or standing room, which is the Giants’ weekend pricing policy. $30 for lawn during an exhibition? No thanks. $16 for the same ticket during weekdays? Now that’s a lot more reasonable.

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I’m upset enough that I may take Scottsdale Stadium out of my trip completely because of the price-gouging that the Giants are practicing. These are exhibition games, people. But I get it. The Giants are finding a market for these tickets. There are tons of Bay Area fans making the short flight to Phoenix to take in a weekend of games, so in the grand scheme of things $60-100 for two games is not that big a deal. If like me, you want to take in two weeks of games, the pricing is completely out of line. It violates the spirit of Spring Training, which is supposed to be a cheaper, more accessible alternative to regular season Major League Baseball.

Part of the problem is the enormous popularity of the Giants. Like it or not, A’s fans, down here Giants fans outnumber us significantly. I saw it on my plane, at Sky Harbor Airport, and around the stadium. As long as Giants fans are willing to make the trek and pay these prices, the Giants will continue to charge silly amounts. The franchise has always taken advantage of every opportunity to rake in the dollar, whether it was by pioneering dynamic pricing, overcharging to sit on top of the right field wall (Arcade), or their Cactus League pricing. It’s not only the American way. It’s the Giant way.

03.07.14
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Why a temporary ballpark is a distinct possibility

Lew Wolff brought up the the idea of a temporary stadium to the SV/SJ Business Journal’s Greg Baumann this week. Wolff looks at the concept as potentially necessary if another extension at the Coliseum can’t work out. He had already expressed concern when MLB pushed the Coliseum Authority (JPA) into a two-year extension through 2015. The thinking in November was that no new permanent home could be built in that two-year span, and if Coliseum City’s phasing and the Raider owner Mark Davis’s preference of building on top of the current Coliseum footprint take hold, the A’s would no longer have a place to play. Combine that with Larry Baer’s comments about allowing the A’s to play at AT&T Park while an Oakland solution was being hammered out, and you can see all of the moving pieces and the complexity therein. Because of that complexity, let’s break the situation down into its basic components.

To start off, there’s the Raiders. The Raiders are the first domino here, because they are the team in some sort of negotiation with Oakland and the JPA. Even though Davis has labeled the talks as discouraging recently, reports coming out of the Coliseum City partnership should bring everyone back to the table in the next month or so. Then Davis can decide how to move forward: either partner in Coliseum City, or decide that CC doesn’t pencil out and look elsewhere. So far Davis has stuck with the idea that the Coliseum is the #1 site. That could change quickly as the numbers are released and parties have to make fiduciary commitments.

The A’s can’t do anything without the Raiders’ move. As much as Oakland waterfront ballpark proponents would love for Howard Terminal to become the apple of Wolff’s eye, the many questions and doubts that hang over the site continue to make HT a nonstarter for Wolff. Coliseum City had the A’s in a new ballpark no earlier than 2022, unacceptable terms for Wolff and MLB. However, if CC falls apart for the Raiders and Colony Capital, the Raiders could leave for Santa Clara, LA, or elsewhere. Wolff could easily call for CC to dissolve and put together a development plan of his own at the Coliseum, one that he would control. It could make room for the Raiders as well, but the football team would end up on the back burner, not the A’s. If Davis were to stay for several years at Levi’s Stadium while gathering up the resources to build anew in Oakland, such phasing could work out. Then again, the Jets spent nearly two decades “temporarily” at the Meadowlands while not working out any new stadium deal in the five boroughs of New York City.

Next, this idea isn’t new. Wolff floated the temporary venue concept in 2012, when he initially tried to get a lease extension. Wolff has reason not to go down such a path due to the expense and amount of upheaval. Should lease talks once again turn difficult, a temporary move becomes more a value proposition than a logistical problem.

If the JPA couldn’t come to an agreement on a new ballpark with Wolff – say, for instance, the JPA chose not to eat the $100 million left in Mt. Davis debt – Wolff would likely go back to MLB and again ask for a decision on San Jose. San Jose brings about one of two temporary ballpark scenarios. The first comes if the A’s are left homeless after 2015 and MLB somehow allows the move south. That’s a long shot at best, but can’t be completed discounted. In this case a temporary ballpark would have to be built somewhere in San Jose for 2-3 years minimum while Cisco Field was being built at Diridon. Besides the process of getting league approval, a temporary site would have to be found. In the Bizjournals article, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed claimed that multiple temporary sites were available. In all practicality, there are probably only two sites. Many of the previously studied permeant ballpark site candidates are either in the process of being redeveloped (Berryessa, North San Pedro) or face logistical hurdles that make it difficult to ensure that 20-30,000 people could make it in and out easily (SJ Fairgrounds, Reed & Graham cement plant).

Instead, there will probably two or three sites in play: the old San Jose Water Company site near SAP Center (site owned by Adobe), the spare parking lot south of SJ Police headquarters between Mission and Taylor Streets (a.k.a. the Cirque du Soleil lot), or the land adjacent to the under construction Earthquakes Stadium (under control by another developer). The SJWC/Adobe site would be the easiest to convert for a ballpark, is the right size, and has an existing building that could be leveraged for ballpark use. It’s also directly underneath a San Jose Airport landing approach, which could cause red flags by the FAA. The Cirque lot is smallish, though large enough for a small ballpark. There’s lots of parking nearby, and potential makeshift parking on the other side of the Guadalupe River. Light rail is only 2 blocks away. As for the Earthquakes Stadium-adjacent site, there were enough problems getting it prepped for that project that it should give pause to anyone considering even a temporary ballpark there.

That’s not to say that San Jose is the only place for a temporary ballpark. Wolff was quoted as looking at the entire Bay Area:

“I am hopeful of expanding our lease at the Oakland Coliseum for an extended term. If we cannot accomplish a lease extension, I hope to have an interim place to play in the Bay Area or in the area that reaches our television and radio fans — either in an existing venue or in the erection of a temporary venue that we have asked our soccer stadium architect (360 Architecture) to explore. Looking outside the Bay Area and our media market is an undesirable option to our ownership at this time.”

The East Bay is in play for both temporary (if needed) and permanent venues. MLB won’t hand over the South Bay to Wolff, yet MLB has also allowed Wolff to enter agreements with San Jose, so it’s clear that MLB is hedging big time. A temporary ballpark could be built on the old Malibu/HomeBase lots near the Coliseum, in Fremont, or even Dublin or Concord. Fremont’s Warm Springs location could enter the discussion again because the Warm Springs extension is scheduled to open in 2015.

It’s also possible to read into Wolff’s statement the possibility of the A’s playing at Raley Field on a temporary basis, since his description of “area that reaches our television and radio fans” covers CSN California and the A’s Radio Network.

Warm Springs could be in play because CEQA laws that govern environmental review largely don’t affect temporary facilities. Generally, seasonal installations such as carnivals or circuses that don’t create any permanent environmental impact are exempt from CEQA. The challenge, then, is to create a temporary ballpark that can also fit this model. That would be tough because of the large-scale consumption of water, food, and energy during a single game. Still, the A’s are already familiar with major recycling efforts, and if trash can be properly contained there should be little permanent impact. Just as important, Warm Springs remains within the established territory, so MLB wouldn’t have to negotiate anything with the Giants. Finally, if the experience is positive it could provide enough political goodwill to convince Fremont to again consider being a permanent home.

Strategically, the Baer vs. Wolff war of words (what happened to the gag order?) has only gotten more interesting. Baer’s statement is cajoling Oakland, not Wolff, to get its act together. Wolff’s response is to say that the A’s don’t need the Giants’ help, especially if he can get San Jose. Keep in mind that if Oakland fails, the East Bay as a territory loses value, hurting Baer’s argument and supporting Wolff’s. What’s left is for both rich guys to let the processes in Oakland and in the courts play out, and prepare for next steps. At some point, the leagues are going to ask Oakland to either step up or step out ($$$). While some local media types continue to believe that the teams can carry on indefinitely at the Coliseum, at some point the conflicts become too great to bear. For those of us who have been following this saga for so long, it’s good to know that actions are being taken to make new homes for the teams. Even if one of those homes is temporary.

02.26.14
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Baer says he’s willing to let the A’s share AT&T with the Giants – with a catch

Giants President/CEO Larry Baer slipped a rather shocking note into the festivities surrounding the spring training opener, when he said that he’d be willing to allow the A’s to play temporarily at AT&T Park.

Of course, there are conditions. From Merc scribe Alex Pavlovic’s article:

“They’ve got to come up with a long-term plan. Once that’s arrived at, then maybe you’ll take a step back and say, ‘Is there something we can do to be helpful?’ As a neighborly thing.

“Obviously, they’ve got to come up with what their plan is and we’ll go from there.”

The A’s have a long-term plan, but that’s in San Jose, the city that Baer is loathe to give up. That means that Baer is perfectly willing to be neighborly, as long as the A’s stay in Oakland.

If you want to read between the lines, you can consider this a memo to Oakland ballpark backers to get off their asses and get something done. He’s willing to be neighborly, up to a point. He’s willing to appear magnanimous in his willingness to share the jewel at China Basin, up to a point. As long as there’s some motion towards a ballpark in Oakland, it helps Baer’s cause.

Strategically, it’s easy to see why Baer is going this route. Now that the Giants have practically paid off their ballpark, they need another rationale for preserving the split territorial rights regime currently in place. They can talk about protecting their fan base in the South Bay, but frankly, the issue is Oakland. Simply put, can a ballpark be built in Oakland? If it can – and it pencils out for the A’s financially – then the current T-rights scheme can remain in place, whether Lew Wolff and John Fisher are the owners or someone else takes their place. If Oakland can’t be done, which Wolff has been arguing, the East Bay itself is done, and MLB will be forced to consider an alternative method of drawing up territories. Immediately that means the South Bay is the only other place in the Bay Area, with Wolff preferring that as opposed to leaving altogether, which Baer has hinted in the past he’d be okay with.

Baer’s little nudge should provide motivation for Oakland boosters, though Baer can’t make it easier to build in Oakland. Nor is it likely that the Giants will help Oakland out monetarily. News coming out of Raiders camp can’t be encouraging, as Raiders owner Mark Davis indicates that nothing is happening with Coliseum City, at least as he sees it. Davis characterized Coliseum City as perhaps Oakland’s last chance to keep the Raiders. By NFL rules, Davis has to make a good faith effort to keep the team in its current market, and Davis has certainly done that so far. If Coliseum City breaks down, the Raiders could leave for LA as early as a year from now, and Roger Goodell can’t say much about it. Sure, the NFL holds the purse strings, but by that point they’ll know full well the challenges of building a stadium in Oakland as much as LA. Like the A’s situation, if it doesn’t pencil out in Oakland, there may not be an East Bay alternative. Already he’s backing away from the Concord Naval Weapons Station and Dublin’s Camp Parks, which makes me wonder if he’s only feigning interest in those sites in order to appear thorough.

Davis also referred to the impact of the Oakland mayoral race, indicating that developers wouldn’t get off the fence until after the election. That runs counter to the idea that the various mayoral candidates could make Coliseum City progress by stumping for it along the way. The project has its own schedule and milestones, with the next big one, the Market Data Analysis, due in March. By spring we’re supposed to find out how feasible Coliseum City is, and by summer teams are supposed to be signed on to be partners – at least according to Mayor Jean Quan. Movement will come from making the numbers work, not magic. Davis is not the only person to wonder what exactly is happening with Coliseum City. We’re going through these phases with CC, where some small amount of progress happens, followed by a huge informational vacuum, then a sobering dose of reality, and then another small step forward. Eventually that cycle will be replaced by real discussions, actual reports, and true political and financial support (or a lack of it).

Going back to the Giants and Baer, I suppose that since he’s offering his place as a 1-2 year airbnb stint for the A’s, we can start talking about what that would look like. That’s for another day. For now, it makes the most sense to focus on Oakland. In the near term, that’s where the only future for the Raiders and A’s lies.

12.23.13
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The Solomonesque solution that thankfully never happened

When the latest Matier and Ross column featuring Coliseum City and the A’s dropped over the weekend, I wasn’t sure if I should follow-up right away or wait for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Drop it did, with a press release coming from the A’s early today. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of any of it. BayIG (the combined investor/developer group) was supposed to contact the A’s starting in mid-November. Now it’s all a bunch of he-said/she-said. It’s all meaningless in the grand scheme of things, so I won’t bother wasting anymore words on it.

Instead I’ll reference a nightmare scenario that happened almost 40 years ago. It involves a Charlie Finley anecdote that I hadn’t fully heard until I read his 2010 biography some time ago. In the late 70’s, Finley was fighting a personal two-front war, an acrimonious divorce on one side and skyrocketing salaries that threatened his ability to operate the A’s on the other. (He also had other feuds with MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the Coliseum Commission and numerous players and agents, but I digress.) Knowing his time in baseball was running out, Finley chose to put the team up for sale as soon as 1977. Numerous suitors surfaced, some offering to keep the team in Oakland and other looking to move the franchise out at the end of the 1977 season. The most famous buyer was oil billionaire Marvin Davis, whose family was said to be the model for the soap opera Dynasty. Davis also owned the 20th Century Fox studio for some time before selling it to some Australian named Rupert Murdoch.

The difficult part of the move was the generally ironclad lease the Coliseum had with the A’s. It was a 20-year term, with an expensive buyout if the A’s left. As the Coliseum filed a $35 million lawsuit against Finley, Finley worked with Kuhn and Giants owner Bob Lurie to figure out a solution. Wait, what did Bob Lurie have to do with this?

Kuhn had been convinced that, with both teams showing poor attendance, the Bay Area was only a one-team market. He spoke to pols in both San Francisco and Oakland to work on a compromise, but in the end the Bay Area would be left with only one team. Previously, Lurie had bought the team from Horace Stoneham, saving SF from the prospect of moving the Giants to Toronto. Lurie was brought into the talks to figure out what role the Giants would have in a one-team Bay Area.

The solution, as architected by Kuhn and others before the 1978 season, would’ve been to have the A’s sold to Marvin Davis, which would’ve gotten rid of Kuhn’s nemesis Finley. Then in order to compromise on the Coliseum lease, the Giants would’ve played some number of games at the Coliseum, 25-40 depending on how the final deal was drawn up. In San Francisco the team would’ve been called the San Francisco Giants, while in Oakland the team would’ve been called simply the Giants. Kuhn recalled:

For the next three weeks, the politicians, the baseball administration and the lawyers struggled to find solutions. At last, amazingly, parity was agreed to. The team name would be the San Francisco Giants except in Oakland, where it would be the Giants. Financial payments to the Oakland Coliseum were set at $3.25 million. The internal fight within baseball was difficult when Finley would put up no more than $1 million as his share of the Coliseum payment. Even that we were able to persuade the clubs to accept. But, when we asked him [Finley] to waive claims of any kind against baseball, he balked.

Even though Finley was leaving baseball – forever – he still wanted to keep his right to sue just in case he felt he got ripped off. Finley was no stranger to courtrooms, so this could be expected. Still, you’d think that after all that work (and his building desperation) he would’ve waived that one right in order to finish the deal. The sale fell apart and Finley went into full fire sale mode, finally selling the team to the Haas family in 1980.

Consider the ramifications:

  • The Giants would’ve become the San Francisco Giants/Giants, probably playing most of the Oakland games before football season.
  • The buyout would’ve funded improvements to the Coliseum that Al Davis was seeking, improvements that probably would’ve kept the Raiders in Oakland.
  • From that point forward, the Bay Area would’ve been a one-team town, with a young, growing city like San Jose pursuing an expansion franchise.
  • Eventually, the team-sharing situation would’ve created a race between SF and Oakland to build a permanent home when leases at both Candlestick Park and the Coliseum expired in the late 80’s. Territorial rights would’ve included the “BART counties” plus Marin County.
  • Rickey Henderson, who was drafted in 1976, would’ve spent much of his career in Denver. The same could be said of Tony Armas and Dwayne Murphy, among others. Marvin Davis had the money to bolster the team’s payroll, so the chances of keeping a talented young team intact were very good.

So this Christmas, thank the ghost of Charlie Finley for being so selfish that he had to be able to sue – just in case. Without that, the Oakland Athletics would’ve been a 10 year experiment, a blip on the radar, an historical anomaly.

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(h/t Rob Neyer, who referenced the near-sale when the A’s-to-China Basin reports surfaced. I didn’t see his post until after I finished this one.)