The proceedings started almost 10 hours ago. After a full day’s worth of explanations and grandstanding (I didn’t tune in until an hour ago), it appears that the Marlins ballpark plan at the Orange Bowl passed with a 10-3 9-4 vote. I say “appears” because the webcast was so prone to breaking up and losing audio that I can’t be absolutely sure. Whether it passed 9-4 or 10-3 doesn’t matter, 9 votes were needed and they got it. County officials could only say that the plan “shouldn’t involve general funds” instead of guaranteeing it.

Insofar as the A’s are concerned, the only indirect effect is that by July 1 the Marlins can be scrubbed off the potential contraction list. As we know, it takes two to dance the contraction tango.

Update: Story from Sun-Sentinel reporter Sarah Talalay’s ongoing blog about the Marlins ballpark travails.

I’d like for you, gentle reader, to read the line below out loud for maximum effect:

San Francisco Athletics

No, this is not about Lew Wolff changing the name of the team in a brazen LAAoA way. It’s about the team actually moving to San Francisco, which, had one particular event transpired with a different outcome, is a more likely scenario than any scribe has really deigned to write about.

To understand this, take a trip in the wayback machine to the summer of 1992. It was the last weeks before the San Jose election which would eventually deal Giants owner Bob Lurie a golden sombrero in the stadium-hunting game. San Jose mayor Susan Hammer pushed hard for a 2% utility tax hike in the city to help fund a ballpark for the Giants. Lurie asked MLB and A’s owner Walter Haas, Jr. for territorial rights to Santa Clara County, which were up for “annexation.” He got the T-rights, which at the time were granted based on the team’s possible move south. While Lurie saw San Jose as an opportunity to keep the Giants in the Bay Area while not dealing with the difficult political climate in San Francisco, Haas saw SF and the entire North Bay opening up to him. Win-win, right?

Of course, Lurie did get the golden sombrero, losing 55%-45%, and his attentions quickly turned towards selling the team to Tampa-St. Petersburg interests. Only a Herculean effort among SF political, business, and civic leaders, coupled with some nefarious doings within MLB, kept the team from moving. A new group headed by Safeway CEO Peter Magowan swooped in to save the Giants from moving east, just as Lurie himself saved them from moving to Toronto in 1976. Magowan, a New York transplant and lifelong Giants fan, brought in Barry Bonds and came up with a plan to build a stadium without public money. Haas passed away in 1995, coinciding with the Raiders’ return to ruin the Coliseum, and the rest is history.

Had the San Jose ballot initiative passed that summer, the Bay Area baseball landscape would have looked quite different. The Giants would maintain their rules-based territorial hegemony over the region, despite their being located in the southernmost city by 1995. The A’s were experiencing their own salad days as they had the highest payroll in baseball in 1991. It would be a few years before the changing economic model caught up to the A’s, though Haas was prescient enough to milk as much out of the old model as he could.

Fast forward to 1995. The Giants would have undoubtedly gotten sellouts for at least a few years in their new suburban digs. Oakland would have profited for a time from the Giants being less accessible to SF/Peninsula/North Bay fans, because the San Jose Giants’ ballpark was not close to Caltrain. San Francisco would’ve been left without a baseball team for at least the forseeable future.

Or would it? Steve Schott immediately cried foul upon buying the A’s when he saw the Coliseum renovation plans. Any new ownership group would have, including the oft-discussed and low-money Dolich/Piccinini group. Schott continued to whine throughout the rest of his ownership tenure. He’d still want a fancy new ballpark just like most other teams. Schott would still have issues with territorial rights, but this time he’d have an embarrassed SF political base to potentially exploit. Then-mayor Frank Jordan lobbied hard to keep the Giants in town after the San Jose deal fell apart. If it had succeeded, there’s no reason to think Jordan wouldn’t have worked just as hard to bring a team to town. If not Jordan, then his successor, Willie Brown.

Now think about how this would have played out. You’d have an ego-bruised SF, a soon-to-be chastened Oakland (for the Raiders debacle), and an owner in a position to take advantage of the situation. It’s not hard to see SF interests going hard after baseball’s antitrust exemption in an attempt to strip the city away from the T-rights of the team that abandoned them. Oakland and Alameda County would’ve been paralyzed from legal wrangling with the Raiders. By 2000, the climate would’ve been right for the A’s to look for a new permanent home across the bay. SF partisans would use the same economic arguments the SJ partisans now use. It could’ve even escalated into a bidding war if Oakland were interested, further increasing the likelihood of a publicly-funded ballpark for the A’s.

Then again, Jerry Brown was in his second year as Oakland mayor. It would be another three years before he fired City Manager Robert Bobb, who was the administration’s biggest advocate for an urban Oakland ballpark. Brown, who had historically hung out in more SF-based circles than Oakland-based circles, wasn’t going to lift a finger to keep the A’s in town. The path would’ve been cleared for the A’s own exodus, less than a decade after the Giants, to a new home 10 miles away from the old home. Brown probably would’ve gotten a pat on the back from his SF friends. A transparently moneymaking venture, the move would’ve been under the guise of “keeping the team in the Bay Area.”

So there you have it. In this alternate reality, the net result is paradoxically, ironically similar. The A’s leave Oakland, though under completely different circumstances than what has been pitched the last decade.

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? – Billionaire S.R. Hadden in the film “Contact“

In the past, Lew Wolff defended the now-dead move to Fremont as staying within the market, claiming “We’re not going to Omaha.” Funny that he brought up Omaha, as area fathers there are not merely trying to build one, but count ’em, two ballparks.

Omaha, which I’m sure Wolff referenced as a fill-in-the-blank remote location, is home to the Royals’ AAA affiliate, the Omaha Royals. The team currently plays in Rosenblatt Stadium, which is better known as the long time home of the College World Series.

Last year, the NCAA put the squeeze on Omaha by promising to keep the CWS in town only if a new, updated ballpark were built. The squeeze worked, and groundbreaking occurred a couple of months ago on a downtown plot near Qwest Center. Currently unnamed, the ballpark is slated for completion in 2011 and will cost $140 million.
You might think the AAA Royals would jump at a chance to live in an updated home, but it turns out that the sleek, new, 24,000-seat ballpark is too big for their taste. The Royals’ attentions turned towards suburban Sarpy County, where a 6,000-seat, $26 million ballpark may be built.

Net result? Two mostly publicly funded ballparks, totalling $166 million. One will be the largest non-MLB ballpark in the country, yet it will only be in use for about 10 days and 15 games per year. The other is a much more modest ballpark, with less capacity than many spring training venues. Add that to the publicly funded Qwest Center, and you have $457 million in venues with only one professional tenant among them. Well, at least the Qwest Center doubles as a convention center. Omaha, clearly the anchor of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro, is about the size of Oakland. What makes this even more amazing is that the metro itself is smaller than San Jose.

This was cribbed from the Christian Science Monitor:

Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won’t post it.

Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.

Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.

I’ve generally moderated comments with guidelines similar to those above. Now that they’ve been published so clearly for a loftier publication, I feel I can at least apply those guidelines formally.

It’s a “quiet period,” so you know what that means. It’s time for the seasonal ballpark progress report.

First up, the home team. All of the indicators have been reset back to zero, with the exception of funding. Cisco’s continued pledge to provide naming rights for a new ballpark in the Bay Area is the one factor here. One thing we don’t know is whether the substance of the naming rights agreement will change as the site changes from Fremont to somewhere else. The deal between the A’s and Cisco included a real estate component, and while Lew Wolff maintains interest in the Fremont land for future development, that component may be worth less than when the deal was originally struck.

San Jose is just getting started on much of the political stuff. Yes, the initial EIR is done, but I won’t nudge the Political Process indicator over until an updated EIR is certified. In addition, Site Acquisition won’t be moved until both the A’s and the City come to terms on the Diridon South site or an alternative.

Note: Good reading can be found in articles by Glenn Dickey and former NY Times baseball writer Murray Chass.

A crucial vote by the Miami city commission is scheduled for tomorrow. The last vote was deadlocked, as one of the commissioners was on maternity leave and the other four could not come to an agreement on certain financial terms and last minute requests. In the last week there’s been talk of a bill to make all publicly funded venues subject to a referendum. There’s also been a deal to guarantee a percentage of construction contracts to black contractors that was completed then rescinded. Last month’s drama-filled session was no snoozefest, so tomorrow’s vote might force me to stream it alongside tourney coverage. This vote won’t be the end of the line, though, as Miami-Dade County has its own commission that needs to vote on the deal next week. Update 3/19 11:30 AM: Miami City Commission has passed the ballpark plan 3-2, after a mountain of discussion large enough to kill my tourney buzz.

I’ve added Tampa Bay to the report, as they’ve been stepping up their efforts to leave Tropicana Field sooner than later. The plan proposed last year, which would have converted tiny Al Lang Field into a major league facility in downtown St. Pete, was scrapped in favor of something less polarizing. Now they are looking north along the I-275 corridor for vacant land, ancillary development, and better access to fans in Tampa. The Rays, like the A’s, have a long way to go. Unlike the A’s, the Rays’ lease at the Trop runs through the 2027 season.

Heavy lifting for the Twins has been already been done. They’ve gotten through a contentious battle over public financing (sales tax hike without a referendum), and everything is essentially built. The only remaining issue is a reconfiguration of the garbage burning facility across the street, to keep the stench that wafts over when the doors open from violating the sensitivities and appetites of fans who might want a hot dog or nachos.

Talk of Citigroup pulling back on its 20 year, $400 million naming rights deal with the Mets has died down as the feds have focused more on the budget and now, AIG. It could come up again in the future. Other than that, they’re good to go.

The pinstripers got a $105 million loan to cover the remaining construction costs at the new palace of opulence in the Bronx. Area residents are still waiting for NY to complete the public parks that were promised.

Another edition will come in May, as the San Jose thing starts to shake out.

Update 3/17 8:30 AM: Chip Johnson rips both City of Oakland and Wolff, suggests keeping team colors and history in Oakland.

Update 3/16 10:30 PM: Wolff apologizes, acknowledges season ticket sales are down.

Or rather, the soap opera’s already here. Between the gamesmanship displayed by two somewhat grumpy old men over the weekend and reporters trying to figure out what the state of territorial rights is, there is no shortage of drama. That’s great for the blog as it gives me something to write about, but frankly it’s getting a bit tiresome. Not the blog, it’s the writing about the drama that’s tiresome. So you’ll have to forgive me if for the rest of the blog’s indeterminate life, I don’t write about every minor trial and tribulation. There will be major events and major issues to discuss. The stuff that happened the last few days? It doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Take Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. Some here and in the media have baselessly speculated about Lew Wolff’s future as A’s managing partner. What’s more likely is that in 18 months, Dellums will be gearing up to get out of Dodge. 6 weeks ago, Dellums’ approval rating hovered at a W-like 25%, with a 60% disapproval rate. That’s probably eked up a bit thanks to recent news about lower crime rates, but he can’t get rid of the stink from his first 18 months on the job that easily. Dellums hasn’t said anything about running for a second term, and it would appear that a bag of rocks could defeat him at this point. It’s more likely that the usual council suspects (IDLF, Nadel, Brunner) will be climbing over each other for the brass ring.

Just 3 months before Dellums leaves office, the A’s current lease will expire, and the team will be on a year-to-year lease through 2013. Wolff’s statement that Oakland was done effectively removes Dellums and the City Council from the process thanks to its timing. It’s callous, conniving, and quite final. In 2005, Wolff put out the Coliseum North plan, set his own clock to complete the deal, and ran out the clock before moving on to Fremont. The next two years will be spent running out the clock again. He managed to get a nice piece of insurance in the year-to-year lease extension, in case of a rainy day (or several hundred). Wolff has no reason to leave his perch when he can turn the corner in 2 years while setting his sights on his ultimate goal. If Wolff failed in his next endeavor and was forced to go back to Oakland, it’s likely that neither he nor Dellums would be around to make the deal. It would be up to their successors to repair the relationship.

Going back to T-rights, the Chronicle’s Giants beat writer Henry Schulman asked Larry Baer, who said “From what we could tell, there is no change in (Selig’s) position.” That’s exactly how I expect it to be for some time to come. That’s why Wolff asked San Jose pols to tone down their enthusiasm. If he had not intervened, at some point someone was going to ask MLB directly about T-rights, and whether they asked nicely or aggressively, it wasn’t going to curry favor with the Lodge. T-rights, whether stadium or broadcast, is MLB’s leverage over any city or market. There’s no point in asking unless you come to them unless you’re ready to talk turkey. San Jose is in no position to do that yet.

Threats from legislators about removing the antitrust exemption would be misplaced. The exemption, which allows MLB to wield its iron fist over franchise movement, has kept the team in Oakland. If it didn’t exist, the A’s might already be somewhere else. If it were removed, San Jose would have no restrictions against teams moving there, and that would make Wolff’s job easier. I’d love to see the exemption killed, but only because of the right motivations and principles, not something as misguided as what Dellums is considering.

It’s going to be a long slog for any ballpark effort for the next 1-2 years. Let’s not get distracted by the small stuff.

Update: Matier and Ross speculate further.

I do believe Ron Dellums just said, “IT’S ON.” We’ll see if he’s going to bring it.

Oakland’s mayor indicated that he will seek congressional help in an effort to keep the A’s in town. Immediately, that means Barbara Lee, Dellums’ protege and successor in the House of Representatives. What strategies could Dellums/Lee have at their disposal? Let’s take a look:

• A challenge to the antitrust exemption. Not sure how that would actually help Oakland, as MLB’s use of the exemption is actually keeping Lew Wolff from moving to San Jose. Long term, it could help bring a third team to the Bay Area whether it’s in San Jose or Oakland, but MLB would still have to be a willing partner in such an endeavor. A move like this would also be incredibly expensive and it’s unclear where the money for a legal challenge would come from.
• Suing the A’s. I’m not a legal expert and I don’t know the details of the lease, but I could see where Oakland could consider taking legal action against the team for misrepresenting their intentions when the last extension was signed. Problem is, I think this was already covered by the lease terms containing a penalty if the A’s were to leave the Coliseum early for a new home outside Alameda County.
• Dellums/Lee create a coalition to broker a regional deal. A city-led effort of the kind mentioned in Thursday’s letter sounds good, but in the end Oakland still needs to leverage greater regional resources and business interests to put together something that Wolff might be interested in. We’ll see if that’s what happens, and more importantly, if Wolff has interest.

So much for a quiet period. Readers, do you have any ideas?

Last night, the office of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson released a statement confirming KJ’s interest in bringing the A’s to Sactown. The catch? He’s serious only if the A’s are too:

“Sacramento will only pursue a team like the A’s if the A’s are serious and not looking to negotiate one community off of another and we can develop a stadium facility that will represent a true economic benefit to Sacramento,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he would be making clear “the process and principles that we will adhere to when it comes to considering a Major League Baseball team” in the coming weeks.

Now we don’t know what KJ’s strategy is. Is he looking at an expanded Raley Field, which is not in Sacramento? Or is he hitching his wagon to a ballpark at Cal Expo to replace the arena if the Kings bolt? The latter sounds like a more palatable scenario for Lew Wolff and John Fisher.

The “process and principles” aspect piques my interest. It’s one thing when you’re San Jose and you don’t have to contend with another team’s interest in finite resources. It’s another when the Kings and A’s would most definitely compete with each other for political will, funding, etc. Would discussions start only after the Kings decided to leave? How long would that take?

Mayor KJ also touts his city’s positives…

“A team in Sacramento would represent a home run for Major League Baseball,” Johnson said, though he really shouldn’t have. “Because Sacramento is a great sports town with a strong market in terms of fan interest, corporate support and the size of our media market.”

…while conveniently excluding any mention of the financial and social calamity that is growing under his nose – and in between downtown and Cal Expo to boot.

Now that’s an attractive adjacent neighborhood for developers. At least KJ got the fan interest part right. Corporate support and media market? Not so much.

I take the dog for a long walk on a day off and something big happens. Go figure.

Credit to those who felt yesterday’s letter from Oakland was a thinly veiled piece of CYA – that’s exactly what it will end up being. I certainly didn’t expect a response this quickly, but it happened and it was forceful. Any hope of retaining the team in the city that has been home for 40 years is all but lost. It’s lame duck time.

You’d have to be in denial – or at least Ray Ratto – not to see what the next step is when reading the following paragraph from today’s official press release from Lew Wolff:

We understand the facility continues to cost the city of Oakland and Alameda County millions of lost dollars per year. Sadly, the business and corporate base of the city of Oakland was very limited when we purchased the team and has eroded since. Our attendance and low number of season ticket holders (both one of the lowest in Major league Baseball) also continues to decline; even when our on-field performance produced play-off participation.

It’s all about San Jose, which amazingly, Ratto does not mention in his blog post. It’s about corporate dollars, suites and minisuites, club seats and advertising and sponsorships. It’s about the demise of the classic, egalitarian form of fandom.

To make things completely cold and brutal, Wolff says this:

We recognize conditions have not changed. Letters to Major league Baseball offer nothing new or of any real substance. Outside stimulation to have us continue to play in an aging and shared facility may generate press and “sound-bite” opportunities, but do not provide any tangible alterations in the circumstances we face.

In other words, “Don’t go over my head. I’m still the man here.” Wolff goes on to thank Mayor Dellums and East Bay developer Sherman Balch, plus County Supes Gail Steele and Scott Haggerty, both of whom supported the Fremont plan. Not thanked are the other signatory to yesterday’s letter, Jane Brunner, or previous Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. Hmmm, if I were Oakland I wouldn’t expect much of a reply from the commish anytime soon.

I look forward to all of the namecalling that will commence shortly.

I have to say that I’ve found Oakland’s letter to Bud Selig the most fascinating news of the week.
In it, Mayor Ron Dellums and Council President Jane Brunner implore Commissioner Bud Selig to appoint a point person to work with the City. They cite Oakland’s great history of support for the A’s. The letter evens ends with a request to renew urban America:

In these troubling times when everyone is putting their shoulder to the common wheel and President Barack Obama has called on all of us to put the public’s interest first, I believe a professional sports league like MLB has an obligation to do the right thing and stand by a city and its people who have historically stood alongside baseball.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s well phrased. Neither Oakland nor San Jose need baseball to be relevant or vital. Both want it to either maintain or raise their profiles (as did Fremont, or at least its pols).

The more interesting bit is on the first page:

For our efforts to succeed, though, we will need a commitment from MLB and the A’s that they will work earnestly with us to design a ballpark plan that will be good for Oakland, good for the team, and good for baseball.

We are naming an A’s Stadium Committee comprised of some of Oakland’s leading civic leaders who will be tasked by the City to work hand-in-hand with you, the Fisher Family and Mr. Lew Wolff to develop a stadium in Oakland.

In particular, we graciously request that you name a point person from the Commissioner’s Office who will work with the city to develop a ballpark strategy that will keep the A’s in Oakland.

Those three paragraphs tell us everything we need to know about how Oakland wants to proceed. They want a commitment from MLB and they want to work directly with MLB. That tells me they’re going over Lew Wolff’s head. They even mention the Fishers, even though John Fisher has generally receded into the background.

Is this really the way they want to do this? Has the relationship with Lew deteriorated to the point of asking him not to be the lead negotiator? I understand how the Miami situation came about, as Jeff Loria and David Samson kept making demands of Miami and Dade County while entertaining an exodus. The end result was that Bob DuPuy came in, told them to stand in the corner, and brokered the deal, which also appears to be on the precipice thanks to hotel tax revenue shortfalls.

I would think that the best way to write a formal letter like this to Wolff. Next, on Opening Day, make a full court press on Wolff and the Fishers. If they don’t respond, then you make a plea to Selig. No city is going to put up money for a ballpark these days. If you’re aiming to have the A’s invest in the community $500 million in a ballpark and possibly hundreds of millions more for ancillary development that your city wants, then sell them on it, don’t try to guilt them into it. There’s no rush to make a deal at the present and certainly no need to go over people’s heads at this point.

Wow, just wow.