Category Archives: News

09.22.12
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News for 9/22/12

We’ll start with the lede, courtesy of CBS Sports’ Danny Knobler:

A’s owner Lew Wolff said Friday that he believes his team’s quest for a new ballpark will be settled within the next year.

Does that mean a new ballpark is about to rise in San Jose, Oakland or somewhere far away?

Not necessarily.

“I do think this long trek will be coming to an end,” Wolff said, in an interview with CBSSports.com. “I can’t predict the end.”

Wolff did suggest that he has no interest in either taking legal action or doing something that would lead to legal action from the Giants (who claim the San Jose territory). He also said he’s not interested in either selling the team or moving it out of the Bay Area.

“We’re going to persist in the Bay Area as long as we can,” he said. “It’s not a journey we’re going to cut short.”

Wolff’s latest statements he has indicate less confidence in the process that he has supported all this time. Maybe he has the same resolve as ever about San Jose, but the constant drag by the commissioner isn’t helping. Either way it appears that no outcome is certain. At least there will be an outcome, which is better than the team being in limbo as it has the last three years. One thing’s for certain: at least one group of people is going away from this mess extremely unhappy.

Update 10:52 AM – While in New York to catch part of the A’s current roadtrip, Wolff had a chance to explain further to the NY Times’ Tyler Kepner what he’s trying to build in San Jose. In addition to confirming that he and the rest of A’s ownership has the money to build a ballpark, Wolff also talked about how the high-tech concessions stands would work.

“All of our concession signs will be digital, so when you’re supposed to stop serving beer, you just press a button and it disappears,” Wolff said Friday over lunch at a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “And then if you have extra hot dogs, you can reduce the price.

“I mean, I’m being silly about it, but we’ve had plenty of years to think about this. It isn’t like all of a sudden we get approved and now we’ve got to start thinking about how our ballpark’s going to look. We’re really ready.”

Additionally, Buster Olney hears that Bud Selig is working the room to get enough votes to grant South Bay T-rights to the A’s. (via MLB Trade Rumors)

Other news:

  • The Angels denied a report that they were negotiating with Ed Roski’s Majestic Realty for the NFL stadium site in Industry. Whether the Angels were actually talking or not is moot. Industry is now a potential threat, albeit one that’s not very practical. The site had numerous challenges when the plan was for a 10 games-per-season NFL slate, 80-90 games would turn the hillside location into a second Dodger Stadium from a parking/circulation standpoint. The site, near the junction of CA-57 and CA-60, is also situated on a hillside that slopes down from southeast to northwest. That’s a poor orientation for siting a ballpark. [LA Times/Bill Shaikin]
  • El Paso’s City Council approved the $50 million AAA ballpark deal that could bring the Padres’ affiliate to town by 2014. The combination of rent, a ticket tax, and sworn parking revenues should bring in around $500,000 per year, not nearly enough to pay off the stadium on its own. The final say belongs with El Paso’s mayor, who will have until Thursday to approve or nix the deal. [El Paso Times/Cindy Ramirez]
  • After 10 years of abject failure, the “ballpark village” plan next to Busch Stadium is finally a go, thanks to million in subsidies coming from the State of MIssouri. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Elizabeth Crisp]
  • In case you haven’t heard, the NHL is in a lockout. [Yahoo Sports/Nicholas J. Cotsonika]
  • Barclays Center, the first major pro sports venue in Brooklyn since the Dodgers abandoned Ebbets Field, had its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday. {NY Times/Howard Beck]
  • Next Friday the 28th, the hearing to compel discovery in the Stand for San Jose vs. City of San Jose lawsuit will be held at 9 AM at Superior Court in downtown San Jose. I plan to observe.
  • Still awaiting the State Controller’s ruling on the legality of the Diridon land transfer.

That’s it for now.

09.20.12
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AEG sale could drastically change stadium landscape

Reports started to flood in Tuesday night that billionaire Phil Anschutz was looking to offload AEG, his privately held entertainment and sports conglomerate. The LA Times asked industry experts, who said that the value of the AEG portfolio is around $5 billion. A Reuters article has bidding going up to $6 billion, and that doesn’t include Anchutz’s film studio, Walden Media.

The octopus that is AEG is divided into various overlapping divisions:

  • Sports  – 50% stake in LA Kings, minority share of LA Lakers, 50% of Houston Dynamo, 3 minor league hockey teams, interests in 3 European football and hockey clubs, a minority stake in Golden Boy Promotions, plus the Bay to Breakers, Tour of California, X Games, and other properties.
  • Facilities – Staples Center, Home Depot Center are wholly owned by AEG. The company operates over 100 venues that put on 6,200 events per year, including games for all four major North American pro sports. The list includes major convention centers such as LACC.
  • Live – The concert tour promotion division, with offices and venue control from coast to coast. It also oversees the Coachella and New Orleans Jazz festivals.
  • China – A self-contained subsidiary of AEG, it operates like a miniature version of the big company, within China.
  • Digital Media – Online production and broadcasting for big events

AEG works because it one division can leverage others to lock down deals. Staples Center hosts two teams that AEG owns, benefiting the company by virtue of publicity and revenue. The same model works for live music, where AEG controls booking for many venues and the tours that would fill them up. This sort of vertical integration makes it seem as if the best deal would for the whole shooting match to take advantage of that leverage. Yet there will be many bidders that will find individual pieces extremely attractive, such as the Kings or the venue management contracts. There’s also the issue of finding a single bidder or consortium (in all likelihood) that can put up $6 billion for everything. The bidding process will run well into 2013, and it will be fascinating to observe how all of it works. Some bidders might try to put up a lower overall bid because the transaction could be cleaner and easier to pull off. On the other hand, the total price of all the properties sold separately could eclipse the value of a single complete bid. Even if the whole company was purchased intact, if that bidder were a private equity firm it’s likely that there would be a strategy to part out the divisions in sooner rather than later.

Much of the immediate reaction to the news centered around the prospects of the Downtown LA football stadium. While many felt the stadium deal was in peril, Times columnist T.J. Simers fantasized that a new owner is just what’s needed to bring the Chargers north. LA mayor Antonio Villaraigarosa knew that the sale was coming and kept it quiet. His underlings expressed confidence that the deal would continue without Anschutz, whose purse strings and willingness to accept a minority share of a team were keys to attracting a team. Front man Tim Leiweke is still onboard for the moment, but someone else would have to represent the money needed to fund Farmers Field, which will cost well over $1 billion to construct. If AEG were parted out and sold piecemeal, the strength of the football stadium plan would be severely diminished since there’s no vertical integration to incentivize the effort (the stadium is also meant to be used as an extra large exhibit hall for LACC).

Teams currently in leases with AEG-operated venues are unlikely to see any significant changes. There is at least one other project that could be seriously impacted by an AEG sale: the Coliseum City development. When AEG signed on to manage the Coliseum complex, they also got a contract to provide pre-development services. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan started talking about a convention center and a retractable dome on the Complex, which would be home to an LA Live!-style village. The uncertainty surrounding AEG and Farmers Field creates a very ironic situation in that despite an anti-poaching agreement, AEG would’ve loved to have the Raiders as a tenant at Farmers, yet Oakland could use a successful LA Live! with Farmers as an anchor to help promote a similar plan to its citizens. Without that kind of success under AEG’s belt, the mega-development becomes a harder sell and may force a major change in scope. The alternative could be a normal, outdoor football stadium replacement for the Coliseum, without a neighboring convention center or hotel complex. The problem with that kind of downsizing is that a football stadium and whatever smaller scale ancillary development accompanies it may not be able to generate enough revenue to drive visitors to the complex, and that may be a loser politically. Meanwhile, consider the idea that the 49ers stadium could be completed before studies on Coliseum City are. That’s how deliberative the process is.

Then again, it may be best if Oakland and the East Bay focus on opportunities that are less pie-in-the-sky. Whether they’re talking about a total replacement of the Coliseum or a modernization of the existing Coliseum, it seems much more feasible than a $2 billion convention center and stadium that would have competition not only from other facilities throughout the Bay Area, but also AEG’s own LACC.

The Sacramento Kings could also be affected, since AEG was supposed to be the partner in the Railyard ESC arena plan until the last moment. One of the possible outcomes of a sale is a refocusing and wholesale freeze of development activities, which would hurt both Coliseum City and Sacramento. Other companies could step up, but there is a reason why AEG won bidding in both cities: AEG has a built up an impressive level of experience managing and developing venues over the years. If AEG shifts its focus as the result of a sale, so will many of its clients.

—–

P.S. – One more log to add to the fire: The LA Daily News is reporting that officials that the Angels are talking with Ed Roski’s Majestic Realty about a ballpark at the City of Industry site Roski pitched for his own NFL stadium. Roski partnered with AEG to build Staples Center and buy half of the LA Kings. Surely these talks have gotten the City of Anaheim’s attention. Leverage – that’s how one successfully plays the stadium game.

09.18.12
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Fosse talks ballparks

The highlight of Blog Day may have been a 25-minute discussion with Ray Fosse that spanned all manner of subjects: broadcasting, teams he played on. At one point Fosse started talking, unprovoked, about the need for a new ballpark. As a great player and broadcaster, his words carry far more weight than mine ever will. So here’s the snippet of him talking ballparks, which started as a question about comparing the current team to previous teams he played on or covered. Without further adieu:

This group of guys has a chance to be as good as (the 1989 squad), but the thing they have to do is stay together. There’s free agency and arbitration, and lots of money, the most important thing now is that the A’s somehow get a new stadium. Because as soon as a shovel is in the ground, they can keep all of these guys. Because they know what the revenue stream is going to be. Until that happens, they don’t know.

Q: Would you say you’re in favor of San Jose or in favor of a new stadium?

I’d say a new stadium, wherever it is. I don’t wanna upset people here… but unfortunately that monstrosity (points at Mt. Davis) killed us. If you can imagine when you watched games before, you could look out and see the Oakland hills, see the ivy up there.

This is the last remaining multipurpose stadium in all of baseball. Clay Wood does a great job, but he can only do so much. So to think about minimizing foul territory, which you can do when the pitchers are good enough… You can tarp the upstairs, tarp Mt. Davis, people complain – well you fill it up, and they’ll take the tarps off.

I don’t even like talking about excuses about, “Well, if we don’t leave…” Listen. To me, leaving and going to San Jose, if that’s where they go, that’s not leaving, folks. Leaving is going to another state or across the country. Staying in this area and (going to) a downtown – we’re fortunate to go to Baltimore and Cleveland in particular. Of course Boston’s downtown. Seattle. You get a downtown stadium, and what it does to revitalize a downtown area, it’s tremendous. To be honest, I’ve never been to a Sharks game but all I’ve heard are great things about downtown San Jose when the Sharks play. They support the team, it brings everyone out.

He also talked A.J. Griffin, Yoenis Cespedes, Scott Hatteberg, Chef Rodney, and more. I can’t post the audio here per the terms of the media credential (no podcasts), but these subjects and Fosse’s quotes should elicit a good amount of conversation. I’ll leave it at that.

09.17.12
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Shaikin on A’s future, Wolff

Hopefully you’ve read LA Times baseball writer Bill Shaikin’s piece on the A’s from last night (I tweeted it shortly after I saw it in Google News). If not, take a few minutes to gather it in and then come back here.

Okay, ready? Let’s do a deep dive into the meaty parts of the column.

There are indications Selig might rule by the end of the year. Yet, rather than say yes or no, Selig appears to be considering a ruling that could challenge both the A’s and Giants to fulfill certain criteria.

“I think there will be an effort to be Solomonesque,” said someone who has spoken with Selig but declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “This is not a ‘yes or no’ sort of thing.”

The status quo works just fine for the Giants, but it is corroding the A’s.

Lew Wolff, the A’s owner, won’t say much about the process. But he will say this: If Selig puts conditions on his ruling that require a year or so to fulfill, the waiting game is over.

“That would be a no,” Wolff said. “They might as well just tell us no.”

For instance, the burden could be put on the A’s to guarantee their financial projections. If the A’s move to San Jose, pay to build the ballpark, and come off baseball’s welfare system of revenue sharing, how can the A’s ensure the long-term sustainability of a championship-caliber club?

First, let’s look at the “Solomonesque” effort. For some time, the level-headed among us have espoused this concept. It would mean the Giants wouldn’t be able to extract $200 million from the A’s or whatever the price was they won’t communicate in private or public. And it would mean that the A’s wouldn’t get San Jose for free. There is a price. The actual number and terms are still up for debate, but despite what many think of this arduous process, Selig is at least attempting to resolve this in a fair way. If it’s done right, both sides will come away happy and with something to complain about, as is the case in most big money negotiations.

The status quo item is something we’ve covered ad nauseum here. No need to rehash it now.

Then there’s Wolff’s comment. This is the big one because it shows that he has a limit as to how long he’ll wait for an answer. Shaikin confirms this in a tweet accompanying his column:

Remember that in May, Wolff asked for a vote on the territorial rights issue. That vote did not end up on the agenda for either the May or August owners meetings. That would make the November meetings pivotal for Wolff, if not for Selig or the other owners. With the sale of the Padres out of the way and national TV deals on their way to being sealed, the A’s should be on the front burner again. (I’m not getting my hopes up.)

If Selig asks for more time, the ball’s in Wolff’s court. He could sell, which has to date not shown a willingness to do. Despite the lack of a stadium deal and the A’s being stuck (for the time being) in Oakland, the A’s could fetch $500 million easily, especially if multiple bidders were involved. Selig and the other owners, sympathetic to the Wolff’s plight (Wolff is well-liked in the Lodge), would push hard for Wolff to get top dollar for his patience. If the team were to stay in Oakland, incoming owners would have to show that they had a stadium plan ready to go and funded. The CBA’s stipulation that the 15 teams in the largest markets (which include Oakland) have to stop taking in revenue sharing is all the motivation any ownership group needs. The worrying factor is the possible emergence of a Clay Bennett-type of bidder who seeks to move the A’s out of the area. It would be difficult to pull off, but not impossible, and with the legal issues that will arise with any T-rights battle, the idea could be considered an easier path to resolution than keeping the team in the Bay Area.

Wolff could try to make it work in the East Bay, but it seems like those bridges have been burned so badly that there’s no trust upon which a relationship can be built. I’m reminded of Tom Benson’s situation as owner of the New Orleans Saints both pre- and post-Katrina. At several points it seemed like the Saints were gone, especially as the Superdome was destroyed inside and out in the wake of the hurricane. It took $320 million in mostly federal and state money to bring the Superdome up to current NFL standards. The NFL only funded $15 million of it. It took an act of god to turn the Saints around and to reform Benson’s pariah image.

The last part about guaranteeing financial projections is a fair request. It’s not just a matter of making sure Wolff gets the best deal possible, it’s also about ensuring that if the team is sold down the line it isn’t saddled with really bad debt. If, as Wolff has indicated, the ownership group will put together a lot of upfront equity for Cisco Field, that’s a huge selling point to Selig. It would reduce outstanding debt and would positively impact any future franchise sale, since the team’s interest in the ballpark would be part of the sales price. Look at it this way: while many franchise rely on regular cash calls to fund operations, the A’s don’t have to do that because of revenue sharing and tidy fiscal management. Going out-of-pocket for the ballpark is a one-time, major cash call. Seems like ownership is already leaning in this direction, the question is how much?

Numerous short-term matters will also come into play, such as the Coliseum lease and whatever progress is being made by Oakland on its Howard Terminal effort. Whatever decision Selig and the owners make, it’s better than the uncertainty that has loomed over the franchise for so long. The Lodge owes A’s fans and A’s ownership that much.

09.15.12
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Blog Day 2012 Recap

About a dozen bloggers assembled in the Ring of Champions at 3 on Friday, prior to the 7:05 A’s-O’s game. We were met by Adam Loberstein, who also set up our interview time at Fan Fest before the season. This being the first game of a series and homestand, media availability by various A’s was expected to be somewhat scattershot, but we were promised Bob Melvin, Farhan Zaidi, and a couple of players, so no one was complaining.

Waiting for BoMel

We had about 10 minutes with Melvin, during which several people peppered him with questions. There wasn’t much revealing in his 10 minutes with us, other than his thoughtful, yet noncommittal answer when asked to name the team MVP (hint: not Brian Fuentes or Daric Barton).

The team was heading on to the field for stretching before batting practice, so we were happily led down to the field to catch it. Melvin was about to do his daily pregame interview with the regular media in the dugout, so for a moment media outnumbered A’s on the field. Ray Fosse had just finished his pregame interview segment, and hung out on the field talking to players even though he didn’t have any other duties for the rest of the day. Eventually I found myself as part of a circle surrounding Fosse, and he regaled us for 25 minutes about the teams on which he played and broadcast for, championships, and changes in the game. He even took off his ’72 (thanks Ken Arneson) ’73 World Series ring and passed it around, which allowed several bloggers to take their pictures with it. He talked ballparks too, though that’s the subject of tomorrow’s post.

A’s broadcaster Ray Fosse holding court

Towards the end of Fosse’s talk, batting practice started. Among the first to take BP was Chris Carter, who at one point hit four straight no-doubt home runs, including one to the plaza level and another that hit the luxury suites in left-center. (Trogdor, please burninate Mount Davis when you get the chance.) I also noticed that Carter and Jemile Weeks seemed pretty tight and frequently in conversation, which immediately brought to mind the image of Spike and Chester.

Yoenis Cespedes did his first interview in partial English on Friday

We left before we had the chance to see Yoenis Cespedes hit, which I suppose wasn’t a big deal since he entertained the masses later on that night. Loberstein brought us back to the interview room, and a few minutes later we met Farhan Zaidi, the A’s Director of Baseball Operations. Zaidi’s been interviewed numerous times by bloggers and reporters, but it was his first time in the interview room. He was asked about the career turnarounds of Carter and Josh Donaldson. I asked Zaidi if there was any “secret sauce” to how the A’s keep developing quality starting pitching. His response:

Don’t tell us we have too much depth, because we’re constantly in a state of panic about pitching… We talk about this every offseason. We don’t build a five-man rotation. We build a 162-game rotation. These days there are very few guys that you can assume are going to make 34 starts and pitch 200 innings. We you look at a lot of the projections systems out there, they usually project some regression for guys. They all sort of have guys for 170, 180 innings max – and those are workhorse guys. We have to take that view as well, that there’s really no guy that we can plug in there and say, ‘One out of five rotation spots is taken care of.’ We try to build a set of options – 8, 9, 10, 11-deep of starting pitchers that we think if go into a game with this guy starting we feel good about that game. Attrition takes care of more than you would ever wish it would… I think we do that and I don’t think that’s unique to us. I think a lot of teams think about it that way… Your AAA rotation has to be full of guys you think can come up and do the job, if need be, because it will happen.

Director of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi talks player development

Our interviews ended with Brett Anderson and A.J. Griffin sharing the table. Anderson was back to his laconic self after his off start on Thursday against the Angels. Griffin, being one of the newest rookies, is still emerging. I asked where his clubhouse nickname “Griffindor” came from. He said:

People like Evan Scribner, when I walk into the clubhouse, they’ll shout, “Griffindor!” Stuff like that. It’s a fun nickname, I guess, it keeps (the clubhouse) loose. I don’t mind it, so I can roll with it.

That must make Scribner the Sorting Hat. I’ve already challenged some our A’s fan T-shirt creators to make a fitting tribute. By the way, you’re welcome on the hard hitting journalism.

One side of today’s handout rally card. The other side is a #BernieLean silhouette.

We were wrapped up at 5. Each blogger received two tickets the game, which I didn’t use, and some new Bernie-oriented swag. All in all it was a highly satisfying experience. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but years ago I worked with a freelance photographer who brought me along to type up postgame copy to accompany his pictures, which he frequently sold to international publications. I spent nearly two years during college working every major venue in the Bay Area, and came away from the experience somewhat jaded by the rampant cynicism in the press box – mostly from columnists. I was starting to dislike sports. I knew that sports journalism, at least the way it was traditionally practiced, was not in my future. I’m grateful that this particular form, blogging, allows to me to apply my skills without having to report on the daily grind of sports. It allows me to separate the off-field stuff from on-field, so that I can enjoy sports much the same way I did when I was 10 years old. It is a kids’ game, after all.

With any luck, we’ll be able to do another event in conjunction with FanFest next winter. Thanks to Adam Loberstein and the A’s Media Relations department for putting Blog Day together.

09.14.12
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News for 9/14/12

First, an advisory for tonight’s game, which will run concurrently with a concert at Oracle by the Mexican band Maná.

On Friday, September 14 the Oracle Arena is holding a dual event beginning at 8:00 p.m. The A’s recommend traveling to the Coliseum by BART. If arriving by vehicle, the A’s recommend early arrival. Parking availability is expected to be limited by game time. Parking gates open at 4:00 p.m. and stadium gates open at 5:35 p.m. Parking is $17 until 7:00 p.m. After 7:00 p.m. parking will cost $35.

The A’s are expecting at least 30,000 for tonight’s game. A really good walkup crowd could make it a sell out. Get there early, folks. Or take BART and avoid the hassle.

And now the news.

  • The Santa Cruz City Council approved the now-$5.4 million arena plan on Pacific Avenue near Laurel, thanks in part to the City applying concessions revenue to the $4.1 million loan. If the Surf-Dubs leave before their seven-year term is up, the team will be considered in default of the loan. The City may try to bring UCSC sports teams downtown to play at the arena, though historically the athletics program at Division III UCSC hasn’t been much for bringing out crowds. [Santa Cruz Sentinel/J.M. Brown]  Note: The “South Hall” tent at the San Jose Convention Center is seven years old this year and is scheduled to be demolished soon as it has reached end-of-life.

View of Santa Cruz tent arena site from east bank of San Lorenzo River.

  • Seattle approved its arena deal with SF hedge fund guy Chris Hansen, holding out until Hansen guaranteed loan repayment, set aside $40 million for infrastructure improvements around the SODO arena site, and threw in $7 million for improvements for what would likely be the tentative venue, KeyArena. No word so far on a NHL team to partner up with the NBA franchise. KFBK-Sacramento’s Rob McAllister thinks that Hansen could buy the Kings from Maloof family for $450 million. The NBA’s relocation fee to Seattle is expected to be around $30 million, far less than the fee for the Kings moving to Anaheim, where the SoCal market already has the Lakers and Clippers. [Seattle Times/Jerry Brewer]
  • Speaking of hockey, we’re less than 36 hours from the beginning of the NHL lockout. Players currently get up to 57% of revenue, owners want 47%, players have countered with 54%. Arena operators have already been told that if the lockout happens, the first month (October) of game dates can be cleared for other events. As for businesses around HP Pavilion, it’s not looking good. [AP/Ronald Blum; SJ Mercury News/Mark Purdy]
  • The 49ers announced that they’ve sold $670 million worth of club suites and suites at the new stadium. 72% of the suites, which cost $100-500k per year to lease in long contracts, have been accounted for. That’s important because I estimate nearly half of the pledges are coming from suites. Three years ago I wrote about the tough task the Niners would be faced with in financing the stadium. They’ve been up to the task, mostly because the premium accommodations are priced as much as double the price of other new stadia. For the Niners that’s a distinct first mover advantage in a largely untapped market, Silicon Valley. It would make sense for the Niners to wait to extend an offer to the Raiders to share the stadium until after certain sales targets are met. The Raiders could benefit from a less onerous lease package, but they’d also be somewhat shut out of Silicon Valley. [Merc/Mike Rosenberg]
  • Save Oakland Sports’ fundraiser was held at Ricky’s in San Leandro last night. Proceeds will go towards either the construction of venue(s) or “community projects associated with” the venue(s). [KRON/Brian Shields]
  • Long term lease talks between the Buffalo Bills and New York State/Erie County broke down, resulting in a one-year lease at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Bills aren’t seeking a brand new stadium, but they are trying to get around $200 million in improvements to the 39-year-old stadium. The team will miss a deadline to apply for the NFL’s G-4 stadium loan program, forcing the negotiations to move in the short-term direction. NY Senator Chuck Schumer wants the NFL to modify G-4 so that teams won’t have to complete loan payments when a team is sold, a touchy situation considering Bills owner how Ralph Wilson’s advanced age and sensitive health may affect the team’s ownership situation in the near future. [AP/Michael Virtanen; Buffalo News/Tim Graham; The Score/Devang Desai]
  • The independent St. Paul Saints, last at the trough, received $25 million in economic development grants for a new ballpark to replace Midway Stadium. Renderings of the ballpark are unlike other ballparks.

Rendering of St. Paul Saints ballpark in Lowertown neighborhood

Enjoy the game tonight and the fireworks. That other miracle team of destiny is in town. I’d dress in my Boba Fett costume, but that would look pretty stupid as I asked Bob Melvin questions during today’s blogger event.

09.12.12
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2013 schedule analysis

If you are one of those people who detests interleague play (vote for Bill King!), the schedule released today by MLB will not make you happy. Not only has baseball put interleague games into constant rotation with the realignment, it has expanded the number of games played by every team. This season, the A’s played only 18 interleague games. Next season – 20. (A previous post has downloads if you don’t have the schedule yet.) The breakdown:

  • 3 @ Milwaukee
  • 3 @ Pittsburgh
  • 2 @ Cincinnati
  • 2 @ Giants
  • 2 vs. Giants (home games)
  • 2 vs. Cincinnati (home games)
  • 3 vs. Chicago Cubs
  • 3 vs. St. Louis

This particular format solves a problem in that each division plays an entire division counterpart in annual rotation, plus 4 games against a rival for many teams. The 4 Giants games are in a home-and-home format, which seems more dramatic than how it’ll actually play out in May. Nevertheless, it’ll allow the radio folks to hype up the series especially hard, although the A’s lose a lucrative home date vs. the Giants.

May has two interesting road trips. Early in the month is the longest roadie of the year, 10 games vs. the Yankees, Indians, and Mariners. Near the end of the month is the Texas Two-Step (we should get used to the terminology), 3 games vs. the Rangers followed by 3 in Houston. If you don’t mind the 4-hour drive between the two metros or have some Southwest points saved up for the Love-Hobby shuttle, it’s also a good bet. There’s an off day sandwiched in between the two series, so that could serve as your travel day.

Beyond the Texas possibility there are few good road trip candidates. The only one of note is June 3-9, with 3 interleague games vs. the Brewers followed by a 4-game set vs. the White Sox. The last part of that week coincides with the start of a Cubs homestand against the Pirates and Reds, so you have the chance to see games at Miller Park, US Cellular Field, and Wrigley Field all in one trip. Later tonight I’ll look at the entire schedule and I’ll put together a massive chart of the full season just as I did last year. Look for that in the near future.

Thoughts on the schedule? Does seeing “Astros” 19 times make you cringe? Sound off in the comments.

09.12.12
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2013 Preliminary A’s Schedule Out

It’s that time again. First or second week of September, MLB releases its preliminary schedules. It’s our first glimpse at the play under the realigned NL and AL, where interleague play will be all season. I’ll do a deep dive in a bit. For now, I’ve taken the liberty of putting the schedule in downloadable formats.

More after the Oakland rally.

09.11.12
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Single game postseason tickets on sale Monday 9/17

Single game tickets for a Wild Card playoff game and the American League Division Series will go on sale at 10 AM on Monday, September 17. You’ll be able to get the tickets via the A’s box office or oaklandathletics.com (Tickets.com).

Quite different from the 2006 postseason prices

At first glance I thought I was looking at a regular season pricing chart. Then I realized why: the A’s are using those as baseline prices and letting dynamic pricing determine how high they go based on demand. It’s fair and it rewards those who buy early. Season ticket holders have already gotten the opportunity to buy postseason strips, so we’ll really get to see how many casual fans snap these puppies up. I submitted deposits for season tickets next year, which afforded me the chance to buy strips for this postseason, but I declined to buy them because I want to stay with this year’s walkup/advance ticket buying experiment. I’ll be at the box office early Monday morning, ready to go.

Note – The Value Deck is the notable omission from the pricing grid. I assume it’s because it will be an overflow media location. Working to verify that.

09.07.12
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My small SOS conundrum

I don’t know that this rises to the level of requiring a post. Here goes nothing.

You may have noticed over the past several weeks that events for the Save Oakland Sports booster group have shown up in the calendar. Normally the calendar is reserved for events such as City Council meetings, MLB owners meetings, and other generally newsmaking dates. Save Oakland Sports has made news recently by getting started, organizing, and planning or being involved with additional events such as next week’s fundraiser. That’s good, I encourage that sort of activity.

Yesterday, one of the principals for SOS asked me to link to an article in the Tribune that featured the group. It seemed more like a profile piece than something with real news or in-depth analysis, so I held off until I was asked again by the same individual, at which point I added the link to the 9/6 news post.

I’m a little concerned that I’m effectively providing free promotion and publicity to SOS, even though they’ve barely begun their work and aren’t newsmakers the same way a team owner, elected official, or league executive might be. I think I’ve given SOS plenty of coverage by attending and writing up a visit to one of the group’s meetings. SOS also has a link in the sidebar. That’s more than I can say for the Baseball Oakland and Baseball San Jose groups, whose output has generally been lacking and little more than talking points.

Moreover, SOS doesn’t operate in a fully public manner. While I attended SOS with no incident and Jeffrey has been invited to do the same, the group doesn’t post meeting minutes publicly, not even in a redacted or edited form. I was taken off SOS’s email list after some members felt that I couldn’t be trusted, though no one bothered to explain that to me until after I noticed it and mentioned the removal in a post.

From the beginning this site was built to analyze and report news. Should a booster group be given the space of a newsmaker when they, for the most part, don’t generate news? It may seem like splitting hairs, but I’m worried about setting a bad precedent. Given that one of the heads of SOS is a PR man, he or others can easily get column inches at one of the local papers, even though there’s no new story there. Should I link to every one of those stories? Should I put SOS items on the calendar even though we don’t know what’s happening? If a San Jose booster group had similar activities, should I treat them the same way out of a strained “equal time” sort of fairness? I’m uncomfortable with the idea of giving free pub to anyone more than is merited, and I’d like reader feedback.

FWIW – this is not about an extra effort that’s required to maintain the calendar or write a post. That’s minimal.

Post your opinion in the comments, and thanks in advance.