Since the Oakland A’s attempts to move to San Jose have long since reached terminal stasis, all we have to report on these days are crazy rumors. And on the crazy-rumor scale, this one is not-all-that-crazy:

Sam Liccardo, the San Jose City Council member whose district includes most of the proposed downtown ballpark property, wants the city to sue the Giants. They continue to claim territorial rights to the South Bay and, empowered by Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption, have used that claim to block the A’s quest at every turn.

By “not all that crazy,” I mean of course that it could actually happen, not that it has much of a chance in hell of achieving anything. The San Jose Mercury News’ Mark Purdy writes that it “could be a game-changer” and “a cunning reverse twist on the Giants’ own veiled (and nonveiled) threats to pursue legal action against San Jose and other entities if the A’s are allowed to move south,” but even if San Jose decides to sue the Giants — which would really mean challenging MLB’s territorial rights agreement, which would mean going up against the very league that they’re trying to lure to town — it’s hard to see where they’d have legal standing, given that the Giants aren’t technically blocking anything right now, since MLB hasn’t decided whether or on what grounds to consider allowing the A’s to move. (And likely never will, at least not until the Giants and A’s owners work out something that will satisfy both of them, which will never happen.)

If you still doubt me, remember that San Jose previously agreed not to even hold a public vote on whether to build a stadium until after MLB made its ruling, for fear of angering their potential baseball partners. Also, that Mark Purdy was spreading crazy rumors then, too.

Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times cornered MLB commissioner Bud Selig the other day to ask him about the league’s never-ending “study” of the Oakland A’s request to move to San Jose, and here’s what he said:

“Of course I would like to move faster. But I’m not going to move until I’m really satisfied on all issues and both clubs are satisfied on all issues.”

As Shaikin rightly notes, “That is never going to happen. The Giants will not be satisfied if the A’s are permitted to move. The A’s will not be satisfied if they are denied permission.”

Shaikin reported a few weeks ago that Selig might be ready to issue a “Solomonesque” decision by the end of the year, but of course we’ve heard that before. And Selig did his best to dispel any thoughts that there might be an imminent resolution with this exchange:

Q: There are reports that you are canvassing clubs to see how they might vote on the issue, in advance of next month’s owners meetings. Are you indeed canvassing clubs?

A: No. I don’t have anything to canvass.

Q: Do you believe a new ballpark in Oakland is feasible?

A: I don’t know. That is one of the things we are checking.

Q: Can you promise A’s fans that you will settle this dispute by the first of the year?

A: I’m not going to set a time.

Clearly, Selig is getting tired of all this, but just as clearly he has no intention of ruling against either the A’s or the Giants. Even setting a compromise price for the A’s to pay the Giants for territorial rights to San Jose would likely raise cries of outrage from one side or the other — A’s owner Lew Wolff thinks he shouldn’t have to pay anything, while the Giants owners believe that the South Bay is more valuable to their franchise than al the gold Octovien. So the most Seligian way of issuing a ruling would be to … maybe declare that the A’s should be allowed into San Jose, provided that they pay an undetermined price to the Giants to be negotiated between the two teams? You think he could get away with claiming it took three guys three-and-a-half years to come up with that?

The other possibility is that Selig is holding out hope that Oakland will come up with a viable stadium plan to make Wolff happy, and he can duck this whole territorial issue until somebody else becomes commissioner. In which case, he’s likely to have a long wait.

The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin, apparently offended because Oakland A’s playoff tickets are too affordable (no, really, read it for yourself), yesterday delved into the never-ending standoff between the A’s and the San Francisco Giants over territorial rights to San Jose. And, like so many others before him, he’s convinced himself that MLB commissioner Bud Selig is going to force a solution any day now, really:

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.”

That would go against what both Jayson Stark and Selig himself have indicated, but let’s play along and try to picture what a “Solomonesque” solution would look like. Clearly the two teams can’t share the area: Either the A’s get to move to San Jose, or they don’t. So the only way to split the difference would be for Selig to set a price for the A’s the pay the Giants in exchange for the South Bay, either in cash or a swap of rights to the East Bay or both.

Which could work in theory, except that setting a price on revoking territorial rights is exactly what Selig has been trying to avoid, since that would open the door to teams wanting to know how much it’d be to horn in on the New York City market, say. It’s always possible that he’s changed his mind and decided to start smacking heads together, but if so, why has he waited so many years to do so?

A’s owner Lew Wolff, for his part, said that he’s tired of waiting around for an answer, and that if Selig imposes any “criteria” that would require more waiting, “They might as well just tell us no.” Of course, Wolff has complained like this before, and it hasn’t gotten him anywhere.

Most likely, this is just another sportswriter looking for a column idea on a slow news day. Unless we should be taking “Solomonesque” more literally, and Selig is really threatening to smite San Jose with a sword and let neither team have it unless they agree to a solution. That’d be cool, if only because it’d show that Selig is capable of dramatic gestures other than the “I can’t hear you” one.

There’s started to be some fallout from last weekend’s Bill Madden pronouncement that the Oakland A’s won’t be allowed to move to San Jose, though it’s too soon to say what to make of it yet:

• The A’s released a statement reiterating their case for getting rights to San Jose, which is based on the argument that “MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara.” The Giants fired back with their own press release, essentially saying, “Nuh-uh, it wasn’t subject to nuthin’.”
• The Oakland city council unanimously approved spending $3.5 million on developing a plan for a stadium-and-arena-and-other-stuff complex on and around the current site of the Coliseum that would cost, um, something, and be paid for somehow. It would include a stadium, or maybe two stadiums, or maybe an arena and would — you know what, I’m not even going to attempt to summarize it until there’s some indication this is more than just some not-all-that-pretty pictures.
• San Jose councilmember Sam Liccardo says somebody should challenge baseball’s antitrust exemption if MLB doesn’t allow the A’s to move, though he stopped short of actually threatening that the city council would do so itself.

In all likelihood, none of this means much, but it’s at least worth watching the antitrust thing to see if that becomes serious. After all, fear of an antitrust challenge is what drove MLB to create the Tampa Bay Rays — and it’s always possible that this could be the lever that would push MLB owners to lean on the Giants to, if not give up rights to San Jose completely, at least name their price. Not laying odds on that happening just yet, mind you, but possible.

New York Daily News columnist Bill Madden dropped a bombshell on the baseball world this weekend by reporting that MLB commissioner Bud Selig is going to confirm the San Francisco Giants‘ territorial rights to San Jose, leaving the A’s stuck in Oakland. As Madden wrote:

MLB is going to uphold the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights in San Jose… To strip the Giants of their territorial rights to San Jose would require a three-quarters vote of the clubs, and as one baseball lawyer observed: “Clubs would realize what a terrible ‘there but for the grace of God go us’ precedent that would create in which all of their territorial rights would then be in jeopardy.” As an example of that, one can’t imagine the Yankees, Mets or Phillies voting to take the Giants’ territorial rights to San Jose away when it could conceivably open the doors for a team seeking to re-locate to New Jersey…

With the Giants adamant against making any financial settlement with the A’s on San Jose, Wolff and Fisher would appear to have only two options: Find a suitable site for a new stadium in their own (East Bay) territory, possibly right next door to the Coliseum, or sell the team.

Both Selig’s office and A’s owner Lew Wolff immediately denied the validity of Madden’s report, with the commissioner’s office telling SF Gate’s Henry Schulman (off the record, just like whoever gave Madden his information) that, in Schulman’s words, Madden’s article “does not accurately reflect the current situation.”

So who’s lying? In all likelihood, nobody. After all, it’s always been exceedingly improbable that Selig was just going to strip the Giants of their territorial rights and hand San Jose over to the A’s, for exactly the reason that Madden’s unnamed lawyer says: Other teams would be freaked that they’d be the next to have their monopoly market power undermined. (Just look at what happened last year in the NBA, where territorial rights aren’t even as all-important as in baseball.) The real question is whether Selig (or their fellow owners) will arm-twist the Giants owners into lowering their price, or at least naming one, at which point Wolff can quit staring longingly into the South Bay distance and get down to the business of haggling.

So far, Selig doesn’t seem inclined to force a resolution — but then, we’ve known that for eons. The upshot of Madden’s article and the resulting uproar, then, seems to be that the status quo is holding: The Giants owners won’t talk, Selig won’t make them, and Wolff is still waiting impatiently. Eventually something has to give, but as we’re seeing, “eventually” can take a while.

For anyone hoping that the news of Bill Neukom stepping down as lead owner of the San Francisco Giants would lead to a break in the impasse with the Oakland A’s over territorial rights to San Jose, you can stop hoping:

Larry Baer, who is becoming CEO when Bill Neukom retires at the end of the year, said Thursday that the Giants’ stance on territorial rights in the Bay Area is fixed.

“There is no change on that position,” Baer told reporters Thursday. “It’s a position Bill’s had, a position our board has had, a position I have.”

A’s owner Lew Wolff told the San Francisco Chronicle he’d have no comment on his nemesis Neukom’s departure, then opined: “”If I were the Giants, I’d feel more confident the longer it takes. I don’t think they’d be right.” Asked what he thinks about prospects for a resolution overall, he replied: “I have no idea.” Does this count as depression or acceptance?