Newspaper editorials are, by their nature, weird. Where news articles often labor under the pretense that holding any beliefs, even about the nature of reality, is an affront against journalistic objectivity — “some leading experts insist that the sky is in fact blue” — editorials go all the way in the opposite direction, asserting that once you’re venturing into the world of opinion, only unalloyed fist-pounding will do.
So while the San Jose Mercury News’ editorial on Saturday about how Oakland should handle the departure of the A’s is a bit odd, it’s the kind of odd that editorial boards are paid to traffic in:
- It kicks off with “With the Oakland A’s headed for Las Vegas,” which really should be categorized as “unproven,” given that A’s owner John Fisher still needs to find another billion dollars in private money to go with the $600 million he’s getting from the state, plus that state money still could be overturned by either a 2024 referendum or a lawsuit, both brought by the Nevada teachers’ union. “Likely” headed for Las Vegas would have been more accurate, but that’s the kind of fact-checking that doesn’t always make it into news articles, so it has little hope in an editorial.
- Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, the Mercury News argues, needs to “stop fantasizing about keeping the team in the Bay Area” and “abandon her silly demands that Fisher rebrand his team so Oakland can keep the A’s name for an expansion team and that Major League Baseball guarantee the city that future franchise.” Instead, the editorial instructs, she should trade her one real bargaining chip — a lease extension on the Oakland Coliseum so the A’s can play more lame-duck seasons there beyond 2024 — for Fisher selling his half of the Coliseum site to the city so it can redevelop the land for something else. A better solution, the editorial board notes, would have been Alameda County making the sale of its 50% share in the Coliseum property contingent on the A’s staying in town, but “amazingly, the sweetheart agreement failed to require that the team stay put,” so this is the only way to “wrest back control of the Coliseum, one of the Bay Area’s prime development sites.”
- Okay, not the only way: “If the A’s won’t agree to that, the city should take back control through eminent domain. If the city demonstrates that it plans to use the site for a public purpose — such as redevelopment, economic revitalization, recreational amenities or open space — it could force the sale of the A’s share of the Coliseum, legal experts say.”
There’s something to be said for the argument that regaining control of a 120-acre development site with excellent traffic and transit access is more important than promises of a replacement team — especially if that promise might not preclude MLB from demanding Oakland build it a new stadium in order to grant an expansion A’s franchise. But it’s just a little harsh to call Thao’s demands “silly,” especially since 1) she could potentially use the eminent domain hammer to get control of the Coliseum site anyway or 2) she could demand both that Fisher sell her his share of the Coliseum site and give up the A’s team name, given that it’s not like he has a lot of other great options for places to play from 2025 through 2027.
An editorial is often the fruit of lobbying that some group has done with the editorial board, and reading between the lines here it’s not unreasonable to suspect that this was written on behalf of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, which has a deal with Oakland to build a bunch of not-super-specific stuff on the Coliseum site once it’s allowed to. Or maybe on behalf of other developers interested in the site, or construction companies, or who knows? I’m pretty sure editorial board meeting records aren’t FOILable, so tea leaves it will have to be for now.
Meanwhile, if you were waiting for this post to get around to the fresh renderings of a Las Vegas stadium that Fisher was set to announce in person today, I’m sorry to inform you that the event has been postponed because two Nevada state troopers were killed by a drunk driver on Thursday. The event has now been rescheduled for, nope, Fisher isn’t saying. This is not weird or suspicious at all, shiva tradition requires that one covers all stadium renderings with cloth for a period of — okay, fine, it’s totally weird and suspicious, that is both an opinion and factual reporting, I’m not a newspaper so I fortunately don’t have to draw arbitrary distinctions between the two here.
First off, Oakland isn’t getting an expansion team when MLB finally decides to expand. Nothing more to be said about that.
Lastly, the stadium renders aren’t ready and somehow Fisher found it convenient to use the troopers deaths (RIP) to “delay” their unveiling. The rest of Vegas (casinos, restaurants, shows, etc.) went on full bore over the weekend in light of the tragedy. Why “delay” indefinitely the release of some drawings? Weird.
I don’t understand why anyone would suggest or think Oakland should get an expansion team. I think there is some cognitive dissonance here that causes sports “journalists” to use dialogue that is real in their minds.
You can’t tell the truth about anything involved here, these are like touching the third rail after being pushed onto the tracks by a schizophrenic “person” who resides in the elements and lays in his own waste.
John Fischer should have the team expropriated because we all know he is running a racket and doing what is tantamount to a pump and dump and like all individuals of his ilk gets to use the usurious unfettered Wild West capitalism that has destroyed this economic zone that used to be a country.
They do it because they control the institutions, media, finance and all choke points of power. The lie of how the multi tiered justice system is applied is the same concept just a different entity that serves the same people.
I have no sympathy for Fischer but we all know that the Oakland city council was attempting to shake him down but also that couple of actual taxpayers who are left in Oakland with their “affordable housing” and other money laundering schemes and grifts.
Oakland is a dangerous place to be with your family after a game and the cops just want a paycheck and they don’t want to go to prison so you are on your own. Baseball is still a family oriented game, people don’t want to have to step over needles and unhoused people nor expose their kids to degenerate unhoused playing hide the kosher dog or just playing with their own member.
Don’t worry though Rob Manfred will see to it the game is destroyed that is his function.
God forbid your precious children learn about the existence of the poor and mentally ill. They might come to question why our country does a terrible job of caring about those people and you wouldn’t want that, would you?
The Median Household Income in Oakland is 85k USD. The median household income in Vegas is 61k USD. But you’re right, Oakland is nothing but a smoking crater, that makes escape from New York look like Singapore or Dubai. Christ, get out whatever media you’re listening to is telling you.
The East Bay has a ton of money in the metro area and Oakland has a lot of money. It’s a far bigger, better market by demos than Clark County is, and probably ever will be as we move deeper into this century.
As the other replies have noted, the problem of homelessness is substantially overstated for the political benefit of a very few. It’s also a broad regional problem, not just confined to a single city. And say what you will about Oakland PD, there’s valid complaints from all sides of the spectrum, but they keep the Coliseum area well-staffed and moving along on game days. I don’t think I’ve been more than 10 feet from a cop outside the stadium during the last few games I’ve attended. You’ve got a lot of work to do if you want to convince people that sporting events in Oakland are more unsafe than San Francisco. Especially since anyone coming in on BART has further to walk to the stadium on those practically post-apocalyptic city streets in SF!
I think, on some level, current Oakland city staff must realize that demanding priority for an expansion franchise is a perfunctory effort with limited upside. More to the point, which you touched on, why would you want to continue being in business with Major League Baseball at this point? Fisher is clearly totally incompetent and terrible at PR, but they’re not only allowing him to stick around, they’re actively incentivizing it by attaching a decade’s worth of sale penalties to the relocation approval! These people are not very stable business geniuses, and they’re also facing a revenue cliff from the collapse of the regional sports network model. Even getting Joe Lacob in the door with his positive track record is no guarantee, as he’s willing to let shady grifters like Chamath Palihapitiya hang around the Warriors ownership group.
Other cities that lost their team because they couldn’t reach a stadium deal with the owners got expansion teams after figuring out a deal with a different owner.
Cleveland Browns – Cleveland Browns
Minnesota North Stars – Minnesota Wild
Kansas City A’s – Kansas City Royals
Charlotte Hornets – Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets)
California Golden Seals – San Jose Sharks (that one took a while, but it was always in the works)
Seattle Pilots – Seattle Mariners
Houston Oilers – Houston Texans
Oakland/East Bay would be a better candidate for MLB expansion than the others available.
I hate to says this, but with the exception of New York and Baltimore/Washington consolidated areas has gotten a second new team after 2nd or in the case of NY (2nd and 3rd team). MLB does not want a new second team in the Bay Area. Even Charlie Finley regretted moving th A’s to Oakland.
“MLB does not want a new second team in the Bay Area.” You have definitive proof for this statement? Other than what Finley said a billion years ago? Looking fwd to your link re Manfred’s/MLB’s thoughts on this…
Speaking of (missing) links to MLB statements on matters of interest:
“First off, Oakland isn’t getting an expansion team when MLB finally decides to expand. Nothing more to be said about that”
I do not recall and cannot find a single utterance or written statement to this effect from anyone within MLB.
LOL!! Let’s see: dysfunctional/pathetic local government, hoping/praying for funding to come from the state/feds, 25+ years of failing to get a ballpark built, piss poor local corporate support/disposable incomes, a myriad of more pressing issues facing said town, etc etc. If you need a link or “written statement” when Oakland’s reality is staring us right in the face, I don’t know what to tell yah…
You could answer the same question you posed to the commenter above… and provide a link to the information you claim there is “nothing more to be said about”.
Expressing opinions is one thing (and is central to the exchanges on this site), portraying them as indisputable fact is quite another.
As you said to the fellow above, I am looking forward to your link re: Manfred/MLB’s thoughts on this… – or any independently verifiable evidence that MLB has already decided it will not issue an expansion franchise to Oakland.
The discussion of the “Browns” deal for Oakland is largely a face saving exercise for the city I would think. It allows them to say “we are working on bringing MLB back and have saved the name, colours and trademarks of the A’s for ‘you\'”.
The downside of said deal is that it puts the onus very much back on the city to “make it happen” in any way possible. One could easily see a rush to remake the A’s that involves spending even more than the city would have had to with pre-Fisher ownership to get things resolved in Oakland. (Just like the Browns).
If and when MLB expands Oakland would be a better market than most of the other options – but that doesn’t mean it is going to happen, or that the city will be able to get a deal done with Lacob (or whomever the designated expansion franchise owner would be).
Work to do, in other words. But if it came to that MLB will take the meeting. Hockey has failed in Atlanta twice and the league seems intent on doing it again at some point. If someone, anyone, wants to give you $2bn for an expansion franchise you take the meeting.
FWIW I think a deal can be done with a better owner than Fisher (and/or Davis, for that matter). It would be hard to find one worse than those two (though there are several candidates who are as bad). You cannot reach a deal with a partner that is committed to not reaching a deal under any circumstances – as Fisher was.
“There is no Oakland option”, as Lew Wolff said many times. Well, it was his mouth moving. But someone else’s hand was working it.
Considering baseball’s history of expansion rewards threatening of lawsuits and political pushes to end the anti-trust exemption way more then it values a suitable metro area for expansion- I’d say Oakland has as good of shot as any of the other cities to get a new team.
There’s definitely some ‘baggage’ to be cleared with respect to Oakland, Al. But I agree, looked at purely from a business perspective there is no reason to consider any other candidate for expansion as any better (some are, arguably, less viable) than Oakland.
We’ve just seen the owners approve a move (or at least the idea of a move… we don’t yet know that failson fisher can pull this off financially) that a significant percentage of their number think is either questionable or an outright mistake.
We don’t know how many because MLB did what it always does… whip the vote to ensure it is unanimous (any objections would have been made either in camera in the meetings, or outside the meetings entirely for reasons that are obvious). That number is probably less than 25% as that would have been enough to defeat the vote if they stuck to their position. Beyond that, though, we can’t guess. Was it the 2 or 3 owners who see Fisher’s perpetual MLB welfare position as costing them a possible $60m every couple of years? Or was it those owners plus the top 4 or 5 who are just sick of paying for their poor cousins’ mistakes (in this case, deliberate mistakes…)?
So maybe they will adopt the ‘screw Oakland, no matter how bad the other candidates are’ position on expansion too. Time will tell. As a candidate city for business reasons, though, it is at or near the top (pending the issuance of a third team in the NY/NJ area, of course, which we know is not happening…)