No way the A’s will get stadium in Oakland
There’s this baseball team in Oakland that used to be in Kansas City, and before that in Philadelphia, and seemingly next will move to Las Vegas.
Used to win a lot of games before management traded away the guys who were responsible.
But what happens on the field for the Athletics forever remains secondary to occurrences off the field, meaning the inability to construct a new stadium/ballpark or whatever you wish to call it.
Basically, after years of discussions, debate and frustration, you can’t call it anything except a failure.
Or didn’t you see the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s crunch time for the A’s”? You’re thinking, if only Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco could step to the plate, but they couldn’t solve the problem.
With the city’s budget and with the city’s administrators, the problem is unsolvable.
The Bay Area for a long time had a spotty record when it comes to retaining its sporting franchises. The Giants lost four ballot measures in two different counties to fund a stadium, before individuals such as Peter McGowan and Larry Baer got involved.
Didn’t the people then running the A’s arrange for billboards near the Bay Bridge that read something like, “While they were building a ballpark, we were building a winner”?
History has been unkind to the location the Spaniards arriving in San Francisco long ago named “Contra Costa,” which translates as “the other shore.”
The Raiders left Oakland and went to Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland and went to San Francisco.
And now? The A’s-to-Vegas shift has been rumored so many times, it seems inevitable, especially now that negotiations between franchise and city must be completed in a week to get a vote on the proposed $12 billion waterfront stadium.
They’ve had weeks to settle this thing, so how can it be settled in days?
Who’s at fault? Charles O. Finley, who moved the A’s to Oakland in 1968? The Coliseum people who agreed to modify a football stadium for baseball?
The Haas family turned the A’s into champions, but nobody has been able to turn the Coliseum — now a half-century old and all but disintegrating — into a fan-friendly baseball park.
Indeed two games against the Giants a few weeks ago brought more than 70,000 to Oakland, but that was as much part of the situation as the games with 5,000 fans. Why did all those people show up?
Why hadn’t they been showing up?
The only certain thing is the uncertainty. It’s like remodeling a kitchen. No matter the estimates, the project will cost you more.
Which may be the reason some people in the East Bay are not so much wary of a ballpark as they are opposed to one. Troubled by everything from financing to, say, the stadium lights shining into the eyes of tugboat pilots. Yeah, we need to keep the A’s, but what about the fate of the ships? And what about the homeless?
Sure, I’m pessimistic. If Oakland couldn’t keep the Raiders, the team that was formed there, the team that made Oakland a major factor in the nation’s sporting landscape, how is it ever going to retain the Athletics?
According to the Chronicle, Oakland is studying the issue of a limited obligation bond, “which would raise money for infrastructure upgrades, then use money from hotel, sales and parking taxes generated by the project to pay off the debt.”
Sounds plausible, but plausibility isn’t the issue, money is. Las Vegas has it. Oakland doesn’t.