The stove runs hot in the spring, and a fresh batch of baseball rumors about the Oakland A’s potential move to San Jose came pouring in this past weekend.
Bill Madden, of the New York Daily News, tipped the first domino Saturday by reporting writing that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig will uphold the San Francisco Giant’s territorial claims over the South Bay, and prevent the Oakland A’s from relocating to San Jose. There aren’t any hard facts to support Madden’s near certainty in the column, but he did quote an anonymous baseball lawyer about the difficulty of owners turning against the Giants and voting in favor of the move. Almost nothing is mentioned about a possible financial compromise between the two clubs.
Rob Neyer examined the validity of Madden’s work, and his lede pretty much says it all. A little less than a year ago we took an exhaustive look at what San Jose has done to make way for the Oakland A’s.
San Francisco Chronicle beat writer Henry Schulman sprung into action to follow up on Madden’s reporting. On Sunday, Schulman reported that Selig’s office says “it is not true that Commissioner Bud Selig and baseball owners have all but decided to uphold the Giants’ territorial rights to San Jose, which would preclude the A’s from going there.”
So where does this leave us? Basically the same place we were on Friday. It’s been three years since Selig formed his committee to study the best places for the A’s to play. And still no word. Clearly, some people are tired of this whole charade, as this uninspired headline from NBC Sports would suggest: “Conflicting reports on the Athletics-San Jose thing.”
First, giants will not give up rights.
Second, other owners will not give in, knowing they may face the same demise.
Third, San jose votes will vote no, when city council is just giving money away, so Chuck can retire and reap the benifits for giving the city property away.
Fourth, this city cannot afford it. Wolfe is not going to build this BB Park without city money.
Fifth, the city has already committed 22 million for road repair, where did this mystery transportation fund come from? Like Bart and high speed rail to come to downtown in the next 20 years if ever.
Chuck cailms fiscal emergency and yet we can afford all this crap. No one comes downtown after dark other to party and get drunk or buy drugs. It would be like going to a A’s game and getting mugged.
No thank you, rather go to a SJ Giants game and have fun.
what errors to post
thats a good thing because we do not want the A’s coming to a corrupt city that is giving land away for pennies on the dollar and will then find another why to finance the park when it’s claiming fiscal emergency.
How do you know that the city is going to help finance the ballpark?
Pracically gave the land away, spending 22 million to improve roads around the site. What more do you want, goes ask Chuck he is the one hiding all the money.
Here is a letter from Mayor Reed to MLB showing he has spent or socked away over 70M for the ballpark.
http://sz0141.ev.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/MajorLeagueBaseball_02012010.pdf?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=466460&part=2.2