What cities do have, especially in the area of growth, and the Bay Area, good or bad, is growing, whether it's growing right or not is not my decision totally, they have zoning rights. We call them entitlements; you're entitled to build 1,000 apartment units.

Those entitlements are the new currency, in my opinion, for cities, governments and regionals and counties and so forth.

So let's assume there is the Oakland army base, and that has a lot of demands from a lot of groups, and it's not a great location for a ballpark. It's a piece of land I think the city owns, but if not, they can get to it.

Let's assume that developers, not so much ourselves, feel that is a great housing location. Our idea might be that since it's not zoned right now but is to be zoned or to be entitled, why not entitle it for 3,000 apartment units?

Those units might be worth $100,000 a piece. It's sort of your land value. Whether we're the developer or we join with a developer or a developer that we're not associated with says, "We'll pay $300 million for those entitlements rights."

We're saying to the city, "That's the subsidy we want, but we don't want it for free. Put it into the ballpark. If the ballpark costs $500 million, we'll add the $200 million, take care of the overruns, and we'll do the land under it."

That entitlement is a value, is a currency they can help us with. So what do they get out of it? They get a ballpark, which they'll own, and we'll have a longer lease than we have today, and somebody will build 3,000 apartment units. We think it's a very interesting idea.

That money we get, the charity we get, that money from the league, the only reason we're getting it is we are in a market where we're not supporting ourselves, so we get support. It's wonderful. If the Yankees want to keep giving us money that way, that's fine. Somewhere, that will come to an end. We would rather be paying it out rather than receiving it.

Sure, we'd all like to see a park in Jack London Square or some place similar.  But being wedged between the freeway and BART has been and still is a major selling point for the ol' Coliseum, and NO OTHER site so far has that.

Of course everyone is going to try and read into what he said about San Jose and territorial rights. But if you're the Giants, what do you want?  Well, if I'm the Giants, I want the A's to leave the Bay Area. (can I get an "Amen" on that?)

In short, San Jose will always be a possibility.  But if there's been some secret deal made behind the scenes, we have a very long way to go before San Jose becomes a realistic spot.

• The only viable location in Oakland is on or near the current Coliseum property.
• Workable sites for a stadium can be put together in San Jose.  There is a possible location near the downtown SJ arena that was discussed here recently.  Maybe the Santa Clara site that the Giants wanted several years ago can still be pieced together.
• Maybe there will be an under-the-table deal between Wolff and the Giants -- but rather than a deal that allows the A's to move to San Jose, maybe it will be a deal that puts big money in Wolff's pocket for staying in Oakland or leaving the Bay Area.  The Giants' "territorial rights" probably would not survive a court test if Wolff wanted to take them on, so the Giants might be motivated to pay Wolff to not challenge the Giants.

-- Dreyer's ice cream (now owned by Nestle, but still based in Oakland)
-- Mother's cookies
-- Kaiser Permanentne (non-profit HMO)
-- ANG Newspapers (publisher of Oakland Tribune and other Bay Area papers; a subsidiary of MediaNews Group)

Sure there are others. Help? Just thought this might be an interesting exercise.