DLD 11/7/06--Oakland Link Dump of Fremont

It's never a dull offseason for the green and gold.  Soon, we will be watching the hot stove season unfold, but in the meantime, we have a new A's ballpark to chew on, where you could presumably be watching A's games as soon as 2011.

Predictably, there is lots of reaction, both on this site and in the media about the likely move.

The Oakland Tribune's Dave Newhouse says that if the A's move to Fremont, they have no one to blame but themselves:

Make no mistake, Jerry Brown is ringing the funeral bells you're hearing. Former city manager Robert Bobb had the downtown ballpark in motion. HOK, the reputable ballpark architects from Kansas City, was hired. Brown then dumped Bobb faster than Rickey Henderson could steal second base.

Brown's deal is housing, and there are condos rising in Oakland by the second. That's wonderful, mayor, but just remember the A's left town on your watch. They are your legacy as much as Oakland's.

But did Wolff deliberately pick that "ballpark village" site directly across 66th Avenue from the Coliseum knowing the small business owners situated there weren't about to move, thus freeing him to leave?

"A lot of people think that way; my colleagues think that way," Oakland City Council president Ignacio De La Fuente said. "As usual (regarding the latest Fremont news), we've received no contact whatsoever (from Wolff). Maybe that's one of the problems."

Communication definitely broke down between Wolff and the politicos, leaving both sides at fault to some degree. But with Bobb out of the picture and Brown out of touch, Wolff's one-year ultimatum to Oakland to find him a ballpark site or else passed by without any resoution.

This is pretty close to how I feel on the subject, although other posters such as FreeSeatUpgrade have argued eloquently to the contrary.  Wolff determined in two years, first in an advisory role, then as owner, that Oakland was never going to happen.

In other ballpark-related linkage, Jimmy Cliff of the Merc points out that there's many rivers to cross before the ballpark can actually be built:

A final decision about a stadium would take at least two years after an application is filed. To date, Wolff has been seeking information from Fremont officials but has presented no proposal to the city. Wolff follows former owner Steve Schott, who long wanted to move the team to Santa Clara County, in seeking a location that would be accessible and appealing to Silicon Valley companies.

Pacific Commons is isolated from other residential portions of the city, meaning a shift to housing would require a vast array of new services, including police, fire, libraries, parks and schools. The property is five miles from the existing Fremont BART station, and about two miles from a planned new BART station in Warm Springs, whose construction is not yet guaranteed.

I am very curious to see how well the process actually goes.

There is also the issue of what to call the new team, which is speculated upon in salb918's article for the Merc:

The Silicon Valley designation could be popular with Cisco Systems, the San Jose-based maker of computer-networking equipment that holds the rights to the land Wolff would use for his stadium.

Baseball historian John Thorn, however, said it was a bad idea to consider labeling the team the Silicon Valley A's because that honors an industry, not a community.

``It's terrible because the region, 20 years from now, may no longer be known as Silicon Valley,'' said Thorn, who lives in upstate New York. ``What you're talking about is something that's very present-centric. What if they called it Slide Rule Park in 1962?''

Regardless of how this all works out, I'm just happy that a new ballpark in the Bay area is being accomplished.  Getting a project like this done is a enormous accomplishment.  Don't believe me?  Ask Sacramento Kings fans, who despite 311 consecutive home sellouts, are unlikely to get a new facility constructed in Sacramento.

Finally, a little bit of roster-related news that might otherwise get lost in the ballpark hubhub.  It looks like keeping Jay Payton and Frank Thomas, like pimping, might not be easy:

Along with hiring a manager, the A's have other business, including trying to re-sign Frank Thomas. Like many other free agents, the DH is waiting until Sunday, when other teams can make offers, before weighing his options. Four other teams have expressed interest in Thomas, according to agent Arn Tellem. Outfielder Jay Payton also wants to see what the market will bear. His agent, Craig Landis, said seven teams have called about Payton.

There's an awful lot of interest out there in those guys, and I hope that the A's can keep at least one of them.  The bigger one of them.

Vote Quimby.