Was it a horrible mistake for the Giant's to move to San Francisco?

by OmahaHi on Nov 9, 2010 11:55 PM PST

The recent FanPost about Selig saying it was a horrible mistake for the A's to move to Oakland Here got me thinking.

Was it a bigger mistake for the Giant's to move to San Francisco?

They could have stayed in New York and had billion dollar TV contracts and maybe a hand -full of World Series Rings. Yes things are working out for them now, after 50+ years, but how many years of bad attendance, bad teams and shitty stadiums did they have to go through? Was it all worth it for them?

They had a decade before the A’s came to the bay. We almost Immediately showed them how to win Rings. We also stole some fans.

KC was no great place to have a franchise then, and it still sucks now, . We came from a low-revenue place, to a low-revenue place, and learned how to win. so the move for the A’s worked out

The Giant's left NEW YORK CITY to eventually share the Bay with the A’s. They came from the Biggest revenue place, to for most of there history, a lower-revenue place. And up till this year, learned how to lose.

alternate history: if the Giant's didn't move to the Bay in the late 50's, the A’s might have been the first. would they have picked San Francisco instead of Oakland?. Your San Francisco Athletics.

If the Giants had moved out of state back before ATnT Park, would San Francisco now be on the Table for the A’s to build a new stadium?

Oakland A's WS rings- 4 or about one per decade. Mistake moves to the Bay- 0 ?

SF Giant's WS rings-1 or two per century. Mistake moves to the Bay-1 ?

Full disclosure: I need any scrap I can get right now to discount the Giant's success and elevate our failure's right now. If anyone made a mistake around here, I'm saying its them. I'm a hater, I admit it. It helps ease the pain.

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Comments

Yes, all the moves since 1950 were mistakes except the Browns and Athletics moving. The A's should have moved to Atlanta. The Pirates should have moved to Miami and the Senators to the NL. Expansion should have been done westward. We should have:

National League — Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins (Pirates), Cincinnati Reds, Washington Nationals (Senators)

American League — Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles (Browns), Atlanta Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers

Central League — Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, St Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Texas Rangers

Pacific Coast League — Seattle Rainers, Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Seals, Oakland Oaks, Los Angeles Angels, Hollywood Stars, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks

I hate Bob Geren and his peanut brain so much -- lenscrafters

by WaddellCanseco on Nov 10, 2010 12:26 AM PST reply actions

I like it

"The ego, the super-ego, and the Ed" - dannycakes

by Future Ed on Nov 10, 2010 5:30 AM PST up reply actions

i said in the other thread, the A’s should have moved to SF in ’55 instead of moving to Kansas City, thereby beating the Giants by 3 years.

"We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon."
--Coach Clark

by carp on Nov 10, 2010 7:18 AM PST up reply actions

They would have taken LA before SF.

Billy Beane... What have you done for me lately?

by UncleLeo on Nov 10, 2010 7:30 AM PST up reply actions

had Milwaukee not given the Braves a free stadium

this might have happened. I think the AL and NL could have stayed almost exactly as they were in 55, adding a Southern League (eventually) and elevating the PCL as was contemplated at some point.

And Seals-Oaks and Angels-Stars games would be epic as they once were.

May 29, 2010: Steven Revetria becomes Giants General Manager. The rest is history.

"118 elements, and still no stanfurdium"- carp, paraphrased

"Oh no, he wanted me to do that. It was intentional." - Tim Lincecum

by natteringnabob on Nov 10, 2010 7:35 AM PST up reply actions

So it is Selig's fault!

I hate Bob Geren and his peanut brain so much -- lenscrafters

by WaddellCanseco on Nov 10, 2010 8:28 AM PST up reply actions

Did you forget the Patriot League,

or are you just not allowed to talk about it?

"Good thing you can't hit, otherwise everybody would hate you"
– H.J.S., my ex coach (while drunkenly talking to me during a team visit to a strip joint)

by elcroata on Nov 10, 2010 12:12 PM PST up reply actions

It was a mistake for the A's to not kick them when they were down back in 1992 and about to move to Tampa.

We should never have given them San Jose, as they are being really spoiled children about giving it back. They have absolutely no need for that market, as SF’s natural tourist population will always go fill the stadium that’s located in a very easy place to get to just minutes from the financial district.

by PL78 on Nov 10, 2010 5:16 AM PST reply actions

Thats not what the Giants are contesting.

They are contesting that a good deal of their fanbase comes FROM San Jose.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. ~ Thomas Jefferson

by ZacharyCF on Nov 10, 2010 7:23 AM PST up reply actions

or rather, their corporate $$ base

lots of those seats at ATT Park are bought by large Bay Area companies

by OaklandSi on Nov 10, 2010 7:41 AM PST up reply actions

SF Giants

After the Giants moved to SF, they did not have a losing season until 1972. They drew around 1.5 million every year until 1868, when the A’s moved in. In 68 they dipped under a million for for first time. No it was not a mistake for the Giants to move to the fifth largest market in the USA.
And the Bay Area market can support two teams if they are promoted properly. From 88 to 93 the A’s drew about 2.5 million a year almost cracking 3 mil in 90. The Giants were drawing about 1.8 at the same time. The A’s averaged about 2 million a year from 200 to 2007. At the same time for the Giants, more than 3 million every year.
The areas where Charlie Finley departed from drew far better after he left. The Royals had great attendance success with Kaufmann as owner and the A’s drew better with the great Andy Dolich doing the marketing.
One reason the A’s attendance suffers is because A’s fans are told that their stadium stinks and the team wants to move away. It’s hard for the fans in Marin, Sacto and Oakland areas to invest emotional attachment to the team when these things are drilled into their heads. The same thing happened when the Giants trashed Candlestick and made overtures to move to Toronto and Florida.

by Charley Thompson on Nov 10, 2010 7:26 AM PST reply actions

The team saying the stadium sucks

does not drive people away. The stadium sucking drives people away.

Nobody hears what the team says about the stadium because they don’t care.

"The ego, the super-ego, and the Ed" - dannycakes

by Future Ed on Nov 10, 2010 12:51 PM PST up reply actions

Fair enough.

I think attendance is down at least in part (mainly?) because Billy constantly traded away fan favorites. He did so in order to hopefully keep the team competitive, and it was good baseball, but bad marketing, especially for those more casual fans who don’t know Daric Barton from shinola.

I hated the Swisher trade, as a fan far, far away, who couldn’t even get much info about the A’s. (And in fairness wrt my point of view, if we had kept Swisher, we wouldn’t be so desperate to get a COF with pop, would we? Of course I recognize we did very welll in that trade …)Not to mention the Big 3. I recognize that Billy needed to rebuild. I recognize that many of the now great young players came from those trades, but there was so much churning…

"Feel so bad, feel like a ballgame on a rainy day"-Lightnin' Hopkins

by justANotherAsFan on Nov 11, 2010 10:22 AM PST up reply actions

If the Giants stay in NY

the Dodgers presumably stay in Brooklyn. Other NL teams agreed to the move in part because having two teams on the road trip meant that they didn’t lose money (as happened to the AL teams when the Angels set up shop in Wrigley Field in 1961).

They would have probably survived, but the Giants would never have had “billion dollar TV contracts”. Horace Stoneham managed to take a team featuring the most popular baseball player of the day (who ensured huge road crowds wherever the team went) and draw flies in NY. In any case he was planning a move to Minneapolis (where they owned the Millers) before O’Malley came along with the west coast scheme (and it’s been speculated that Stoneham had been studying the same idea on his own).

May 29, 2010: Steven Revetria becomes Giants General Manager. The rest is history.

"118 elements, and still no stanfurdium"- carp, paraphrased

"Oh no, he wanted me to do that. It was intentional." - Tim Lincecum

by natteringnabob on Nov 10, 2010 7:49 AM PST reply actions

50s relocations

Things happened in the ‘50s for very specific reasons, not what theoretically would have been best. Two teams had to relocate to the West Coast because of air travel considerations. The Dodgers were stronger than the Giants, who had basically been killed by the success of the Yankees, but the place NYC czar Robert Moses proposed to build the new Dodgers stadium was on the other end of a toll bridge he wanted to build, so the Dodgers hated it.
Also, San Francisco wouldn’t have been an option for the ‘54 Philadelphia A’s, transcontinental jet travel didn’t come in until the last part of the decade. The A’s lost out in Philadelphia for a very transitory reason, TV killed attendance at the same time as the 1950 Phillies captured the city’s imagination, despite the A’s far more lustrous history.
Finley made a mistake moving to Oakland, the market AT THAT TIME wasn’t big enough for two teams. But now it’s plenty big enough.

by vk on Nov 10, 2010 12:17 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs

+1

We should all read “Dodger’s move west”, its a great book.

"The ego, the super-ego, and the Ed" - dannycakes

by Future Ed on Nov 10, 2010 12:54 PM PST up reply actions

I will keep an eye out for it.

by LoneStranger on Nov 11, 2010 10:44 AM PST up reply actions

A family fued between the Mack heirs also played a part...

…though I think eventually one of the Philly teams would have moved anyway. It was fate that made it all happen at one of the truly rare times when the Phillies were on top.

Billy Beane... What have you done for me lately?

by UncleLeo on Nov 10, 2010 7:14 PM PST up reply actions