Directing All My Anger At MLB

Unfortunately the fans writing day after day to Selig begging for a decision is not working. The press needs to jump on the wagon and start the questioning. We need the A’s beat writers, broadcasters, Rob Neyer etc. to start writing about the situation and demands for an answer.

It seems Lew Wolff is in no hurry to seek an answer himself from his good pal.

good post, new guy. Er.. hi Blez.

We are the whipping boy of the sporting world.

Eeeeeveryone else gets to watch a team in a decent facility with decent ambiance, and we get this dump. MLB is being neglectful. But even worse, MLB is being unfair to an entire franchise and fanbase. As a lifelong baseball fan, the A’s current situation makes baseball borderline unenjoyable for me, and not just because they’re losing on the field. It’s hard not to be pissed off, even if it is just a baseball team.

But is the A’s ownership really waiting for “some answer, ANY answer”? They already have rights to Alameda and Contra Costa Counties; they don’t need Bud’s blessing to pursue a new stadium in their existing territory.

I remember being excited that by my senior year the A’s would be in a nice brand new stadium 20 minutes from my house. Well that time has since come and gone, and we’re still stuck going nowhere.

My only guess is that the Giants keep holding out for more money, but Selig should just shut them down then, since no one really likes them anyway. I think we should just take AT&T park hostage until we get our new stadium.

Selig is screwing the A’s and their chances to move forward one way or another with all these hangups.

(and granted I haven’t followed the issue fully). How is there actually any “legal threat” from the Giants if MLB were to grant the A’s territorial rights to San Jose?

My understanding is that while the Giants weren’t really supposed to have rights to San Jose indefinitely, due to an oversight they were granted them indefinitely. OK.

However, don’t MLB’s rules quite clearly say that with a 3/4 vote of the owners, territorial rights can be given? (Or is that just “a move can be approved” assuming you have rights to move there?)

Because if so, what makes the Giants different from the other 29 teams, all of whom have to accept a 3/4 vote that might change the status quo? What legal claim could the Giants possibly make?

Again, maybe I just don’t understand what the actual rules are, but considering it would be in MLB’s best interest to have a franchise build a stadium, sell out games, and be popular, instead of play in an old stadium no fans or players want to come to, I don’t see how this keeps happening.

Everything that was posted was exactly what I was thinking, but I would have probably done a much worse job typing it out. I don’t post much but I do visit everyday, yet I can’t remain silent on this.

I’ve accepted the fact that the team won’t go anywhere for a while and as much as I hate that, I will continue to watch and attend games like I’ve been doing for the past 20+ years. I love this franchise. I hate the treatment they’re getting.

We as fans can’t do much other than rally with each other and be heard, but since Mr. Selig seems to have swept this franchise under the rug, I fear our cries are on deaf ears now.

So now what’s left for this franchise to do? Get draft picks? Tank the season and trade off players for as much as we can get? I’m really at a loss for words on this.

TL;DR version: MLB is a joke

Did he take any questions about the A’s situation?

He’s had some nerve problems in his back recently and that’s probably the biggest reason (along with other injuries the team’s had) the A’s DFA’d him. He was offered a minor league contract but decided to decline it and said that once he’s feeling better again he plans to sign with a team in Japan.

This was something he’d told me was on his mind already back when he was playing in the Mexican League last year because some contacts had been developed playing internationally, and at least one Japanese team was looking to bring him over in the offseason but the A’s wanted to keep him around.

Personally I know he didn’t have much of a future here but I would have liked to see him stick around in a setup that was more beneficial for him. On the other hand, I hope he plays well over there, earns a spot on another MLB team sometime and gets another opportunity instead of being shuttled back and forth between wasting away in the bullpen and pitching off and on in Triple-A. At lest, I’m glad I got the chance to get to know him a little. I’ll always remember seeing his first two starts and the messages he wrote on the copies of a couple photos I’d sent along with others for his family.

Mt. Davis went up in 1995. Giambi was AL MVP in 2000 and Tejada was in 2002. Good hitters can hit anywhere. Clearly, we have no good hitters on the 2011 version of the A’s.

Didn’t Beltre sign for way more dollar$ in Texas? Didn’t Berkman want to play the field, when the A’s were offering a DH role? I’m not buying the “no one wants to play in Oakland” line.

It took the creator of this site to say it clearly for all: “One thing I will say about Schott and Hofmann, and believe me, I couldn’t stand those guys, but they didn’t come out and declare the franchise a lame duck in its current location which effectively alienated the Oakland loyalists and also gave potential free agents little appeal in signing here.”

Great post Blez!

Stockton.

The fact that we gave them territorial rights to the area where their park sits now should be a story that is picked up by the local media. They should run with it as much as they can…
Wolff, Beane, anyone that can, should make this information VERY public. This would either force the hand of the Giants as it would make them look like greedy, douchy hypocrites and would probably even upset some of their fans, or else it would make Selig and friends do something in order to stop it from getting out of hand.
Screw it if that’s not considered ethical, at this point the A’s organization should do whatever they can to get what is absolutely essential in order to run this franchise.

It’s like you took the words right out of my mouth (ok, and made them far more eloquent than I would have). I don’t fault Wolfe – he has tried to spend money and (at least theoretically) has explored stadium options in Fremont (two), Oakland and San Jose. All of these alternatives are better than the “Las Vegas A’s” or the “Portland A’s”. And, while it is tempting to fault Beane (and he’s not perfect), he has at least attempted to put together what we all thought back in March looked like a contender.

You’re right. The bulk of the blame lies at the foot of Selig and his morons, um, er, minions. They solved this problem before with the Nationals. It’s not easy but it’s not that hard and if any of the rest of us dilly-dallied for two years on a strategic project at work we’d be sacked – and rightfully so. Oh, and we would have been sacked a year ago or more.

I was so tempted to love the idea floated in the SJ Mercury a few weeks ago about challenging the anti-trust clause. Unfortunately, even if we won that battle, we’d likely lose the war.

Great post. Thank you!

I’m a long-time lurker and rare poster on AN, an ancient season ticket holder through great, good, and bad years, a fan of the A’s and the A’s only.

I concur with Blez as he said it nearly perfectly. "One thing I will say about Schott and Hofmann, and believe me, I couldn’t stand those guys, but they didn’t come out and declare the franchise a lame duck in its current location which effectively alienated the Oakland loyalists and also gave potential free agents little appeal in signing here."

But what I would add to the discussion is while MLB and the Giants, the City of Oakland, NIMBYs, and the economy, and on and on have been barriers, I have loathed the way the current ownership has killed the golden goose in the meantime. We could go through all of the reasons (some of them probably just feelings), and talk about the tarp, the failure to capitalize on sell-outs, fireworks nights (an unparallelled East Bay tradition), and the A’s history, as well as the conspicuous lack of ex- A’s players walking the stands or immortalized on monuments, or signing bats for the kids. I’m sure there are ways to explain Wolff and Fischer to make them out as sympathetic figures in this. But I can’t shake how I have loathed their downcasting of the great A’s organization since they took it over.

Right now, I don’t really care where it is, whether it be in Oakland or San Jose. I am frustrated at the fact that Selig and the MLB can’t figure anything out. I’m not a big fan of Lew Wolff, but at least he’s trying. The situation that the A’s are in now is one that really hinders their chances of winning and performing well.