A TALE OF TWO TEAMS AND ONE CITY: PRO SPORTS AT A CROSSROADS IN OAKLAND
Lew's Story: Chapter 1
When Lew Wolff thinks about a new ballpark for the Oakland A's, he imagines something intimate. In his mind's eye, he sees a small, cozy, state-of-the-art yard with all the modern amenities -- much like AT&T Park, the gorgeous home of the rival San Francisco Giants.
Wolff is the managing partner of the A's and he has run the team since 2005. He is nearing 80 years old. He is kind and his humor is self-deprecating, and he reminds people of their favorite uncle.
For at least a decade, he has sought his dream ballpark -- a man on a quest, Sir Lancelot or perhaps, sadly, Don Quixote. He wants out of the Coliseum because he shares it with the Raiders. It is the only ballpark/stadium in America housing a Major League Baseball team and an NFL team. In the fall, the Raiders play on a dirt infield. When they extend the outfield bleachers for football, it ruins the grass for the A's.
The Coliseum opened in 1966 and is hopelessly outdated. The toilets in the clubhouses routinely back up. The stadium was irrevocably ruined for baseball after the Raiders returned to the Coliseum in 1995. They erected new stands in center field, nicknamed Mt. Davis. The A's felt their baseball park was shoe-horned into a football stadium.
Before Mt. Davis, fans could look past center field to the colorful ice plant lining the outer rim of the ballpark, and past that to the Oakland hills, golden in the summer. All that is blocked. Gone. The intimate feeling for baseball also is gone.
Sometimes, the A's feel like second-class tenants to the Raiders even though they play 81 regular-season home games a season and the Raiders play eight. The A's opened their 1996 season in a minor-league ballpark in Las Vegas because of renovations for the Raiders at the Coliseum.
For years, Wolff has been desperate to leave the Coliseum. He explored the Uptown neighborhood of Oakland, an area currently booming with restaurants and nightlife. But then-mayor Jerry Brown was not a sports fan and was more interested in residential housing than an A's home in Uptown. And Wolff moved on.
He negotiated with Fremont for what he called Ballpark City, a village with residential housing and restaurants and hotels and a baseball park. He even had a little model of the whole thing he proudly showed potential investors. But Ballpark City didn't work out. And Wolff moved on.
Still, he had his vision -- that intimate ballpark, something retro, something Northern California and Major League Baseball and America could gaze at with pride.
He shifted his vision to San Jose. His dream had remained constant, but the location kept changing, a marksman aiming at a moving target. He already had developed property in Santa Clara County and he knows the land and the politicians. This could work. He believed it could. He hoped it could.
But the Giants put up a wall. Call it the Great Wall of Baseball. They insist Santa Clara County is their territory. Wolff and everyone in A's ownership find this declaration insubstantial. Rude. The whole uncomfortable situation exists because the A's once did the Giants a favor.
In 1989, the Giants were a failing business at windy Candlestick Park and A's owner Walter Haas, a decent man, relinquished his rights to Santa Clara County so the Giants could pursue a ballpark in Silicon Valley. He did this to help the Giants and to help Major League Baseball.
The Giants' ballpark initiative failed, but Haas never asked the Giants to give him back Santa Clara County. From the A's point of view, the Giants "own" Santa Clara County on a fluke, own it because Walter Haas was a gentleman. The A's want the Giants' ownership to be gentlemen in return. The Giants say, no dice, Santa Clara County is an essential part of their fan base.
Major League Baseball established a committee to study the situation. That was five years ago. The committee never has made a decision. No one knows what the committee thinks. Nothing has happened. Not one spade has entered the ground for the A's San Jose ballpark.
San Jose sued Major League Baseball, tried to overturn its antitrust exemption, saying the exemption does not apply to teams moving. The A's could not sue Major League Baseball because they are part of Major League Baseball and that would be like suing themselves. That case is in appeal but it seems unlikely the city will prevail.
So now, in the year 2014, Wolff is not even close to realizing his vision. It remains just that, a vision, a beautiful thing of his imagination. He wants San Jose, where he is not allowed to be. And he is stuck in Oakland, where he doesn't want to be.
Things recently got worse for Wolff, if worse was even possible. He is trying to negotiate a 10-year lease extension at the current site because he has no other place to play, at least in the short term, a decade apparently being short term. And things seemed to be going well. Oakland wants the A's and the A's need Oakland, although Wolff has talked of building, if necessary, a "temporary" ballpark, whatever that is and wherever that may be, if negotiations peter out.
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