Barber: Can Dave Kaval's 'creative whirlwind' get A's stadium built?

OAKLAND

As Andy Warhol once suggested, we will all eventually have our 15 minutes of Dave.

Mine came a week and a half ago at Shibe Park Tavern, the Oakland Coliseum concession area that used to be called the Westside Club until the A’s transformed it into a throwback watering hole of brick veneer and pool tables and wood reclaimed from the Fox Theater.

Dave Kaval, the newish A’s president, was nearing the end of a gauntlet of media obligations. I heard him on the radio on my drive to the ballpark. He was talking to another reporter when I arrived, and had to duck away for a phone call before I exhausted all my questions. I asked Kaval how many interviews he was doing that day. At least 25, he said.

And yet when I sat down at the small table he had turned into his temporary office, Kaval did not seem the least bit exhausted. More like exhausting. He speaks clearly and enthusiastically, his eyes wide, as if he can’t wait to tell you this next crucial piece of information. He stays on topic, delivering items in bullet points.

And somehow it works. Kaval is one of those rare salesmen who seems fully, earnestly committed to his product. You believe him because he believes himself.

And that boundless energy is impressive.

Troy Smith, the A’s senior director of marketing, said Kaval conjures a “creative whirlwind.”

“The ideas come fast and furiously,” Smith told me. “There are times when you’re just trying to keep up, to be honest. But that’s fun, trying to hold on.”

The A’s and the San Jose Earthquakes are co-owned, so Smith was familiar with Kaval when the latter was working strictly with the soccer team. But he didn’t know what to expect from his new boss when he joined the A’s in November, in a restructuring that also saw John Fisher take over managing-director duties from Lew Wolff.

Smith found a kindred spirit in Kaval, who values risk-taking.

“I’d rather have someone who works for me go 3 for 10 and make seven mistakes than try to go 1 for 1,” Kaval said. “We make all sorts of mistakes. I make mistakes every day.”

Despite his admiration, Smith acknowledged that the new prez has shaken up the office a bit.

“You hear him coming first, I can tell you that,” Smith said. “He’s got this voice that carries.”

Smith described the scene at the Coliseum on Thursday night.

Moments after the A’s had secured a 5-1 win against the Los Angeles Angels, Kaval strode onto the field to snap photos, which he posted to his Instagram account on the spot. “He immediately walks into our office, comes up to me, ‘Hey, great win! Great job!’ Fist-pumps me and keeps going,” Smith said.

Kaval, it seems, is always going somewhere.

I thought he might be one of those insufferable superpeople who sleep four hours a night, but he said no, he’s a solid eight-hour guy. I thought maybe it was caffeine. He said he drinks no more than a cup or two of coffee a day.

“My wife is from Sweden, and they drink, like, a ton of coffee. I will tell you I don’t drink as much as her,” Kaval said.

Maria Kaval, an Oracle vice president, has the deeper East Bay connections. Born Maria Fredricsson, she moved from Scandinavia to Newark when she was 6.

Dave Kaval is from Cleveland. He is fond of saying that his name is pronounced like the first two syllables in “Cavalier,” and he attended every World Series game there last year. For Game 1 he sat with his father, uncle and brother - the same foursome that watched John Elway’s Broncos break the Browns’ hearts with “The Drive.”

Kaval got both his undergraduate and MBA degrees at Stanford.

In between, he and a friend visited every Major League Baseball stadium and wrote a book about the experience called “The Summer That Saved Baseball.”

Around here, though, Kaval is best known as the guiding force behind the construction of Avaya Stadium, the Earthquakes’ $100 million facility that opened in 2015.

Now Kaval is overseeing the A’s #RootedInOakland marketing campaign. Since he became president, the team has refurbished Greenman Field in East Oakland and commissioned a fierce-looking mural at 19th and Webster downtown. The day the Raiders announced they were leaving for Las Vegas (proooobably a coincidence), Kaval joined Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf in raising an A’s flag above City Hall.

Most of all, Kaval has demonstrated a willingness to listen. He made a splash in early December when he opened his door for “office hours” at the Coliseum, entertaining a stream of fans and jotting down their suggestions and complaints.

His initial session on Dec. 6, which lasted 5½ hours and accommodated more than 100 visitors, got a ton of media coverage.

But here’s the thing. Kaval has been holding office hours ever since, just as he has done in San Jose. He says he has logged more than 300 of them by now.

From one of those afternoons, Kaval notes, came the idea of christening the field at the Coliseum as Rickey Henderson Field.

A fan told Kaval he should bestow the honor upon one of Oakland’s great players. Kaval immediately thought of Henderson, the brilliant leadoff man.

“It just kind of came to us. I think we both gave each other a high-five,” Kaval said at the press conference that introduced the name, as he sat next to Henderson.

Kaval and his staff have also lined up food trucks for game days - 16 trucks for marquee contests, eight for the rest of the home dates - and dropped prices at the Coliseum to $8 for mass-produced domestic beers, $10 for craft brews.

Fans have responded eagerly. For years they felt ignored by Wolff. In Kaval, they believe they have a sympathetic ear.

Now comes the hard part. Kaval has promised to get a new stadium built in Oakland. The A’s are currently analyzing four potential sites: Howard Terminal and Brooklyn Basin in proximity to the water, property near Laney College (close to Lake Merritt) and the vast sweep of parking lot south of the current Coliseum. Kaval said all four are “kind of neck and neck” right now, each with advantages and disadvantages.

Kaval insists the Avaya model can work in Oakland. In some ways, he said, the previous project was harder.

“With Avaya, people might say it was smaller, it was easier,” Kaval said. “But it’s also a sport that’s a lot less proven. You know, Major League Baseball’s been around for, whatever, 120 years and longer. Eventually, you would assume a team’s gonna get a new ballpark. In soccer, there’s no guarantee that anything was ever gonna get built.”

But that is to ignore Oakland’s dense politics and stressed budget. Building a baseball stadium here is likely an order of magnitude harder than building a soccer stadium in Silicon Valley.

And while replacing the Coliseum with a dedicated baseball park would be a huge accomplishment, there is a parallel challenge.

The long-term success of the organization depends on winning. Ask the 49ers. Levi’s Stadium is a symbol of Jed York’s perseverance, but fans were dumping tickets like spoiled milk last year when the on-field product was awful.

The A’s have posted a winning record in just three of the past 10 seasons.

Kaval can serve up all the microbrewed beer, Korean barbecue and optimism in the world.

As long as this team is?#RootedInMediocrity, Kaval’s dreams will be a hard sell.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post. His blog “110 Percent” can be found at http://110percent.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.