Purdy: Oakland A’s departure was three decades in the making
Didn’t have to happen. We all know that. But why?
Today, the Oakland A’s begin their final homestand as the Oakland A’s. Like other Bay Area baseball consumers, my wife and I made a pilgrimage to the Coliseum this month for a personal farewell to the Athletics in the Bay.
Soaking in the melancholy atmosphere, we recalled taking our kids there on sunny 1980s afternoons. That was before the NFL Raiders returned to the Coliseum in 1995 and spawned Mount Davis, the centerfield monstrosity that was constructed for $500 million — and was subsequently tarped off after the Raiders couldn’t sell tickets in the seats they’d demanded to be built. Just one of the ridiculous machinations that led to the A’s next-season departure to Sacramento. And then, purportedly, to Las Vegas.
Didn’t have to happen. We all know that. But why?
The bile right now is aimed at A’s owner John Fisher, who has worked hard to earn all of it. But there is far more to the story. The A’s evacuation fiasco was perpetrated by bad judgment and arrogance on the part of A’s ownership, Oakland leadership and Major League Baseball non-stewardship. There are no innocent victims here, except the fans.
If you are a depressed A’s follower who is reading these words while sitting on a barstool at Buffalo Wild Wings (unlikely, but let’s pretend), then you are sipping your sad beer on a three-legged stool of shame and malfeasance.
As you sip, pay attention and take notes. It’s a complicated barstool with complicated legs.
Leadership strikes out
The first leg definitely belongs to the multiple A’s proprietors over the last three decades. At first, they didn’t work hard enough to gain traction on a sensible solution to their ballpark problem — and then worked too hard on a solution that had no real chance of succeeding.
That fateful Raiders return to Oakland in 1995? It was the tripwire that set off the A’s desire to build a new ballpark. The original plan of then-owner Steve Schott was to remodel the Coliseum into a more modern baseball-only edifice. But Schott rightfully believed the “renovation” for pro football was a horrible move. He sought a new baseball-only venue — before concluding that it would be too difficult to do on his own.
And so, in 2005, Schott and partner Ken Hofmann sold the team to developer Lew Wolff and Levi’s heir Fisher. Wolff took the lead on a ballpark project. He first proposed a spot on 66th Street near the Coliseum. That vision collapsed when Oakland would not help him acquire the needed property through eminent domain. Wolff then floated a project in the Coliseum parking lot. That died when Oakland wouldn’t go 50-50 with the A’s to study the idea.
At that point, Wolff looked south to sites in Fremont and San Jose. The Fremont idea collapsed because of the city’s politics. The San Jose plan was stymied by the San Francisco Giants’ claim of territorial rights to the South Bay.
Wolff could have fought harder and more obnoxiously for any of the above ideas. But he didn’t. For a couple of reasons. One, he didn’t have an obnoxious fighter’s personality. And two, he had an ace in the hole. Or so he believed. Wolff was close with Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1998 to 2015. The two were college fraternity brothers and longtime friends. Wolff figured that Selig would carry his water on the ballpark pursuit, by either overturning the Giants’ objections to San Jose or arm-wrestling Oakland officials into submission. Selig did neither. (More on that later.)
Hello Howard Terminal
Enter the soon-to-be-loathed Fisher. As majority owner, he nudged Wolff out the door in 2016 and placed new team President Dave Kaval in charge of the ballpark mission. Kaval, a Stanford MBA whiz, thought he had all the answers. While marketing the team with a “Rooted in Oakland” slogan, Kaval first helped steer Fisher toward a site next to Laney College that was rejected by the Peralta Community College District. Kaval then pointed Fisher toward vacant land at Howard Terminal along the city’s waterfront. The location had all sorts of problems. (Wolff previously had rejected the Howard Terminal site, saying it would “be easier to build a ballpark on Treasure Island.”)
Fisher loved Howard Terminal but proceeded to make a difficult plan even more difficult. He insisted that his billion-dollar ballpark (which he offered to privately fund) would only work if Oakland gave him the green light to surround it with a massive $10 billion mixed-use development that required huge infrastructure money and other concessions involving public dollars. Negotiations dragged. Fisher and Kaval played hardball. They raised ticket and parking prices at the Coliseum and threatened to leave for Las Vegas. Angry fans wondered what happened to “Rooted In Oakland.” Anger became rage when the Las Vegas deal became real last year, with fans organizing “Sell The Team” rallies.
Didn’t have to happen. We all know that. But why?
Fisher is not selling the team. All along, he knew that the easiest solution was to build at the Coliseum site. But he rejected it as … well, too icky. Or something. (A guess: Outside investors needed for a “ballpark village” concept were not going to contribute millions to a project on the troubled Hegenberger Road corridor.)
Instead, Fisher became delusional about Howard Terminal’s viability, then doubled down on his delusion as he remained tone-deaf toward fans. But just because of all that, it does not absolve the other two barstool legs of any guilt.
Stuck on defense
The second leg, consisting of Oakland politicos and factotums, is the wobbliest. It — and they — committed the original sin of bringing back the Raiders and cutting a horrible deal to do so. But most critically, the city’s leaders never played offense. They never had a master plan.
Twenty years ago, three major league teams occupied the Coliseum site, with the NBA Warriors alongside the Raiders and A’s. City leaders knew all three had leases that would eventually expire. The leaders also knew that, given modern pro sports economics, it would be difficult to retain all three. But those leaders never prioritized. They could have — should have — decided which team they wanted to keep most and organized an attack plan.
How would that have worked? Oakland could have said to Team A: “You are our top pro sports asset. Here is the most we can contribute to your team staying. Let’s get something done.” And if that approach went nowhere with Team A, the city could have moved on to Team B. And so on. Instead, the city played defense. Over and over. It allowed all three leases to approach their expiration dates. This let the three teams play offense, dictate absurd demands … and ultimately, leave.
Along the way, Oakland mayors were apathetic or ignorant. Elihu Harris approved the bad Raiders deal. Jerry Brown rejected a promising downtown ballpark site because he wanted apartments there instead. Ron Dellums blissfully kicked the can down the road. Jean Quan farmed out the Coliseum stadium problem to a “financier” named Floyd Kephart, who professed to have hedge-fund backing for a massive redevelopment plan. In truth, Kephart had only smoke, mirrors and empty pockets. Libby Schaaf bit her lip to support the Howard Terminal folly but surely knew it was doomed. And here we are.
Didn’t have to happen. We all know that. But why?
The Oakland Who?
Say hello to the third leg of the barstool, which you’d think would have been the strongest. It turned out to be the most dispassionate and bogus.
Start with Selig, the excellent friend of Wolff (see above), who as MLB commissioner put on a good face and called the A’s ballpark problem a top concern. Selig even appointed a “Blue Ribbon Panel” to investigate the issue. But the panel never produced a public report or recommended a solution. It existed simply to provide cover for Selig to keep the A’s and Wolff on hold, knowing his frat brother would never object or squawk loudly.
As an illustration of Selig’s true attitude toward Oakland and the A’s, consider that after his retirement in 2015, he published a memoir, “For The Good Of The Game.” In the book’s 336 pages, he discusses all the thorny matters dealt with as commissioner — including steroids, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, television contracts, etc. But in the 336 pages, the A’s ballpark struggles are not mentioned. Once.
That pretty much explains why Selig allowed Oakland and the A’s to muddle along and get nothing done. He could have boldly asserted MLB’s clout to formulate a practical and feasible ballpark plan, then pressed the team and city to accept a deal. It pretty much explains why Selig never threatened the Giants with an owners’ vote to revoke their territorial-rights claim to San Jose, which would have opened up Silicon Valley riches to MLB and kept two teams in Northern California. (Fun fact: If you divide the Bay Area market by two in terms of population, television sets and corporate money, each half is bigger than the entire Las Vegas market.)
Selig was never malevolent toward the A’s. He just didn’t care enough about them. You can say the same about his successor, Rob Manfred, who carried on the Selig “meh” company policy toward Oakland and permitted both the team and city to wreck themselves into the ditch that leads to Nevada through Sacramento.
As my wife and I watched our last A’s home game in Oakland earlier this month, I pondered that wreck and that ditch. As thousands of fans witness the team’s final Coliseum swings on Thursday, they will ponder the same thing.
Didn’t have to happen. We all know that. But why?
Three broken stool legs. That’s why.
Mark Purdy is a former sports columnist for The Mercury News.