Barnum & Bailey Have Nothing On Kaval & Fisher

The klown show, spelled as such to “honor” the first letter of one of the clowns’ last name, is on full display. It was Barnum & Bailey who noted “There’s a sucker born every minute” and if you’re the wacky tandem of John Fisher and Dave Kaval you are putting all your eggs in that conceptual basket.

When reality doesn’t work out, try investing in wool and seeking eyes for which you can offer “pulling services”. 15 long months ago public money was allocated for a new stadium on the Las Vegas strip and over a year later here’s how serious the A’s are about dotting those key i’s and crossing those irascible t’s...

Render Me A Joke

If Scott Ostler is to be believed (and that’s always up for debate), Kaval recently trotted out the latest ballpark renderings — at the Rio hotel and casino, not at the Tropicana site to which the funds are attached — and the sun is still setting in the east.

So over a year after the renderings were largely panned as being less of a “rendering” and more of a “sloppy photo-shopped Coliseum put together in 24 hours by a college student,” apparently Kaval’s cabal haven’t seen fit to fix a basic scientific detail.

In fairness to Josh Hamilton, if the sun is suddenly setting in the east these days it’s understandable how he might have misjudged its impact on a routine fly ball. Which is easier: catching a lazy pop fly in an Oakland Coliseum day game, or fixing a rendering for a $1.5B ballpark by showing the sun setting where it has set each day for the past, let’s say, 1.5B years?

Then again, Kaval has just released the A’s exciting new slogan to replace “Rooted In Oakland”: You’re Las Vegas A’s: Atention To Detail!

Meanwhile, of course no financing plan, no investors, no new partial ownership shares have emerged in these past 15 months. Fisher’s patented answer remains, “Oh it’s ok, we don’t really need it.” Really the A’s are just generously offering locals the opportunity to share in the excitement of Las Vegas A’s baseball (excitement that seems to eluded everyone who actually lives there).

Because apparently Fisher’s family is happy to give its wealth to a relative for an investment no one else will touch with a 10 foot lion tamer’s pole, since rich people are generally itching to throw away money by the millions for bad investments that aren’t even their own pet project.

“We don’t need the money, we just want to offer you the unique opportunity to give us a lot of it...{crickets}...UH, BARNUM! WE’RE GONNA NEED MORE SUCKERS!”

I suppose we will learn something, or more of nothing, on October 17th — ironically the anniversary of the earthquake that disrupted the 1989 World Series. Jason Burke reports that, ‘the team is expected to unveil ‘near final’ versions of their agreements with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority concerning the development, non-relocation and lease agreements on October 17.”

Would that be as near final as the totally done deal to build a new stadium at Laney College, or as near final as the binding agreement to build on land in a location no one really mentions anymore?

Publicly, Fisher and his minions (a terrible name for a band, by the way) have said virtually nothing. This is likely because words are not their friends right now. “Let’s see, in order to build this stadium (which won’t really fit where we have to build it), we just need $300M in financing we haven’t quite been able to secure from anyone, a little under $1B that I guess my brother, my cousin’s wife, and my uncle’s very wealthy poodle will spot me, a few million found somewhere — maybe behind a couch cushion? — for the inevitable cost overruns...shoot we were just barely going to make it until I heard about the $5.99 fee for fixing the sun in the renderings. Back to the drawing board...”

So as MLBPA inexplicably allows the A’s to plan for 3-4 years in a minor league stadium with 10,000 seats, 100+ degree temperatures, and artificial turf in an open-air stadium, for its rougly 550 major league players who will pass through each season, we are told everything is “full steam ahead!!!” on a project no one can really share any progress about — other than that the land is about to be freed of the existing Bally’s casino structure to make way for a project no one wants to pay for since it will be recouped by bringing more fans into the stadium every single game than the stadium actually holds.

81 x 30,000 > 2,500,000. It’s the New Math that will propel your Las Vegas Mathletics to the World Series. In a world where the sun rises in the west, of course.

Round stadiums that don’t fit onto the square plots of land, paid for by impossible attendance numbers, built with theoretical money? I expect no less from the bumbling duo of clowns that are Fisher and Kaval.

MLBPA: WTF???

I expect more from MLBPA, though, than to allow for a turf field in Sacramento. The argument is that having both the A’s and River Cats play their home games at Sutter Health Park won’t allow for maintenance of a grass field.

First of all, it’s hard to imagine that playing 150 baseball games on a grass field will tear up the field worse than we saw, with MLBPA’s blessing, when the A’s and Raiders shared the Oakland Coliseum. We saw what the field was like in September — are we to believe the field could not be maintained to at least that incredibly low standard?

Secondly, 550 major league players should be a priority over one single AAA team and if what is needed to maintain a grass field is to displace the River Cats for 3-4 seasons that’s how you solve the problem. You were willing to displace a big league team to a AAA facility in a town different from its old or its supposedly future home, but you’re not willing to inconvenience one AAA team for the health and well-being of hundreds of MLB players?

I would really like to see Tony Clark and Co. put on their big boy pants and stand up for all the MLB players who stand to suffer needlessly. And don’t tell me this has to do with leverage in bargaining the next contract, because if MLBPA acquiesces on the playing field now they will have zero leverage on the issue when they are bargaining later because the issue will have been resolved and not on the table.

The leverage is now, when the A’s simply cannot forge ahead with a turf plan absent MLBPA’s approval. Once turf is allowed and installed, it’s done and nothing in bargaining conversations will be able to leverage it. “Remember how we allowed you to put in turf up in Sacramento? So now can we have a better pension plan for our players?” bargained no one, ever.

Anyway, nothing goes with the circus like an overflowing tub of popcorn, so get yours ready and sit back for the next installment, possibly coming October 17th and almost certainly featuring a bearded lady. That’s my Aunt Bertha, and she also can’t fit on that 9 acre parcel but I digress.

Popcorn. Get it ready along with the ballpark rendering sold under its brand name: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better.