Read the entire article here on the San Jose Mercury News website

Selig explains rules again
SOUTH BAY REMAINS GIANTS' TERRITORY, COMMISSIONER SAYS
By Daniel Brown
The San Jose Mercury News

Bud Selig paid his first visit to San Jose on Wednesday and explained to fans -- this time firsthand -- why major league baseball's rules prohibit the A's from moving to the South Bay.

``It shows you that the commissioner either has courage or is not very smart: I came here tonight knowing that the question was going to be asked,'' Selig said. ``And I understand the reaction.''

Selig, in a speech before about 200 at the McEnery Convention Center, reiterated that the Giants own the territorial rights to San Jose and that there are no plans to revise that policy.

``It has nothing to do with this area,'' he said. ``This is a wonderful area. Does it have major league demographics? Of course it does. There's no question about that. That is not the issue.''

A few hours before taking the podium as the keynote speaker for the Commonwealth Club, Selig met with San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and made essentially the same case. Selig described the meeting as pleasant, but blunt, as he explained that the Giants ``bought their team and privately built the stadium on the understanding -- the fair understanding'' that San Jose was part of their territory.

The commissioner called keeping the A's in their home city ``a moral obligation'' and said the attention should be on building a new stadium in Oakland. A's President Mike Crowley, who was in the audience at the convention center, said new owner Lew Wolff and the city are making progress toward a new home.

``We're moving forward,'' Crowley said ``but we have a long way to go.''

San Jose baseball boosters believe that the A's will find no feasible deal in Oakland and attempt to move the team south. The San Jose rights were granted in the early 1990s to then-Giants owner Bob Lurie when he attempted to move the team to Santa Clara County.

Selig recounted his own heartache when the Braves moved from his hometown of Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966.

``We are a social institution,'' he said. ``We have social responsibilities. Once we move a team somewhere, the city has every right to keep that team unless circumstances force them out.

``At the moment, you have a team in San Francisco that's obviously very happy there. Oakland is concentrating all of its efforts on getting a new ballpark built. And we're clearly not going to expand.''

Selig did not mention San Jose or the A's during his 30-minute opening remarks, a speech that focused on what he called ``the game's great renaissance.'' He said attendance is on pace to break last year's record of 73 million fans, as well as 4 million more at the minor league level.

Selig said that the New York Yankees' attendance alone this season would be about 4 million -- more than the combined total of the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants when each team played in New York in ``the so-called halcyon days of the game.''

On the eve of his 13th anniversary of becoming commissioner, Selig said that ``50 years from now, historians will point to this period as the golden era of our game.''

He maintained that sunny outlook even after a steroid scandal that has cast shadows over stars such as Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro.

Selig repeated his plea for the players' union to accept stricter testing in the collective bargaining agreement. The current plan, implemented this season, calls for a 10-day suspension for a first offense, then 30 days for the second, then 60 days and one year.

Selig sent a letter to union chief Donald Fehr in April asking to change the policy to 50 days for a first offense, followed by 100, then a lifetime ban. He also wants an ``independent'' authority to take over testing.

``There's no doubt in my mind that the testing program is working, but that is not the issue,'' Selig said. ``The issue is integrity -- my integrity, the players' integrity, the owners' integrity -- and most important, the game's integrity.''

"¢ Selig's speech will be replayed at 8 p.m. Friday on KQED-FM (88.5) and at 1 p.m. Tuesday on KALW-FM (91.7).

Contact Daniel Brown at dbrown@mercurynews.com

Bud is so myopic. MLB made the so-called "territorial" rules; MLB can change them any time they want to. The Giants are selfish and want to drive the A's out of Oakland, out of the whole Bay Area, if they can. As for expansion, so long as the leagues are uneven, we will continue to have the gerrymandered, bastardized schedules we have - and a few years from now, owners will cast their greedy eyes at expansion fees and be willing to add to more teams to the American League. Expansion did NOT hurt baseball - it gave more cities the chance to experience a big-league atmosphere and enjoy the game at the highest level. What has hurt the game is franchise mismanagement, increasing expenses (fueled largely by outrageous salary demands by player agents), and an over-dependence upon corporate support instead of fan support for viability.

Bud still doesn't get it.

Blair, I think Bud, "Gets it". But, what he "gets" is how resending the territory from the Giants would impact matters from a precedence setting perspective.

You allow the team into San Jose, and the next thing you know you have Wilpon and Steinbrenner fighting a team coming into Northern NJ.

Now, if you want to remove anti-trust exemption and remove territories as a whole, that's another story. As for the here and now... I can understand why Selig and the owners are doing as much.

quote:

Originally posted by Maury:
Read the entire article here on the San Jose Mercury News website

<font size="4">Selig explains rules again</font>
SOUTH BAY REMAINS GIANTS' TERRITORY, COMMISSIONER SAYS
<font size="1">By Daniel Brown
The San Jose Mercury News</font>

Selig recounted his own heartache when the Braves moved from his hometown of Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966.

``We are a social institution,'' he said. ``We have social responsibilities. Once we move a team somewhere, the city has every right to keep that team unless circumstances force them out.

He was so heart-broken about the Braves moving out of Milwaukee, but apparently not too upset that the Pilots moved to Milwaukee from Seattle. Or the Expos moving to Wa$hington DC.

The assignation of Santa Clara County and San Jose as "Giants" territory was arbitrary and specious at best, and was probably done with no other reason than to spite the A's and try to drive them out of the market. Sure, the Giants benefit economically from the corporate support from San Jose - but surely there are businesses in San Jose which support the A's - and if so, why didn't they split up the country and give each team a half? And geographically, San Jose is closer to Oakland than it is to San Francisco!

If MLB can move the Expos to Washington and into "Baltimore's territory" (Yes, I know Washington was not "officialy" the Orioles' territory, but it is a well-known fact that the O's benefitted financially from the Washington market), then there is absolutely no LOGICAL reason why the A's should not be allowed to relocate to San Jose; they would actually be moving further from the Giants, and there is no reason those businesses in San Jose could not be allowed to continue supporting the Giants if they wanted to.

Bud is a hypocrite who sees things entirely in economic terms, not in issues of fairness, balance, or the "integrity" of the game, despite his protestations to the contrary.

The territory was assigned to Lurie when he was looking for a way to keep the team in the Bay Area. No, it wasn't resended when Magowan purchased the team, but at the time, the idea that an owner would push private funding and make it happen... Seems that not resending the territory was a fair trade, at the time. I don't think it was done to spite the A's.

If you've got two teams in extremely-close proximity to one another, how can you, in all fairness, split thngs up and say, "This is your territory but that is not"? Do the Dodgers get L.A. and Ventura Counties while the Angels get Orange, San Bernardino, and Riveride? Do the Yankees get the Bronx, Manhattan, and New Rochelle, while the Mets have Queens, Kings, Staten Island, and Long Island? The Yankees' territory is Newark and the Mets get Jersey City? San Francisco and Oakland are the same metro area, most people link San Jose to that area as well, and BOTH teams out to be entitled to operate in the area as they see fit. Look at the Angels encroaching upon the Dodgers' "space" by taking the name "Los Angeles". Well, for what it is worth, the Angels ARE in the standard Los Angeles metro area.

MLB's territorial rules are not Holy Writ, they are not carved in stone, and MLB can change them any time they want to. Bud just doesn't want to change.

San Jose had their chance to get the Giants in the early 90's, and they declined.

Oakland had their chance to revolt against the territorial issue in the South Bay, and they chose not to.

San Jose can still get a team if they really want to... it's just a matter of paying off Magowan (which they'll never do).

One thing I have disagree with, Blair... the Giants built Pac Bell with private money from San Jose on the promise from MLB that no team would be allowed to go there. It's a contract. Territorial rights. Like if I bought a Subway sandwich shop and I bought the exclusive rights for Subway within a certain radius or territory. If Subway turned around and gave that away, I would sue, and I would win.

But how can you claim the right to prevent a Subway from going into the next county when you've already got one operating right across the street from you?

OK, so there's a contract for "territorial rights". Is there? Is it a legal, written-down, signed-sealed-and-delivered contract, or is it a "gentelmen's agreement", hand-shake deal? Contracts expire, and new ones can be drawn up; the so-called "territorial rights" agreement is a man-made institution that does not have to continue in perpetuity. Magowan's gonna scream bloody murder so long as the A's are anywhere in the Bay Area, anyway, and MLB's best bet - and the best long-term interest of the A's - is to shift that team to an entirely new place.

Why is it OK for the Giants to have "exclusive rights" to a city 45 miles away, but Baltimore doesn't get exclusive rights to a city only 35 miles away? ... Hypocrisy and double standards abound in major league baseball.

If your best customers come the next county down south, and you agreed to an onerous lease agreement on the knowledge that you had exclusive (contractual) rights to the next county down south, then you can be sure that you will not allow that contract to be broken, regardless of what's happening in the county to the east of you.

Angelos has one of the sweetest lease arrangements in Major League Baseball, courtesy of the State of Maryland. Baseball in DC will not kill the Orioles in the same way that baseball in San Jose would harm the Giants.

Sorry but I don't feel a lot of pity towards San Jose. They had their chances in the past and they can still buy out Magowan and after all the huffing and puffing they STILL haven't demonstrated that they are willing to commit any significant public dollars towards a baseball stadium. Plus they are wealthy, have beautiful weather year round, and they have both NL and AL baseball within an hour's drive. Not bad if you ask me.

Actually the cities of Santa Clara and San Jose have had multiple opportunities to land the A's last decade, but I believe the voters turned them down multiple times. Now that the Giants have been awarded the territorial rights, it's just too late.

In addition: keeping the team in Oakland is in Portland's best interest. With the A's still in Oakland, Sacramento and San Jose are basically shut out. Sir Bud would never award either city with a team when the Bay Area already has a team in each league.

Here's hoping that Tampa Bay is forced to leave Florida and Portland is waiting in the wings.

Santa Clara County is not immediately to the south of San Francisco. San Mateo County is. The allure of Santa Clara County comes from the tech sector, but we all know how much that's changed. As early as 2 years ago Giants president Larry Baer acknowledged how many of those dot-com's were being replaced by more traditional, brick-and-mortar type businesses. The Giants aren't interested in releasing information on the change, and frankly I don't blame them because everyone would see how specious their argument is.

I would hope that a city's baseball worthiness is not largely based on their willingness to throw public money at a ballpark. If that was the case, then the Bay Area wouldn't have baseball at all. I tend to think that San Jose and Santa Clara County voters would welcome a deal similar to Pac Bell Park in San Jose, and it just so happens SJ Redevelopment is structuring such a deal right now. There's city- owned land immediately around the proposed site that's excellent for a ballpark village concept, and the real estate market in Santa Clara County is as robust as ever.

Here's a thought: when Selig came to San Jose and met with Mayor Gonzales and County Assessor Stone, do you think they could have taken a five-minute side trip to the proposed ballpark site? Or that Lew Wolff put him up in either his Fairmont hotel a block away or his Hilton, which happens to be attached to the convention center where Selig spoke? Do you wonder if the A's are among other things, simply a piece of Wolff's portfolio that might lead to synergistic marketing? Because that's what San Jose boosters are thinking about. And even with the territorial rights issue, they have reason to.

quote:

Originally posted by marine layer:
I would hope that a city's baseball worthiness is not largely based on their willingness to throw public money at a ballpark.

Well that's what it took for DC to be deemed "baseball worthy", and for Portland to even get on MLB's radar blip.

Seriously, I share your hope and I do think that the tide is turning in favor of public/private development partnerships over a direct public subsidy... but the fact remains that SBC was built with virtually no public subsidy, and they rely on an unprecedented amount of corporate revenue in order to make their bond payments.

To paraphrase what you said on your site, we can all argue about how fair and how rational the territorial issue is, but the fact is, it is there and must be dealt with before a team could move to SJ. And to paraphrase Maury, any solution will have to satisy not only Magowan, but also the other large market owners.

And I haven't heard anything yet from SJ that would satisfy either the Giants or the other owners. Have you?

Why would Selig go to SJ to say "no"?
or
Talk about the state of baseball in a city without a team?

Methinks there is something sinister going on....

The beauty of San Jose's situation is that they don't have to (and probably don't want to) publicize any proposals yet. There's no urgency. But there are powerful local forces at work - lobbying groups that represent the tech sector, civic leaders - that are working behind the scenes. Even Wolff's daughter, who lives in tony Los Gatos, is marketing the A's to the South Bay, right now in terms of upping season ticket rolls. She doesn't even need to mention the word "move" to get them thinking about the concept.

SeattleHawk94 - those are excellent questions. I have no answer as to why Bud would fly across the country just to tell San Jose "no." None at all...

Considering that the A's settled into the area after the Giants, I don't know how it would the A's who would be the ones to claim to be inconvenienced by another team in the same area. If anything, the Raid-uhs hurt them more than the Giants. Before Oakland bought into the silly plan to bring the Silver-and-Black back, the A's had a pretty decent situation at the Coliseum. They didn't drew gangbusters except after a winning season but they enjoyed being the only tenants in that stadium. What happened after Al Davis moved back in is the A's no longer were the favored tenants. Of course, they can still compete under the current circumstances but not like when they had the place all to themselves. That's why they're looking.