http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2001/0815/1239973.html

OAKLAND -- Oakland Athletics co-owner Steve Schott has exercised an option to keep the A's at Network Associated Coliseum another year, the Oakland Tribune reported on Wednesday.

The team's lease at the Coliseum was to expire at the end of this season.

The A's had until Wednesday to decide whether to extend the lease at least one more year. The team's general counsel, Nick Rossi, notified the Coliseum Authority of Schott's decision in an Aug. 9 letter sent by certified mail.

Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said Tuesday he is disappointed the team did not attempt to extend the lease for a longer time period. The team has three one-year options through 2004.

"It will make it more difficult to get additional corporate support or to attract more fans with just a one-year deal," De La Fuente told the Tribune. De La Fuente is also vice chairman of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority.

City and Alameda County officials were supposed to meet last week about an extension, but the team canceled the meeting, De La Fuente said.

The two sides had been discussing a possible deal through 2006 before rumors flew earlier this month over the team's possible sale to Mandalay Sports Entertainment, a Southern California media company that owns a Las Vegas minor league baseball franchise. Both the team and Mandalay denied a deal had been reached.

Oakland A's President Mike Crowley, who was out of town traveling Tuesday afternoon, said the team has no comment on a Coliseum lease extension -- other than to confirm the A's are going to stay in Oakland at least one more year.

Oh, shoot! You beat me to it!

I would have been more surprised if they hadn't done the one year extension, actually. The whole issue is too up in the air for the club to do anything else. They can't leave until they know where they're going, and they don't want to rule out the possibility that they could go somewhere else.


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?

And I'm obviously really late as I sit with the story in my clipboard, ready to paste.

Decisions still could be made in the offseason... lame duck years are always possibilities.

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Chicago Cubs -- Back-to-back World Series Champions 1907-1908
EAMUS CATULI -- AC125693