The salting of the earth continues...at least in Oakland - Transic

http://www.bizjournals.com/san...9/03/23/daily82.html

Thursday, March 26, 2009, 2:49pm PDT

Wolff says MLB will help A’s find a home

San Francisco Business Times - by Eric Young

Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff said his club will rely on help from Major League Baseball to find a site where the team can build a new stadium.

“We’re sort of in the hands of baseball now,” Wolff said Thursday during a breakfast meeting with reporters in San Francisco. The A’s search for a new home “is a baseball issue now more than an A’s issue… Ultimately it has to be determined by baseball, not by me.”

Wolff’s comments come as there is increased speculation the team will focus its energy on building a stadium in San Jose, where city officials have courted the team for years. The city of San Jose owns much of a 23-acre site just south of HP Pavilion and the Diridon Caltrain station that could hold a ball yard.

The San Francisco Giants could be a complicating factor if the A’s decided to move to San Jose. The Giants could claim the move infringes on the team’s territorial rights to Santa Clara County. Territorial rights give a baseball club exclusive marketing rights in a specified area.

That’s where Major League Baseball could come into play. For a team to change hometowns — especially when it would rankle another ownership group — the baseball commissioner has to present the proposal to baseball’s 30 owners. The commissioner could also help resolve a conflict as the issue goes to a vote.

Wolff said Bud Selig, baseball’s commissioner, has not indicated that he will call a meeting on behalf of the A’s. But Wolff said he hopes that Major League Baseball soon will give the team a clearer indication of where the team should try to move.

“We have to determine the direction of baseball where they want us to be,” Wolff said.

In recent weeks Wolff put an end to a two-year, $80 million effort to move the team to Fremont, where he ran into community opposition.

He declined to say what city he prefers for a new home. But he said San Jose “is in as good a position as any city in northern California.”

San Jose has three things he said he wants in a new site: a large corporate base, proximity to transportation and near a downtown.

The A’s share Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, where the team has played since 1968, with the Oakland Raiders. The arrangement means both teams split certain revenues, a situation that Wolff said he does not favor. The A’s need their own new ballpark, he said, to generate more revenue in a game with escalating costs.

The A’s lease in Oakland expires after the 2010 season and the team has three, one-year extension options.