For Oakland, saving the A's is the good fight, and everything must be done to make sure Santa Clara is knocked to the canvas with no chance of getting up.
For starters, the 9th Avenue Terminal is the best, and only, site for a new Oakland ballpark. Someone -- the city, the county, even the A's -- must strike the first blow toward making this happen.
This will mean a combination of private and public financing. Let's not believe Sandy Alderson, who should know better, that there isn't money in Alameda and Contra Costa counties to help build the ballpark that will keep the A's in Oakland.
There is money, tons of it, but it won't be offered until Stone Cold Steve Schott and Ken "The Invisible Man" Hofmann make a commitment -- their first ever -- to Oakland as their once and future baseball home.
They have no choice, really, after Santa Clara stepped into the negotiating ring last week and showed that it had no fight plan.
Talk about gamesmanship, the South Bay had none. The mayor of Santa Clara, Judy Naylor, doesn't even want a ballpark. Neither do several members of the Santa Clara City Council. How's that for a welcoming committee?
Oakland and the East Bay can still win this fight even though Schott is determined to extricate the A's and shift them to his home turf in Santa Clara, where he was a college pitcher before becoming a wealthy home-builder.
If the Oakland-Santa Clara baseball square-off were a title fight, Oakland would be Muhammad Ali and Santa Clara would be Lyle Alzado. Remember that boxing exhibition farce, where Ali toyed with the football player?
Well, Oakland flexed Ali-like punching skills that it didn't know it had, and without even cocking a fist. Santa Clara laid down like a prelim pug after revealing its soft-belly stadium proposal.
Did you catch the ridiculous part of the proposal which called for Silicon Valley Power, the city-owned utility, to contribute $12.5 million for the stadium's electrical and lighting system?
Santa Clara has failed to notice, obviously, that California is in the midst of its worst power crisis. I'm not sure how the mission town missed that one, but to inform its citizenry that it needs to borrow county power to build Rolling Blackout Ball Park, or whatever the name will be, has to rank among the dumbest public relations schemes of recent times.
Oakland should score an easy knockout over Santa Clara on that gaffe alone. And listen to this, a booster group put the proposal together. Boosters? Krazy George must have been part of the planning committee.
Santa Clara also is being asked to provide 13 acres for the ballpark; contribute $55 million from the city's redevelopment agency for parking, road improvements and other infrastructure; potentially float an $82 million bond, which the A's would repay through annual $8 million rental payments.
Some Santa Clara Council types read over the proposal and scoffed. Their reaction: If San Francisco built Pacific Bell Park with private money, why should they use public funds?
And Santa Clara is the heart of Silicon Valley, where money certainly isn't difficult to find. Oakland now has a much clearer picture of the foe it's up against -- a journeyman with a dropped guard and a glass chin.
Santa Clara, encouraged by its corner man, Stone Cold Steve, came out throwing haymakers at Oakland and whiffed. Oakland now has a chance to step inside defenseless Santa Clara and drive a left hook to the ribs, a right uppercut to the chin, and finish off this stiff in a hurry.
However, what is Oakland's fight plan? And where is its fight team? City Manager Robert Bobb, like a good manager, came up with the 64-acre 9th Avenue Terminal, complete with a home-run cove, as the prospective new digs for the A's. Bobb also liked Laney College, but the Peralta Community College District shot down that idea by authorizing $2.5 million for a new synthetic turf and running track on Laney's football field plus additional renovations to the school's baseball field.
That's great news. Let Laney be Laney. But just when we need Bobb to really push the 9th Avenue Terminal site, he's off on some boondoggle to China, buying pandas. And we need Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown to, for once, take an active interest in his town's baseball future.
It's readily apparent after last week that Santa Clara has as much chance of taking away Oakland's baseball team as Marvis Frazier had of beating Mike Tyson. And there's also the territorial rights snafu involving the Giants' claim to Santa Clara County.
Santa Clara is in for a tougher fight over the A's than it ever imagined. But Oakland can't get overconfident, like Lennox Lewis, and expect to win on style points. Oakland will require a strong counter-attack, and the time to get busy is soon.
Once again, this is the good fight. Let's box Santa Clara's ears off. Let's make Oakland a great fight town again.
Posts: 1074 | Location: Springfield, OR | Registered: April 22, 2001
If they had this "great plan", as the article stipulates, all this time, we wouldn't be talking "Portland A's" today. Talk about asleep at the wheel until the truck is 12 ft. from the curve.
Posts: 1655 | Location: The N-Y-C | Registered: May 24, 2001
