On the Colin Cowherd show today an older sounding gentleman called in about another topic and before he hung up he said by the way the owner of the company I work for is very interested in buying the A's and moving them to Portland but he is demanding major concessions from the city. Now take this for the rumor it is but sometimes this stuff is reliable, I have got juicy stuff on the Blazers more than once from a talkative blazer employee way before the media got wind of it. The man would not identify his company or its owner or say what the concessions he wanted were. Here are some possibilities, Phil Knight most likely, he already owns 10% of the D-Backs and was interested in the Giants when they were for sale. Paul Allen looked into baseball a couple years ago and decided nope but now has the Action Sports Network that no cable company will carry due to lack of programming, MLB would fix that. Mr.Pamphlin owner of the tribune and several radio stations, papers, etc. has the money and is a big sports fan, his radio station carried Dr.Lashbrooks show the Dugout. As for concessions from the city that may mean the Governor may not want to call a special session on 0978 and the prospective owner wants the city to make up the difference, they could do that with a combination of a reasonable ticket tax and a slight raise in the motel/hotel tax then only tourists and fans would pay for it. Anyone else heard any such rumors on this issue?

I haven't heard of anyone stepping up as an owner. It is the most important next step we can take. If there is a financially solid owner waiting in the wings it puts more pressure on city officials to act quickly.

Having the city council involved in making a decision on Portlands MLB future is scary! that group of idiots manages to upset everyone liberal and conservative alike just about every time it makes a decision and they do nothing quickly, remember the civic stadium renovation decision was supposed to be decided in July 98 but they delayed it until November! I am less curious about the potential owner, since it could realistically only be 3-4 people, than I am about what exactly they may want from the city?

Like it or not the city council will be involved. If there is a team ready to come they will be a little more likely to agree to preserving the Blanchard site and working with baseball people. The Fosler Arch. proposal is a good one and even city council people will find it hard to resist the opportunity to have it's completion to their credit.

My understanding on the A's is that they are working out a deal to keep them in the Oakland/Santa Clara location. The bid by the business group based out of Vegas never was intent on moving the team to Vegas.

I'll be interested about Nike, and talking to some folks there as I picked up a contractors position there for 3-8 months. Should be very, very interesting working there.

++++++++++++++++++++
Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser. - Sandy Koufax

Teddy the man refused to say what company he worked for, it could be Nike(Phil Knight) or it could be Mr.Pamphlin or Paul Allen, no way to know who. In my opinion though I would say best guess is he was a Nike employee, probably high enough up to hear stuff. As for Oakland staying there, from everything I have heard or read the current owners either want to move to Santa Clara or sell and they have not made good progress with Santa Clara, so that is very much still up in the air, but the 1 year lease renewal does give then a little more time to try work something out. I think the only way the team stays in Oakland is if a new owner is willing to keep them there and remember last time they sold the team what a tough time they had finding local ownership with enough $. My guess is the Santa Clara situation will not happen and the only viable bidders for the A's will be from out of town groups and the A's will move somewhere in a year or two, that said I still hope we get my Expos rather than the A's but beggars cant be choosers