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In a strongly worded letter I just received as of this writing from the office of Oakland City Attorney John Russo (and is reproduced in full at the end of this post), Oakland's lawyer penned what is without a doubt the strongest attack on the Oakland Athletics attempts to leave Oakland by and Oakland City Official. Russo writes:
Oakland A’s managing partner Lew Wolff is a talented and smart businessman.
But if Wolff thinks anybody is buying his sob story about why the A’s have to leave Oakland, he’s seriously underestimating the intelligence of the team’s fan base, the press and the people of this city.
Oakland City Attorney John Russo with me in 2008 in his office.
What started this has been a process of dissing and trying to excavate the team from Oakland almost since it was sold to Ken Schott and Steve Hoffman after the beloved Haas Family sold the organization in 1994; Schott and Hoffman then sold the team to the ownership group headed by Wolff. In fact, the Haas family put the team up for sale under the condition that it remain in Oakland; a desire basically ignored by the last two ownership groups, at least by their actions.
Schott and Hoffman entertained the idea of moving the A's to Sacramento as far back as 1996, (and I know this personally because when I was Economic Advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris I met John McCasey, who was then and still is now the Executive Director of the Sacramento Sports Commission at a Cal Football game, and who sold me openly they were trying to lure the organization out of Oakland and the owners were receptive; news I quickly communicated to Mayor Harris.) Mr. Wolff and his operatives have - according to a source via email - talked with San Jose officials about moving the A's there as far back as just after they gained control of the Oakland A's in 2005.
That means the "moves" Wolff was making to keep the A's in Oakland were for all practical purposes not "real" and considering the impossible timetable Wolff gave the City of Oakland to come up with a development plan, then the politically unrealistic one that Wolff wanted which called for the relocation of 80 businesses, it seems Oakland was being "played" all the time.
That, and other actions including my intelligence that the current meetings with the Major League Baseball Committee regarding assessing Oakland's ability to be a host for a baseball team aren't going well, and you have Russo's tirade of a letter. He also writes:
Here is the truth: A’s owners and Major League Baseball have been plotting to abandon Oakland for at least 10 years. They have never been partners in the city’s efforts to build a new stadium and keep the franchise in Oakland.
Collusion between A’s owners and the league has been evident since 1999, after a settlement gave Oakland and Alameda County the right to force a sale of the team to different owners. A team of buyers committed to keeping the club in Oakland stepped up and a price was set. But, for the first time in anyone’s memory, Major League Baseball denied the transfer of a franchise to a qualified ownership group.
City leaders – former Mayor Jerry Brown and former City Manager Robert Bobb – even tried to attend a baseball owners meeting to present the plan to transfer ownership. But they were treated as presumptuous interlopers and denied the opportunity to pitch the plan. The Lords of Baseball made it clear that they do not see American cities as partners, but rather as ATMs that exist to provide them with ever greater amounts of taxpayer dollars.
I exchanged text messages with Russo to determine if this meant the City of Oakland was preparing legal action against the A's and Major League Baseball. He wrote: "I was thinking about other interested parties who might feel that an A's move to San Jose would violate that interested parties contractual rights."
He means the San Francisco Giants.
The Major League Agreement, which governs the actions of Major League Baseball and its member organizations, spells out exactly what counties in the San Francisco Bay Area belong to the Giants:
The Giants' territory includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey and Marin Counties, plus Santa Clara County with respect to another major league team.
Again, read that. Santa Clara County includes San Jose. Thus, San Jose is the San Francisco Giants' official territory, a fact that seems lost on some media types down there.
And with respect to the A's..
The Athletics' territory includes Alameda and Contra Costa Counties;
Now many observers will say that all the Athletics brass needs is for 75 percent of the owners of Major League Baseball to approve the move, but a little known rule "52" blocks that action allowing the Giants to block the move of "any major league or minor league team from playing within 15 miles of its territory without permission."
The Giants could argue the A's are already within their territorial limits established by Rule 52 and any closer move into it would be economically harmful. But what's more important and interesting to me is the possible joint legal assault this seems to signal, one pitting the Giants and the City of Oakland against the Oakland A's and Major League Baseball. With such heavy-hitters as Senator's Boxer and Feinstein on the side of the City of Oakland and the San Francisco Giants, and the City and County of San Francisco, I would not bet against them.
Here's Russo's full letter:
Keeping the A's in Oakland
By City Attorney John Russo
Oakland A’s managing partner Lew Wolff is a talented and smart businessman.
But if Wolff thinks anybody is buying his sob story about why the A’s have to leave Oakland, he’s seriously underestimating the intelligence of the team’s fan base, the press and the people of this city.
Wolff has been telling reporters and anyone who will listen that the A’s have done everything possible to build a new ballpark and stay in Oakland. As Wolff put it in a recent press release, the team has “exhausted (its) time and resources over the years” with the city.
Claiming the A’s have made an exhaustive effort to stay in Oakland is like George W. Bush saying he did everything he could to stay out of Iraq – it’s not a “reality-based” statement.
Here is the truth: A’s owners and Major League Baseball have been plotting to abandon Oakland for at least 10 years. They have never been partners in the city’s efforts to build a new stadium and keep the franchise in Oakland.
Collusion between A’s owners and the league has been evident since 1999, after a settlement gave Oakland and Alameda County the right to force a sale of the team to different owners. A team of buyers committed to keeping the club in Oakland stepped up and a price was set. But, for the first time in anyone’s memory, Major League Baseball denied the transfer of a franchise to a qualified ownership group.
City leaders – former Mayor Jerry Brown and former City Manager Robert Bobb – even tried to attend a baseball owners meeting to present the plan to transfer ownership. But they were treated as presumptuous interlopers and denied the opportunity to pitch the plan. The Lords of Baseball made it clear that they do not see American cities as partners, but rather as ATMs that exist to provide them with ever greater amounts of taxpayer dollars.
A few years later, when Oakland hired HOK, the nation’s most respected stadium architects, to look at possible sites for a new ballpark, the A’s refused to provide any support for the firm’s search. The city brought together a commission of business and community leaders to work on options for a new stadium, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on staff time and consultants. However, the team demonstrated no interest in the process or in the architect’s favored site – a spot in downtown Oakland, next to two BART stations, with enough land for the city and the team to build a dream ballpark. Instead of a new ballpark at the site, we now have condos.
It’s telling that Wolff’s only proposal to stay in Oakland depended on the city using eminent domain to take the property of about 100 blue-collar businesses in East Oakland. The proposal came in August 2005, just two months after a Supreme Court ruling – Kelo v. City of New London – that decidedly turned the public against the use of eminent domain for private development. Wolff is too smart to not know that his proposal was totally unrealistic.
Mayor Ron Dellums and other Oakland leaders have made it clear that the city is prepared to continue working on feasible options for a new ballpark.
Moving the A’s to San Jose – which is contractually Giants territory – would require a special deal with Wolff’s old fraternity brother, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Such a deal would be a blatant example of collusion in baseball and would likely be tied up in court for years.
The idea that the A’s have made a real, exhaustive effort to stay is disingenuous at best. With some imagination and a real partnership among the city, the business community and the ball club, the A’s could build a new ballpark and remain the team of the people of the East Bay.
It shouldn’t take an act of congress to compel the Lords of Baseball to give Oakland a fair shot.
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