That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: A’s ownership considering building near Coliseum site

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–The question was put to A’s co-owner and managing partner Lew Wolff where if not for Jack London Square’s Howard Terminal is the best place for the A’s? Wolf mentioned the Coliseum “would be where were at right now on land controlled by (the city and county).” Wolff made it clear that a Jack London Square park would be out of the question after a design of what it would look like on the Oakland Waterfront would look like.

There has been reports that if Wolff ever was to sell the A’s and he reiterated that he was no going to sell the club but if he were executives from Clorox bleech, Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Warrior owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber were interested in buying the team. It was the first time since Wolff said he wanted to move the team to Fremont or San Jose that he would consider keeping the team in Oakland but it would not be in downtown Oakland.

The new design that was released on Wednesday is located next to the bay by the containers and the horse shaped cranes and would be in proximenty to Jack London Square which is prime downtown location for hotels and restaurant constructon if a new stadium was ever to be constructed there. The key here is that Wolff and co-owner John Fisher said they are not interested in the downtown location, what are you going to do? “All I care about is getting a new home for the A’s in the best possible circumstances, and under any circumstances Howard Terminal would be as close to impossible as anything.” said Wolff.

Wolff and Fisher for the longest while were not convinced that they could not have a place in Oakland but the Coliseum location seems to be of strong interest. Wolff likes that it’s all city and county property that would be all city and county property to build on the land spending public funds and Wolff would pay almost unheard of low rent. The suitors for buying the A’s Clorox, Dreyers and the Warriors would like to build a waterfront ball park in downtown Oakland and develop Jack London square into a shopping, hotel, and condo meca.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said he was not in favor of getting rid of the team but that he said the A’s could not go to San Jose because of the San Francisco Giants territorial rights. We know the city of Oakland wants to keep the A’s we have to go to the Genises of this and Wolff doesn’t want the team at the waterfront but will consider building the team a new stadium at the Coliseum location.

Wolf says BART goes right to the Coliseum and that the only change would be the A’s would get a new park and be in the same location that they always have been in since 1968 and that’s in east Oakland at the Coliseum. Everytime the city of Oakland comes up with a new plan Wolff says it’s not doable. So that plan is what Wolff wants and he wants to build a new stadium for the A’s on public property at the Coliseum site.

Wolff wants to move the team to San Jose but he finally realizes now that he can’t because of the Giants territorial rights and baseball also would not allow it because the Giants would litagate against baseball and Selig does not want a side show over the A’s moving to San Jose. Right now it’s 50-50 and nobody knows how this is going to end up.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

Commissioner says no to A’s move but owners would approve in a vote

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

OAKLAND–Major Leauge Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig during last regular season denied the A’s move to San Jose if you read between the lines. They were asking about the San Jose financial status and if San Jose can support a big league club. It makes no sense to me because in a recent survey San Jose was declared the wealthiest city with over one million people.

Silicon Valley is in the South Bay the only reason that this is happening is because of Giants team president Larry Baer is declaring the team’s territorial rights in San Jose and this might be put to a vote and it’s almost positive that the owners would apporve the move by over a quarter of the majority but it’s the Giants who hold the cards here therefore the A’s are stuck in Oakland and they just recently extended their contract at the Coliseum for two more years.

Eventually something will happen, something will give, it might be that A’s owners Lew Wolf and Don Fisher might get tired of this situation and put the A’s up for sale. For right now the A’s have been denied moving from Oakland to San Jose although that’s not written in blood as we speak it’s not a real definite.

Kings and Warriors arena builds: If the Sacramento Kings can’t build their own arena in downtown Sacramento it would be a shame because Sacramento Mayor Ken Johnson jumped through hoops to keep the team in Sacramento and stopping the team from leaving for Seattle.

When you put a vote like this to the voters who knows you could flip a coin most people in this country are not in the mood to spend tax money on new arenas. Most people 99 percent beleive that most owners have the money to build a new arena. These are the guys who sign players for over $200 million and the average fan or citizen would say they would have the money to build it themselves.

So if the public votes on the new Kings arena and I’m not a betting guy but most people in Sacramento would vote no on spending public money on a new arena. The owners have to be ready to pay and build their own arena. Regarding the Warriors we don’t know the history of San Francisco. All you have to do is look at the Giants and see how many times they tried to build a new stadium with some public money.

The voters turned them down several times until they got approved for Pacific Bell Park, the Warriors want to move to the City at piers 30-32 but right now former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos is working very hard to prevent the Warriors from moving to the piers. In an election to decide to move the Warriors at the piers won’t be easy it won’t be a matter of “were going to put the Warriors at the piers and that’s all”.

Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber they have great attorneys but they don’t understand the political environmental layout of San Francisco. Even if both Lacob and Gruber could pay for the entire project the voters would vote no because they like the views at the piers just fine.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio

A’s proposed move to San Jose

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

 

OAKLAND–Commissioner Bud Selig’s letter denies the A’s move from Oakland to San José, but…But Selig’s June 17 letter addressed only the details of the stadium relocation proposal – not the principle of relocation, the sources say. MLB questioned the feasibility of that project and felt that insufficient financial information and attendance projections had been provided about a downtown San Jose site. Again: “not the principle of relocation”.

 

To question San Jose’s financial and attendance projections is interesting, because at least on the financial side of the equation the South Bay city is listed as the wealthiest metro area in the United States of America in recent surveys. As far as the attendance is concerned? I do not buy it. San José’s weather is much baseball-like (warmer) than most other Bay Area cities; located inland, not close to the ocean or very close to the bay, it provides perfect baseball weather from April to October. During these days of a very bad economy, there is one industry thriving; the high technology industry, Silicon Valley. Are the Giants afraid of Silicon Valley?

 

Income for most of the 366 metropolitan areas measured by the U.S. Census Bureau are flat in the last year, and many are still down significantly compared to 2008. According to the Census Bureau, Brownsville, Texas replaced McAllen, Texas as the country’s poorest metro area. San Jose, Calif. took the top spot as the wealthiest metro area, replacing Washington, D.C. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the metropolitan areas with the highest and lowest median incomes in the U.S.

Again: “San José, California, took the top spot as the wealthiest metro area, replacing Washington, D.C”.

 

Obviously (and I have said this for years now) the San Francisco Giants opposition is the biggest hurdle. I do not believe that most Major League teams owners would oppose the move of the Athletics from Oakland to San José. Oakland doesn’t have the resources while San José has an abundance of resources. The Athletics need three-quarters approval of the owners for the proposed move to the south bay.

 

Although they do not say it publicly, what counts are actions not words, and the Giants ownership like to see themselves as “The Bay Area’s Baseball Team”. They have not won the big trophy until 2010, when they won the World Series for the first time in San Francisco in 52 years.

 

Are the Giants afraid that the Athletics with a new park in San José would lose at the gate? Are the Giants afraid that some of their great fans in the south bay, just might not travel to San Francisco to see the Giants, if the A’s have a beautiful brand new facility in San José? Are the Giants living these days with that much insecurity?

 

We are within days of 2014. This is not the Bay Area of 1969, this is a completely different Bay Area, in population, demographics and lifestyle. In 1969 San José was a huge tomato field and a truck stop with a sign:  340 miles to Los Angeles. The only thing that remain from those years is the sign.

 

Maybe the Giants are right to worry…

 

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for the Oakland A’s and does News and Commentary each week for Sports talk radio 

                                                               
 

 

A-Rod on Bud Selig for not showing at hearing “cowardly stance”

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

NEW YORK–Yankees star Alex Rodriguez has a high powered attorney Joe Tacopina and Tacopina is advising A-Rod and he’s a high price attorney whose advising A-Rod and he’s charging about $1000 an hour in a very high profile case. I can say in one sentence for A-Rod to win he would have to come back a and play as long as he’s not playing the commissioner is winning it’s as simple as that. A-Rod is not getting any younger and he needs to play. You can make a case that it was an injustice that he was suspended 211 games.

As comparing other players like Rays pitcher Joel Peralta or the A’s pitcher Bartolo Colon who were suspended 50 games and we can say that was a good argument that it was unreasonable but like I stated here before that baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to get rid of A-Rod completely and he doesn’t want A-Rod to play again and Rodriguez got advised by his attorney and he’s not dumb to run the case himself and has spent a lot of money on his lawyers he’s trying to portray the public relations game and saying the commissioner had to show up at his hearing.

The commissioner didn’t have to show up and he never shows up for the trail and the commissioner doesn’t have to and this is a P.R. campaign on the part of A-Rod and the pressure is on A-Rod the commissioner already made his case that the owners are happy with it. This week there have been rumblings that Peralta got a big deal and got millions of dollars from the Detroit Tigers and some executives said that looks kind of looks weird that we are rewarding people who were suspended for PEDs use and I use the word momentum and the momentum is against Rodriguez right now.

A’s will be at Coliseum until at least 2015: The main factor for going to see the A’s at the Coliseum if your an A’s fan you can still take BART to Oakland you don’t have to wonder “where are the A’s playing tonight?” basically we know that the A’s are going to play at the Coliseum for the next couple of years and we all knew that but it’s official they signed that lease. However after 2015 all bets are off this is the significant news and if you can read between the lines and I really believe this and we were talking about A-Rod not getting any younger and nobody is and nobody can stop the time clock and everybody has a birthday every year.

The A’s owner Lew Wolf is up there in age and this is it he won’t say this but if we can play devil’s advocate here Wolf is saying with this lease folks I’m going to play in Oakland two more years and after that if we don’t get a resolution to move to San Jose I’m going to sell this team and I really believe that’s what’s going to happen. So Wolf is basically buying two more years in Oakland that’s all he’s doing.

The A’s have a tremendous potential and it was 1968 when they moved to Oakland and the East Bay is huge now. The city of Fremont has 210,000 people and you add San Leandro and you got all the way up to Albany and Richmond and the East Bay has millions of people and a lot of them live here. As a matter of fact Silicon Valley has moved to parts of Fremont and Fremont is called Silicon Valley East. There are some companies that have moved into Fremont because there is more room there.

The point is that the East Bay has the money, the people, they can support the Oakland A’s.

Will Manny Pacquiao go broke? Boxing star Manny Pacquiao could be headed to the poor house according to reports saying the Pacquiao owes the Philippine government $50 million in back taxes from the tax year 2008-09. Pacquiao says he will pay it all back, Pacquiao says he’s ready to help typhoon victims by rolling up his sleeves and do the dirty work of the clean up. Pound for pound Pacquiao is the highest profile boxer in the world and the recent typhoon he’s trying to do as much as he can.

Pacquiao is at the point where he’s borrowing money he has to pay a lot of money $50 million in taxes but you make that type of money and he made lots of money and he’s wearing big shoes. He just won his crown defeating Brandon Rios a few days ago the Mexican challenger and he’s going to do what everybody else does and you know the old saying “nothing is for certain except death and taxes” we all die and we pay taxes. So Pacquiao he’s boxing and he’s making his money in dollars.

He has to pay I feel sorry for him but not financially he’s a millionaire many times over but he also has to realize that he has to pay taxes like everybody else.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio