Over the weekend, Bill Madden of the New York Daily News suggested that MLB would uphold the Giants’ territorial rights in San Jose and not let the Athletics move there.
This report was denied by the commissioner’s office, but it apparently made the A’s so upset they issued a statement on the matter Wednesday. It includes the following:
Of the four two-team markets in MLB, only the Giants and A’s do not share the exact same geographic boundaries. MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara. The granting of Santa Clara to the Giants was by agreement with the A’s late owner Walter Haas, who approved the request without compensation. The Giants were unable to obtain a vote to move and the return of Santa Clara to its original status was not formally accomplished.
The Giants, clearly, did not relocate to Santa Clara, and the A’s statement further mentions that the team wants to move farther away from the Giants’ current location:
We are not seeking a move that seeks to alter or in any manner disturb MLB territorial rights. We simply seek an approval to create a new venue that our organization and MLB fully recognizes is needed to eliminate our dependence on revenue sharing, to offer our fans and players a modern ballpark, to move over 35 miles further away from the Giants’ great venue and to establish an exciting competition between the Giants and A’s.
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1. The Mohole* of David Wells (* - Piehole)DB
DB
Only if they rebuild the Polo Grounds in the exact location and the exact dimensions.
How fricking cool would it be to see baseball with a 258' RF line that went went straight out to a 440' RCF.
As to the A's - that is what you get for having a nice guy owner I guess, you get screwed.
You leave it in a closet.
Years later a new neighbor moves in, he decides he wants that painting and throws a fit because you won't give it to him the way the previous neighbor gave it to you.
The circumstances around the giants getting the rights to the southbay market are completely irrelevant now, the fact is that by the MLB constitution they have exclusive rights there. That has value and it would be a violation of their responsibilities to their shareholders to give them away. IT would cost them tens of millions of dollars to settle with their shareholders if they simply gave the rights away.
The long and short of this mess is that there is no way the A's move without the blessing of the Giants, MLB does not want this to go to a vote with the two teams lobbying the other owners to take sides. Either money changes hands or some other agreement is reached, there are a lot of pieces here. Things like regional cable contracts, media contracts, rights to put a minor league team in oakland, limitations on advertising, options for what happens if one or the other leaves the are.. etc. I could see the Giants giving them the southbay rights in return for the A's signing an agreement to have their games aired on the Giants owned regional network, and the SJ Giants becoming the Oakland Giants, and Fresno and Sacramento swapping Affiliations.
You leave it in a closet.
Years later a new neighbor moves in, he decides he wants that painting and throws a fit because you won't give it to him the way the previous neighbor gave it to you.
I'll take tortured analogies for $600, Alex.
You leave it in a closet.
Years later a new neighbor moves in, he decides he wants that painting and throws a fit because you won't give it to him the way the previous neighbor gave it to you.
A tree hits your roof in a rain storm and water is pouring in. Your neighbor gives you a tarp, but before you can put it up, it stops raining. He never bothers to ask for it back.
Next year, a tree hits his roof, and you refuse to give him the tarp. He beats the #### out of you for being a world class #######, and the jury acquits.
Then you write a story about the injustice of the beating and the jury verdict, it's published by a major publisher and the rights are optioned by a major studio. It turns into one of the highest grossing movies of the year and wins an Oscar for best screenplay.
With your new found millions, you sell your house for $50 to a crack whore and move to an estate in Malibu overlooking the Pacific. Where, it turns out, your neighbor is having a garage sale, and you see a painting you really like....
But, of course, the Haas gesture is as relevant as the other owners want it to be. I'd love to see the meeting minutes referred to in the press release.
We call this the circle of life.
The neighbor has to have been a real jerk for me to withhold a rain tarp if a tree hits his roof and the water is pouring into his crappy house....
They didn't; the referendum for public financing of the stadium failed.
I thought it was the new "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" book
Nor does the current Giants ownership.
It's more like There are two neighboring farms. One farmer's well dries up, and the best place to dig a new one is over the property line. The second farmer, being perhaps too good a neighbor, gives the first farmer the land around the proposed well, but, while digging, they find out that the water table is deeper than expected and the effort is abandoned. Since the land has little value, no one bothers to revert the ownership.
Twenty-five or so years later, both farms have changed hands. The new owners of the first farm have turned that gifted land into a very profitable orchard. The new owner of farm two heard about the foolish generosity of his predecessor, and bought farm two, which has fallen on hard times, cheaply in the hopes of contesting the orchard's ownership. Farmer one, of course, says "screw you. I paid for that land, and I've gone to a lot of effort to turn it into a productive part of my farm. You, however, got your farm cheaply precisely because that land is mine."
Do they know the way? Yeah, it's bad.
It's more like There are two neighboring farms
And there's this one run by pigs...oh wait, wrong metaphor. OK, I'll stop now.
The current owners are the successors of the prior owners. That's not exactly trivial.
No one deserves Fresno, that's just cruel.
OK, imagine a large wooden badger...
So, you're saying the badger wouldn't work?
So will you take Bakersfield? Stockton?
When a mommy Methhead and a Daddy methhead love each other very much, sometimes they move to Bakersfield.
Sacramento? I never thought that was such a terrible option for the A's.
and one farmer diverts the water from his farm onto the other farm, thereby flooding the land... No, wait, that doesn't work either.
Hey - stop lurking, get back to posting!
What? Really? Oakland may not be a food mecca, but its right next to San Francisco (Which is considered a good food city), and it has a long history of ethic communities that brought their culinary traditions with them.
That said, my brother-in-law, a Bay area native, swears by the Memphis music and food scene.
Dam burst?
And I like your logic, by that logic the Yankees should just give AROD to the A's because it would increase the fans of both teams, it doesn't matter what the value of what you want the other team to give you is.
"There's a new ballclub in town. Now who wants to kill 'em?"
"ME! ME! I DO! PICK ME!"
"Why don't we give 'em...to FRESNO...?"
"Fresno?! Sh!t, that's too cruel!"
WHAT KIND OF GARAGE SALE IS THIS??
Giants retort:
Odd that Bud is allowing the teams to air this out so publicly.
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