Ladies and gentlemen, get ready (eventually) for...the Carolina Athletics (resulting in the Kansas City Royals heading to the AL West and Toronto Blue Jays to the AL Central).

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready (eventually) for...the Carolina Athletics...

I dunno, shouldn't they have to make an interim stop somewhere in the central US before arriving back east? I'm thinking that 13 years or so of the "Memphis Athletics" is in order.

What happened to the "Blue Ribbon Panel" ?

BOO!

There's nothing left for the blue ribbon panel to analyze, as the move to San Jose appears to be basically dead.

If I were an Oakland sports fan, I would be crossing my fingers and desperately hoping that the Coliseum City Project happens in the near future. Because if it doesn't, the city might very well end up losing all of its teams.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready (eventually) for...the Carolina Athletics...

All the Bobcats fans that don't show up to basketball games can not show up to baseball games!

This is going to end up with Death Valley Athletics, isn't it?

Death Valley Athletics,

Close enough, the Las Vegas A's...

Santa Barbara A's

This reminds me of a boss I once had who didn't want to be called on to make any hard decisions or intervene as the authority figure when things got tough. Bud (literally and figuratively), you're the boss. That's why you get the big paycheck. Sooner or later you've either got to ram it through or get the current ownership to sell, as this group is never, ever going to get a ballpark in Oakland.

FTFA:

With the Houston Astros switching to the American League next year, MLB also is working on a new schedule format that provides season-long interleague play. Selig said it's possible baseball could retain six interleague games between rivals, such as the New York Yankees and Mets, the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, the A's and the Giants, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels.

"The fans like it," Selig said. "When your fans like something, you have to be responsive to that and sensitive to it."

#### you Bud. The extra rivals games make no sense in a wild card era.

Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice president of labor relations, also gave MLB's first explanation for last week's decision to fire Shyam Das, the arbitrator who in February overturned a 50-game suspension for NL MVP Ryan Braun following a positive drug test. Braun's lawyers argued his urine sample wasn't handled as specified in baseball's drug agreement.

"Shyam served for 13 years. That's a very long time," Manfred said. "He's a very high-quality arbitrator. We made a decision to exercise our contractual right to make a change. There's nothing more to that."

Sure. "He's proven to be high quality, so we fired him."

Los Angeles A's of Burbank.

The Sacratomato A's.

Rebirth of the Mission Reds.
Just move them to the hipster neighborhood, pay them extra to grow beards, the tickets practically sell themselves!

What good would selling the team do? i mean unless the new ownership wants to buy themselves their own ballpark like the giants because it sure looks to me as if bud ain't gonna be able to do what it takes to get the As to san jose or some other place where there isn't already existing good public transportation.

Maybe they could move to montreal...

it's a little interesting to see who buddy boy backs and does not back - not sure why exactly he has all this massive LUUUVVV for wilpons and not his old friend wollf

A new owner with a some combination of more money, better connections to the San Jose business community, better connections to bud, and maybe the willingness to mix it up in the courts could get a stadium built. Wolff has probably made it clear behind the scenes that he won't be spending any money, so bud can't really go to bat for him if Lew can't carry his end of stadium spending and/or a market swapping settlement with the Giants. That's really what's holding things up: if the two teams sat down over lunch with bud and said "Money can fix this" then he'd help negotiate something like WAS and BAL. But it'll be expensive, and if Wolff can't fund that and a park then there's no point in bud wasting effort on the whole thing.

"The fans like it," Selig said.

I'm sure I'll be a big fan of the Pirates' games against their designated rival, as soon as they're assigned one...