My parents were both raised in Oakland, and I have spent many fine days in Oakland over the years, visiting various relatives. I like Oakland.

But this:

made our once great city just another normal second tier hamlet

is hilarious. Oakland has been just another normal second tier hamlet for about 150 years, and nothing Jerry Brown or any mayor could have done about it would change that.

It's certainly true that Brown's extreme lack of enthusiasm for the A's ballpark project hasn't helped the cause of keeping the franchise. But the rape of Oakland taxpayers perpetrated by Al Davis had a hell of lot more to do with it. Putting all the blame on Brown is really not right.

Brown did the right thing. We don't need more millionare welfare in the guise of taxpayer funded stadiums. MLB and the players union have many times the cash flow necessary to build and maintain the stadiums they need, but they'll never do it as long as weak politicos rush to give them handouts. I'd like to see congress enact an income tax surtax of 50% on all taxpayer subsidized companies and each of their employees who earn over $500k per year. Wonder how many of these teams that "need" new stadiums will suddenly change their mind.

We need more Jerry Browns, not less. Put one in every city and force the owners to use some of their 5 billion dollar revenue to build their own parks. If that happened, player salaries would have to take a cut, so maybe its not such a good idea.

The people of this nation would weep if Soriano was denied his chance to make 100 million.

Thanks to
California Uber Alles

I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president...

Carter Power will soon go away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school
Your kids will meditate in school!

[Chorus:]
California Uber Alles
California Uber Alles
Uber Alles California
Uber Alles California

Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!

[Chorus]

Now it is 1984
Knock-knock at your front door
It's the suede/denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece

Come quietly to the camp
You'd look nice as a drawstring lamp
Don't you worry, it's only a shower
For your clothes here's a pretty flower.

DIE on organic poison gas
Serpent's egg's already hatched
You will croak, you little clown
When you mess with President Brown
When you mess with President Brown

[Chorus]


Baseball note: Good for Brown. I agree in principle, if not the exact campaign planks of V-Arb.

Unfortunately, as long as owners whine and "fans" make a fuss, this will continue to happen.

Seattle has built two brand-new sports arenas - with a lot of taxpayer money - and now the other major league team, the Sonics, wants a new arena or they will leave (presumably for Oklahoma City.) The sports radio hosts complain about how their departure will make us a "second rate" city because we'd "only" have two major league teams, blah blah blah.

(Of course it has nothing to do about lowering their ratings during basketball season because they'd have nothing to talk about. Except maybe the Trailblazers who may be moving as well.)

I'd love to see more cities say no. Let the Sonics move to East Podunk and see how easy it is to sell suites, and how attendance will drop once the novelty of having a major league team dies down.

Of course it has nothing to do about lowering their ratings during basketball season

In a similar vein, the San Jose Mercury News's shameless, desperate shilling over the past several years to get the A's to San Jose is just disgusting. In editorial after editorial, in the Sports section and on the Op-Ed page, the Merc listed vague "civic pride" reasons why it's crucial to get an MLB franchise to San Jose, as this will be in the best interests of our good citizens, you see.

Never mind that the taxpayers are supposed to fund the facility. And, oh, vested interest in selling newspapers and ad space? Us? The Merc?

San Jose voters haven't been fooled. Now the Mercury is trumpeting the Fremont thing as A Great Thing For The Greater South Bay. Plan B for the Mercury's self-interest is more like it.

Brown was right. Anybody who's been to Oakland knows the last thing Oakland needs is to drop a couple hondo on a ballpark.

In editorial after editorial, in the Sports section and on the Op-Ed page, the Merc listed vague "civic pride" reasons why it's crucial to get an MLB franchise to San Jose, as this will be in the best interests of our good citizens, you see.

You get those A's at any costs types, and you honestly think that they believe the only thing seperating San Jose from San Francisco is a major league ball team.

The sports radio hosts complain about how their departure will make us a "second rate" city because we'd "only" have two major league teams, blah blah blah.

I hate that argument. They used it here in KC too to get stadium renovations. If the only thing propping your city up from being a second rate city is a sports team, then you probably already are a second rate city.

I hate that argument. They used it here in KC too to get stadium renovations. If the only thing propping your city up from being a second rate city is a sports team, then you probably already are a second rate city.

Hey, everyone should keep in mind the horrible lesson learned by Los Angeles, the economy of which utterly collapsed without an NFL franchise.

Brown was right. Anybody who's been to Oakland knows the last thing Oakland needs is to drop a couple hondo on a ballpark.

This is very true, and I'm glad the A's are staying in the East Bay, but... I grew up in Hayward which, if Oakland is a second tier hamlet then Hayward is that hamlet's sewer treatment plant, and there was something cool that the East Bay had 3 sports teams and, when I was a really wee lad in the 70's, all three of those teams were champions. It was all anybody talked about as I grew up--we sure didn't have anything else--and those teams and players became mythical to my young, developing mind. San Francisco had everything else, but we were champs nonetheless. This is all to say that I understand why the A's need to move from Oakland, but for irrational, fanboy reasons, it makes me sad. The A's going subruban...it just won't be the same.

You get those A's at any costs types, and you honestly think that they believe the only thing seperating San Jose from San Francisco is a major league ball team.

I'm not sure whether they believe it or not, although it certainly might sometimes be the case that a zealous huckster begins to believe his own BS.

I love a Mike Royko reference.

What Jerry cares about is the maintenance of his insecurities about sports—regardless of the cost.

What the #### does this even mean?

Of course in a truly just world, all those great A's teams for the past 39 years would have had "KC" on their caps. Underneath it all Charlie Finley was little more than a variant of Calvin Griffith and Bob Irsay. It's just that now the shoe is on the other foot as far as Oakland is concerned.

But I agree that the Moon Man did the right thing, and that it would be great if every city in the world got together and colluded baseball right out of all those gift stadiums. Then all we'd need is a big old time machine to undo the past 50+ years, and while we're at it, take away all those tax writeoffs for luxury boxes.

IOW stick a big f*ck*ng pin into the whole bloated mess and see what real "private enterprise" can come up with when it's forced to assume a bit of actual risk for a change.

But Biafra changed his tune on "In God We Trust Inc"...
(Well, not tune, just lyrics.)

We've Got a Bigger Problem Now


Last call for alcohol.
Last call for your freedom of speech.
Drink up. Happy hour is now enforced by law.
Don't forget our house special, it's called a Trickie Dickie Screwdriver.
It's got one part Jack Daniels, two parts purple Kool-Aid,
and a jigger of formaldehyde
from the jar with Hitler's brain in it we got in the back storeroom.
Happy trails to you. Happy trails to you.

I am Emperor Ronald Reagan
Born again with fascist cravings
Still, you made me president

Human rights will soon go 'way
I am now your Shah today
Now I command all of you
Now you're going to pray in school
I'll make sure they're Christian too

California Uber alles
Uber alles California

Ku Klux Klan will control you
Still you think it's natural
###### knockin' for the master race
Still you wear the happy face

You closed your eyes, can't happen here
Alexander Haig is near
Vietnam won't come back you say
Join the army or you will pay

California Uber alles
Uber alles California

Yeah, that's it. Just relax.
Have another drink, few more pretzels, little more MSG.
Turn on those Dallas Cowboys on your TV.
Lock your doors. Close your mind.
It's time for the two-minute warning.

Welcome to 1984
Are you ready for the third world war?!?
You too will meet the secret police
They'll draft you and they'll jail your niece

You'll go quitely to boot camp
They'll shoot you dead, make you a man
Don't you worry, it's for a cause
Feeding global corporations' claws

Die on our brand new poison gas
El Salvador or Afghanistan
Making money for President Reagan
And all the friends of President Reagan

California Uber alles
Uber alles California

Oakland has been just another normal second tier hamlet for about 150 years, and nothing Jerry Brown or any mayor could have done about it would change that.

Funny, I came into these comments to say exactly the same thing. And I'm a former Oakland resident who is, at this very moment, wearing his favorite hoody sweatjacket, which says "OAKLAND" on the front of it. Here's a year-old picture of it (the jacket, not Oakland), only you can't see the L.

Of course in a truly just world, all those great A's teams for the past 39 years would have had "KC" on their caps.

Heck, there's really no reason why Philadelphia couldn't support two teams.

Heck, there's really no reason why Philadelphia couldn't support two teams.

I hear Louisville is still ticked off Pittsburgh stole all their players.

Hey, everyone should keep in mind the horrible lesson learned by Los Angeles, the economy of which utterly collapsed without an NFL franchise.

They had two for a few years. Though, one was the Los Angeles Rams of Anaheim.

Heck, there's really no reason why Philadelphia couldn't support two teams.

None at all. "Small market" my a$$.

Truly, there has only been one franchise relocation in all of MLB since WWII that was authentically necessary: the move of the St. Louis Browns. In every other case, there was nothing wrong with the market being moved away from. Just as there's nothing wrong with the Oakland market now.

Brown did the right thing. We don't need more millionare welfare in the guise of taxpayer funded stadiums..........

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wolff is leasing the land with his own money (perhaps with a little help from his Cisco business partners) and building the stadium with his own money, no?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wolff is leasing the land with his own money (perhaps with a little help from his Cisco business partners) and building the stadium with his own money, no?

It's not clear. They're being very cagey about who's actually going to pay what.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wolff is leasing the land with his own money (perhaps with a little help from his Cisco business partners) and building the stadium with his own money, no?

Yes, at the Fremont site. Brown is the mayor of Oakland where the A's had no luck getting the public funding.

If Wolff was ready and eager to be funding the entire project with his (and his partners') own money, there would be no reason for him not to do it in Oakland. Even Jerry Brown would be all for that.

Stop giving Oakland ####. As the T-shirt says, "
I hella [heart] Oakland. Oakland is better than San Jo any day. Geez.

I think both sides assign to Mayor Moonbeam more credit/blame for this situation. After the unbelievable giveaway that the Raiders got, and how well that worked out, there was no way at all that any public figure in Oakland could seriously have proposed even the relatively cheap giveaways that were floated.

Not that Brown isn't happy to take credit for something he didn't do; it's the undone work of governing that he ought to done that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. How many murders a year in one's municipality are required before one is no longer a valid candidate for state AG?

Wolff is using his own money to pay for the stadium. In return, the city of Fremont will REZONE Wolff owned land from Industrial to Residential so that Wolff can build townhomes, condos, homes, etc. Rezoning the land alone will increase its value substantially. The profits from the development will pay for the cost of the stadium. Wolf made a half-hearted attempt to do this across from the current coliseum but too many small tract owners wanted too much money.

The location will bring the population of San Jose about 30-40 minutes closer to the A's. San Jose has triple the population of Oakland and a much larger corporate base. Attendance should go up.

The problem with the new location is that it is not near any current or future public transportation (BART Train) which is used by thousands of fans, not to mention parking in the Train parking lot for free (under the Haas family, dirt lots across the freeway were free, now they are $15). Of course, with a new stadium, regular ticket prices double, screwing the average fan.

"... and there was something cool that the East Bay had 3 sports teams... "

Actually, back then, there were four Oakland sports teams: the A's, the Raiders, the Warriors, and the Seals (aka the Golden Seals). I found this little bit on a Seals website, about Charlie Finley's other team:

The Seals also wore green and gold skates for one season. The next year they changed to white skates, which (according to one player) made it look like they were skating on stumps when people watched the team on TV since the skates blended in with the ice.

A woman also streaked across the ice on skates during a home game in a plan that was engineered by one of pro sports' first professional cheerleaders, the inventor of the wave, "Krazy George" Henderson. Krazy George was a fixture at Seals home games and made crowds of 5,000 sound louder than 15,000 people. During the team's last two years in the league, their mascot was Sparky the Seal, drawn by "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, who was also a season-ticket holder.

Heck, there's really no reason why Philadelphia couldn't support two teams.

None at all. "Small market" my a$$.

Truly, there has only been one franchise relocation in all of MLB since WWII that was authentically necessary: the move of the St. Louis Browns. In every other case, there was nothing wrong with the market being moved away from. Just as there's nothing wrong with the Oakland market now.

It's true that Philadelphia wasn't a real small market like St. Louis, but in the real baseball world of the 1950's and 1960's saving the Philadelphia A's would have required you to inject a big dose of post-1975 style owners, which didn't exist then.

For Philadelphia to support the A's, the Macks would have to have found a local buyer who was willing to shovel a small fortune into the sort of improvements which would have been necessary to even begin to compete with the Yankees: a bigger and better scouting network and farm system, the willingness to sign a few choice bonus babies who might have been uncovered by those scouts---maybe even a few black ones! And of course a new stadium, or at least an major series of ugrades to Shibe Park.

The truth is that the Philadelphia A's in the 1950's were a financial basket case, operating on a shoestring, run by a family one that had one foot in the grave and absolutely no sense of what the modern baseball world was soon to require of it. Beyond that, it was located in a decaying neighborhood with a customer base that was fast fleeing it. That was the reality.

Now you can say that in a dream world some enlightened son of a Main Line multimillionaire could have pulled a Tom Yawkey (minus the racism) and saw his opportunity to become a hero to the handful of remaining A's fans by pouring his inheritance into a war against the Yankees. But that's what you're talking about: A dream world. In the real Philadelphia of the 1950's, nothing remotely like that was ever going to happen.

IOW the A's left town for many very good reasons. And you would have, too, Steve, if it had been your ball club and your livelihood, because you wouldn't have wanted to wind up in bankruptcy any more than the Macks did. Much as I detest the greed and shortsightedness of most owners, to say that the A's pulled out of Philadelphia precipitously is really a bit of a stretch.

On a final note, the Yankees drew nearly a million and a half in the A's final year in Philadelphia. The A's themselves---60 games behind the Indians---drew 304,666, less than 4,000 a game.

If Wolff was ready and eager to be funding the entire project with his (and his partners') own money, there would be no reason for him not to do it in Oakland. Even Jerry Brown would be all for that.

According to the Wikipedia page at least, it sounds to me as though the new downtown ballpark he proposed over a year ago was basically the same type of deal he's working out now, with him paying for the land and the park and the city paying for some related infrastructure costs.

That strikes me as being the old, traditional type of deal that used to get struck back in the old days. I believe that even San Francisco forked over some public infrastructure money for Pac Bell Park (or whatever they're calling it now).

But I suspect that some folks here wouldn't really be happy unless the team owner also was forced to pay out of pocket for some new schools, police stations, and courthouses on top of everything else.

But hey, whatever. Enjoy your soon-to-be Fremont Athletics.

In Seattle, many of us share the view the sports teams don't provide a net benefit to a city's economy. With Initiative 91, we're taking it to the streets too! By tonight we'll know if the voters don't want to be gouged any more.

SEATTLE
INITIATIVE 91
For-profit Professional Sports Organizations

Seattle Initiative Measure Number 91 concerns property, goods, and services Seattle provides to for-profit professional sports.

If enacted the measure would require that for-profit professional sports organizations pay the City at least "fair value" for goods, services, real property, or facilities the City provides or leases to them, either directly or through another public entity or a non-profit organization. The measure defines "fair value," based in part on the rate of return for 30-year U.S. Treasury Bonds. Any Seattle resident would have standing to file a lawsuit challenging City acts that allegedly violated the measure.

According to the Wikipedia page at least, it sounds to me as though the new downtown ballpark he proposed over a year ago was basically the same type of deal he's working out now, with him paying for the land and the park and the city paying for some related infrastructure costs.

Except without the additional land he wanted for condos and the like. They were willing to sell him the land for the ballpark, but the city didn't want to give him the whole village he was asking for.

I also hear the Kings arena in Sac-town is going to fall to defeat with a resounding THUMP.

Wolff is using his own money to pay for the stadium. In return, the city of Fremont will REZONE Wolff owned land from Industrial to Residential so that Wolff can build townhomes, condos, homes, etc. Rezoning the land alone will increase its value substantially. The profits from the development will pay for the cost of the stadium. Wolf made a half-hearted attempt to do this across from the current coliseum but too many small tract owners wanted too much money.

This is what i have heard, but the statement is that they Hope they wont need any public finance, not they they wont need it. We shall see. Im guessing there will be huge enviromental impact issues building the studium close to the wetlands there, but its just a guess.

Stop giving Oakland ####. As the T-shirt says, "
I hella [heart] Oakland. Oakland is better than San Jo any day. Geez.

There's something very Oaktown about borrowing a piece of SAn Francisco slang.

According to the Wikipedia page at least, it sounds to me as though the new downtown ballpark he proposed over a year ago was basically the same type of deal he's working out now, with him paying for the land and the park and the city paying for some related infrastructure costs.

That strikes me as being the old, traditional type of deal that used to get struck back in the old days. I believe that even San Francisco forked over some public infrastructure money for Pac Bell Park (or whatever they're calling it now).

But I suspect that some folks here wouldn't really be happy unless the team owner also was forced to pay out of pocket for some new schools, police stations, and courthouses on top of everything else.

But hey, whatever. Enjoy your soon-to-be Fremont Athletics.

Nice ad hominem, but the facts aren't so generous. Wolff was willing to pay for the stadium, but he also wanted eminent domain on at least another mile of land in order to make a killing off property redevelopment. The Giants wanted enough land for a baseball park and a parking lot. Wolff wanted enough land for a baseball park and 5,000 condos. Big difference. If Wolff wanted land for a park and only a park, the deal almost certainly gets done. It's the other things Wolff wanted with his new park that killed the Oakland deal.

Actually, back then, there were four Oakland sports teams: the A's, the Raiders, the Warriors, and the Seals (aka the Golden Seals). I found this little bit on a Seals website, about Charlie Finley's other team:

Forgot all about them! In my family, the rollerball team in Oakland was more important, though.

"Not that Brown isn't happy to take credit for something he didn't do; it's the undone work of governing that he ought to done that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. How many murders a year in one's municipality are required before one is no longer a valid candidate for state AG?"

I think that's an unfair jab at Mayor Moonbeam. The murder problem in Oakland is not so much one of the city government. The problem is with the people of Oakland. My native city has some large impoverished neighborhoods, where young boys grow up in violent dysfunctional households. Boys are not taught what it takes to be a man by their fathers. They learn from the street culture. Add to that the drugs and gangs and it is no surprise that the murder rate is high. It is not any kind of new problem. In fact, there is today less violent crime than there was back in the early 1990s, the last years I was living in Oakland.

I don't think the decline is due to anything Brown or other Oakland civic leaders did. I think most of the reduction is due to 1) a demographic downturn in the population of people aged 16-25, 2) the end of the crack epidemic, 3) the 3 strikes laws and the general increase in the prison population, and 4) maybe a bit due to the changes in welfare laws in the mid-1990s.

This comes from a recent SF Chronicle story on Brown's time as mayor:

During the eight-year tenure of former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, Brown's immediate predecessor, there were 1,104 slayings in Oakland. In the nearly eight years since Brown took office, 771 people have been the victims of homicides in the city. Though the eight-year figure under Brown is lower, the number of homicides in recent years has risen markedly in Oakland, just as it has in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and many other large cities.

As mayor, Brown has announced more than 16 anti-crime initiatives, including a variety of crackdowns on repeat felons, parolees, loiterers, drug dealers and customers who seek prostitutes. He has imposed curfews on probationers and placed monitoring devices on high-risk probationers.

Is anyone else sick of this Explore Canada ad? It keeps taking up the top third of my screen even after I've switched applications. I used to like Canada, but now...

I suspect that some folks here wouldn't really be happy unless the team owner also was forced to pay out of pocket for some new schools, police stations, and courthouses on top of everything else.

I won't speak for any other folks here, but the kind of thing you describe is actually quite common in large scale real estate development deals. They're called proffers -- developers offer to either build or pay for some of the infrastructure needed to support the developments they seek rezoning for. Happens all the time. Local governments are generally a lot more responsive to rezoning requests that come with generous proffers. The developers make the offers in the first place because the rezonings they seek tend to dramatically increase the value of their land.

The murder problem in Oakland is not so much one of the city government.

Not that I pay a whole bunch of attention, but isn't Oakland really underpoliced as compared to most cities its size?

(Cue Riders joke)

My native city has some large impoverished neighborhoods, where young boys grow up in violent dysfunctional households. Boys are not taught what it takes to be a man by their fathers. They learn from the street culture.

Ergo, Billy Martin.

It is not any kind of new problem

No, but the downward trend has reversed under Moonbeam. I grant that much of the crime is systemic, and that the Mayor has to contend with a typically fratricidal council, but even still, it has been a signal failure of Moonbeam's administration.

I love Oakland, used to live there (59th and Shattuck), hope to move back across the bridge.

BTW, I'm pretty sure the rise in the murder rate across urban America since 2003 is largely due to a reversal of the demographic trend. That is, we are starting to have more and more people moving into that optimal killing age, 16-25.

What Jerry cares about is the maintenance of his insecurities about sports—regardless of the cost.
What the #### does this even mean?

It means;

"He's a nerd. He always was a nerd. My jock friends and I used to beat him up in school. Now you citizens of Oakland are nerds too for letting his residual bitterness/insecurities keep me and my jock friends from getting our new toy."

There's a great deal of error in thinking and expression of conventional wisdom here.

1) The financing program is not "Lew's Money" but a land write down scheme.

See: http://bballbiz.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-oakland-as-plan-to-pay-for-their.html

2) If the A's remained 51 percent owners of the proposed downtown stadium, it's own tax increment revenue could have paid for it, and there would be money
generated to pay for directed services for the downtown area.

3) A certain group of people get suckered into believing Jerry Brown because they imprint their own impressions on him rather than seek the truth. I worked for Jerry. I've seen it time and again. Jerry's mixed and weird support, then opposition, and then support and then opposition to this was to prove that he and not City Manager Roberrt Bobb was in charge.

3) A certain group of people get suckered into believing Jerry Brown because they imprint their own impressions on him rather than seek the truth. I worked for Jerry. I've seen it time and again. Jerry's mixed and weird support, then opposition, and then support and then opposition to this was to prove that he and not City Manager Roberrt Bobb was in charge.

You think there's any chance for a last minute deal, then?

"Not that I pay a whole bunch of attention, but isn't Oakland really underpoliced as compared to most cities its size?"

Royster,

This is from the Chronicle:

Part of the problem is that Oakland's police force is understaffed. The City Council imposed a hiring freeze on the police in 2002 that was only lifted after voters approved a parcel tax increase in November 2004. Voters twice rejected earlier proposed tax increases to hire more officers.

Unable to hire reinforcements, Brown spent years creatively redeploying officers -- which often has meant shifting beat officers, traffic cops or vice investigators to beef up task forces that focus on the city's most violent areas.

Oakland has been just another normal second tier hamlet for about 150 years

"there is no tier there"

3) A certain group of people get suckered into believing Jerry Brown because they imprint their own impressions on him rather than seek the truth. I worked for Jerry. I've seen it time and again. Jerry's mixed and weird support, then opposition, and then support and then opposition to this was to prove that he and not City Manager Roberrt Bobb was in charge.

You think there's any chance for a last minute deal, then?

Possibly. But the problem with Oakland and sports is the lack of political will. To put it another way, they're lazy. It -- keeping the A's -- calls for work and they really just don't want to do it. That's Oakland Governments' problem.

Oh..See: Fremont Deal

Actually, back then, there were four Oakland sports teams: the A's, the Raiders, the Warriors, and the Seals (aka the Golden Seals).

I used to love the Oakland Seals/California Golden Seals because it seemed to me they were the only team my home team, the Los Angeles Kings, could beat. For a while there, there were five teams in the East Bay, sort of. The Warriors always played some, and eventually most, games in Oakland even before they changed their name and officially became an Oakland team. And for two years in the late '60s there was an ABA team, the Oakland Oaks. I think Rick Barry might have played for the Oaks, but I might be mixing that up and I'm too lazy to go look.

Oh, also, Billy Martin was from Berkeley, not Oakland. Very different towns, except that they blend into each other at the borders. Even in his day.

Oakland has been just another normal second tier hamlet for about 150 years

"there is no tier there"

Very well played!

The truth is that the Philadelphia A's in the 1950's were a financial basket case, operating on a shoestring, run by a family one that had one foot in the grave and absolutely no sense of what the modern baseball world was soon to require of it. Beyond that, it was located in a decaying neighborhood with a customer base that was fast fleeing it. That was the reality.

It was. But it was also the very same neighborhood that the Phillies remained in.

Now you can say that in a dream world some enlightened son of a Main Line multimillionaire could have pulled a Tom Yawkey (minus the racism) and saw his opportunity to become a hero to the handful of remaining A's fans by pouring his inheritance into a war against the Yankees. But that's what you're talking about: A dream world. In the real Philadelphia of the 1950's, nothing remotely like that was ever going to happen.

Nothing remotely like it did happen. But if relocation was simply not an option, and if instead the American League and MLB had committed themselves to fixing the franchise rather than moving it (while putting expansion teams in the new westward markets), it isn't implausible at all to imagine some creative solutions being applied to such operations as the A's (and the Boston Braves and the Washington Senators).

Just because things happened as they did doesn't mean that was the only way they could have happened.

IOW the A's left town for many very good reasons. And you would have, too, Steve, if it had been your ball club and your livelihood, because you wouldn't have wanted to wind up in bankruptcy any more than the Macks did. Much as I detest the greed and shortsightedness of most owners, to say that the A's pulled out of Philadelphia precipitously is really a bit of a stretch.

Of course I would have moved the franchise if that was one of the choices available to me. I also would have moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to LA, and the Giants from Harlem to San Francisco.

But just because it would have been in my personal business interest to do so doesn't make the relocation in the larger business interest of the sport. MLB as an institutition would have been far better off in the long term without allowing its owners to perform the pell-mell land rush they performed in the 1953-72 period.

If an individual owner felt he had a better opportunity in (say) Kansas City than Philadelphia, then that owner should have petitioned the league to open up an expansion franchise in Kansas City, and bought that expansion franchise while selling the Philly franchise. That would have made for a better and healthier league in the long run, preserving the great traditional franchises in the sport's great old markets such as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York while simultaneously investing in the great new markets.

King's right about Rick Barry. From Wikipedia:

The 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965-66 season. The following year, he won the NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38 point outburst, and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — still the eighth highest scoring average in NBA history. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the San Francisco Warriors to the NBA Finals that same season, where they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in spite of Barry's 40.8 point per game average in the series. Angered at not receiving incentive monies he felt owed for these feats from San Francisco manager Al Bianchi, Barry sat out his next season and jumped to the ABA for a much larger contract.

Barry starred in the rival league, twice averaging over 30 points per game, and he led the Oakland Oaks to the league championship in the 1968-1969 season. Barry was already a controversial figure in the NBA for his outspoken ways, and controversy followed him to the ABA. He was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a Virginia Squires jersey, saying he wouldn't return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." Soon he then denounced the Squires, saying he did not want his kids growing up with a southern accent. He was soon traded to the New York Nets, before changing his mind about the NBA and returning to the Warriors in 1972.

Oh, also, Billy Martin was from Berkeley, not Oakland. Very different towns, except that they blend into each other at the borders. Even in his day.

Yep. Graduated from Berkeley High.

My father-in-law played semi-pro ball with Martin in Emeryville. Martin was just a teenager playing with mostly older guys, and my father-in-law said everyone could tell Martin would be a star. He described Martin as "cocky. He knew he had it, and everyone else knew it too."

But the problem with Oakland and sports is the lack of political will. To put it another way, they're lazy. It -- keeping the A's -- calls for work and they really just don't want to do it. That's Oakland Governments' problem.

Sounds more like you work for Lewis Wolff. Of course, you did say 'worked' for Brown.

I don't know much about this deal or the machinations behind it, but I know a lot about both when it comes to San Diego. The city basically put John Moores in the land development business, and should have been spending the money on other things, or not spending it at all, as the city's grim financial picture indicates. I find it hard to believe Wolff's deal was any better for Oakland. Even it was, I find it hard to believe it was the best use of municipal energy and resources. However, I will read that link, since you have a knowledge base on this that I do not.

But the problem with Oakland Stadiums and local sports owners is the lack of political entrepreneurial will. To put it another way, they're greedy and lazy.

Even if it was

Steve,

I completely agree with your take on what should (or shouldn't) have happened with all those sick (or declining---Brooklyn was still profitable) franchises in the 50's and 60's. A perfect example would've have been right here in Washington, where we might have had a decent team for the first time in over 25 years instead of an expansion team which itself left us 11 years later.

But of course in my last post I was addressing the reality, not the ideal.

And a legitimate question would be this: What could MLB have done to save a team like the A's, given the financial realities of their then-situation?

Have the Yankees shovel some of their money to Connie Mack? Not likely.

Instituted some sort of luxury tax kickback to spread the wealth more generally? Again, remember the attitudes of the owners, and their views on "socialism." This was an era where the acceptance of the localization of radio and TV profits helped to cause many of the discrepancies we have with us today. (And never mind the absolutely insane idea that most teams had of only televising their home games!) Meanwhile, the NFL was well on its way to establishing rational TV policies of road game only telecasts, and (within a few years) television revenue sharing. You can never underestimate the sheer mossheadedness of baseball executives---but you know that even better than I do.

Pool their resources to build the A's a new ballpark? Same answer.

Institute a free agent draft? Good luck. It took another decade and nine more Yankee pennants to finally accomplish that.

Try to find a better local owner? Possibly, though it's hard to believe that this wasn't attempted. But any new owner would have had to be prepared to lose a lot of money before seeing any possible future rewards. Not too many rational businessmen would have wanted to step into that Philadelphia situation in 1954.

Bottom line, I'm not sure what baseball could have done to save the A;s and the Braves. The Senators, Dodgers and Giants, maybe, since Washington was about to get a new stadium and had no NL competition, and the two New York teams still had that monster-sized market. But the Braves and the A's, I just can't see how. I'd be interested to hear how you think baseball might have addressed their plight without moving them, given what they had been up against, and given the general decline of baseball attendance and interest after the immediate postwar boom. I know it would have taken a lot more imagination (and more to the point, charismatic leadership) than I ever could have mustered.

Andy,

If your question is, as it seems to be, "What could the greedy, selfish, and short-sighted owners of the early 1950s have done differently and better than they did?" then I certainly agree with you: nothing.

But if instead the question is, "What could and should a more reasonable and forward-thinking group of owners have done differently and better than the bumbling Lords?" then it's easy to see all kinds of plausible possibilities.

As for what I think baseball should have done, it's this:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/smart-growth-and-mlb-a-virtual-history/

There's something very Oaktown about borrowing a piece of SAn Francisco slang.

What makes "hella" San Francisco slang?

What makes "hella" San Francisco slang?

I don't know - I assumed that was a Bay Area thing.

Either way, it's annoying.

What makes "hella" San Francisco slang?

We invented it?

We invented it?

According to whom?

Some "hella" etymology is discussed here. One apparently early use:

Metallica used the word "hella" with respect to the "Garage Days Re-revisited" EP. I don't know if it was in the liner notes, but the t-shirt had some text on the back, and the first two sentences are:

After coming off the 'Puppets' tour in Feb. 87, we needed a place to jam and ended up in a fancy, so-called "real" rehearsal studio. IT HELLA SUCKED!

According to whom?

Me.

I thought this article was going to be about Jeremy Brown.

Me.

Ah, the guy who hadn't been born yet...

Padgett, Wiktionary dates it back to the early '80s.

That entry is crap. I've never heard it used as a contraction. Ever.

It's basically always been an adverb.

Padgett, Wiktionary dates it back to the early '80s.


Yeah, I saw that too. I just thought the idea of Metallica using "hella" was amusing.

There seem to be some examples on Usenet going back to at least 1985.

MLB as an institutition would have been far better off in the long term without allowing its owners to perform the pell-mell land rush they performed in the 1953-72 period.

You may think so, but there isn't much evidence to think so. I'm not sure why nursing along the A's in Philly before 4k is "better off in the long term".

If a team struggles that badly, move it somewhere that there are fans that will appreciate it.

You may think so, but there isn't much evidence to think so. I'm not sure why nursing along the A's in Philly before 4k is "better off in the long term".

Because the Philadelphia market is big enough to handle two teams, and fixing an existing franchise is a lot easier than trying to establish a new one, especially as once the A's left, the Phillies were going to fight like hell to keep any other franchise out of the city. Staying in Philadelphia might not have been the best short-term solution for the A's, but it would have been the best thing for the sport in general in the long run (same with the Braves in Boston, and the Giants and Dodgers in New York).

But that's all in the past now, and nobody ever accused MLB ownership of having foresight or any sort of planning beyond the next couple of seasons.

Steve, I just read your fantasy piece, and all I can say is that I wish you'd been Commissioner of Baseball, with the proviso that I'd been the Tsar of Tsuspicious Tsubstances. It's a delightful scenario you paint, and without question if your ideas had been adopted we'd all be better off.

Only one nitpick. You write this:

All further suggestions that either Philadelphia team might be moved were greeted with deserving dismissal; the proper thing to do if a franchise was struggling would be to focus on improving its management.

What, exactly, within the context of the Philadelphia situation as it actually existed (and you can throw in the Boston Braves' pre-Milwaukee move plight for good measure), would "improved management" been able to accomplish?

I realize it's your fantasy, but since so much of it is quite laudibly specific, I can't help but wonder why you seemed to skim over this particular issue.

I would have moved the dodgers to the City and the giants to LA.

Far more annoying than "hella" is its PG-13 rated variant "hecka". Why not just say "H-E-double hockey sticks?"

And plus, frisco boy, do you *really* want to insist on claiming hella as your own?

But the problem with Oakland Stadiums and local sports owners is the lack of political entrepreneurial will. To put it another way, they're greedy and lazy.

UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.

Man, if I had known about this before the election, I might have been a little more inclined to vote for Brown.

nobody ever accused MLB ownership of having foresight or any sort of planning beyond the next couple of seasons

Couple? That would be long-range strategic thinking for MLB ownership.

What, exactly, within the context of the Philadelphia situation as it actually existed (and you can throw in the Boston Braves' pre-Milwaukee move plight for good measure), would "improved management" been able to accomplish?

1. Establishment of a standard modern marketing/promotional program. I recall reading a description of Earle Mack in 1950 or so routinely throwing requests for group tickets into the wastebasket.

2. Establishment of a modern radio/TV broadcasting network, which the A's in Philadelphia never had. TV broadcasts likely did hurt MLB attendance in the short run in the '50s, but in the long run they proved to be a major builder of the fanbase in all markets, as radio had already done.

3. Development of a modern, functioning farm system. As we see here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-value-production-standings-1951-1955/

The A's (along with a couple of other AL franchises) hadn't yet established one in the mid-1950s.

It isn't rocket science. The A's in that period were utterly incompetently run in every regard. Improving the operation of the franchise would not have been terribly difficult to accomplish. Hell, Arnold Johnson, inept if not outright corrupt as he was, did a better job of it in small-market KC than the Mack family had been doing.

So I see the headline -- JERRY BROWN LOST THE OAKLAND A'S;-- and my first thought is, Man, I know that dude is a stoner, but how wasted do you have to be to misplace something THAT BIG?

Dude, Where's My Team?

Staying in Philadelphia might not have been the best short-term solution for the A's, but it would have been the best thing for the sport in general in the long run (same with the Braves in Boston, and the Giants and Dodgers in New York).

Just saying over and over that not moving teams is "the best thing for the sport in general in the long run" doesn't make it true.

Just saying over and over that not moving teams is "the best thing for the sport in general in the long run" doesn't make it true.

Do you need it spelled out for you, then?

Just saying over and over that not moving teams is "the best thing for the sport in general in the long run" doesn't make it true.

You're welcome to, you know, articulate why it is you think it isn't true at any time, here.

What, exactly, within the context of the Philadelphia situation as it actually existed (and you can throw in the Boston Braves' pre-Milwaukee move plight for good measure), would "improved management" been able to accomplish?

1. Establishment of a standard modern marketing/promotional program. I recall reading a description of Earle Mack in 1950 or so routinely throwing requests for group tickets into the wastebasket.

That wouldn't surprise me about the Macks, but aside from the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, which I know had relatively sophisticated marketing plans, what other teams do you know of back then that did? Maybe the Tigers and the Cubs. This is actually an interesting topic if we're trying to find out some of the non-game related reasons that baseball started slipping behind the NFL over the course of the 50's---the NFL even then was a model of promotion.

2. Establishment of a modern radio/TV broadcasting network, which the A's in Philadelphia never had. TV broadcasts likely did hurt MLB attendance in the short run in the '50s, but in the long run they proved to be a major builder of the fanbase in all markets, as radio had already done.

There was the Mutual Game of the Day on radio, but the owners made sure that it was blacked out in all Major League cities, ensuring us fans in Washington that even at times the Nats weren't playing, we'd never be exposed to any other teams.

But the real problem with baseball's TV policy (or lack of it) in TV's early years was--I repeat--the way that nearly all teams would televise their home games, but not their road games, again the exact opposite of what the NFL was doing. And when one team for one year tried it baseball's way (the Rams, in 1950) with utterly disastrous results, the very next year the NFL issued a league edict requiring all road games and no home games to be televised. IOW one mistake was enough to straighten out the entire NFL. Whereas one baseball team after the other saw thousands of fans deserting the ballpark for the TVs in their neighborhood bars and suburban homes, and yet they never bothered to adjust. I'd say that was about as good a summary of the two leagues' relative intelligence as you're likely to see.

3. Development of a modern, functioning farm system. As we see here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-value-production-standings-1951-1955/

The A's (along with a couple of other AL franchises) hadn't yet established one in the mid-1950s.

It isn't rocket science. The A's in that period were utterly incompetently run in every regard. Improving the operation of the franchise would not have been terribly difficult to accomplish. Hell, Arnold Johnson, inept if not outright corrupt as he was, did a better job of it in small-market KC than the Mack family had been doing.

Maybe so, but Johnson began with a million more customers in his first year than the Macks had in their last. And although I know that by the end of their run in KC the A's were coming up with prodigious farm-bred talent, the fact remains that the KC A's never had a winning season, and after the first few years they nearly always ranked at or near the bottom in AL attendance.

And a further question would be: Before the free agent draft came along, which gave teams like the A's a big advantage, how many small market teams---once the Cardinals had gotten a huge leg up by getting there first---were able to establish first rate farm systems? Seems to me that while many big market teams fell down in that respect, the only two small market franchises that seemed to rise above the crab barrel were the Indians (which had Bill Veeck and some of baseball biggest attendance figures) and the Pirates (which had Branch Rickey to school them). I'm not sure that for teams without much capital, establishing a good farm system would have been "easy." It obviously takes a strategic vision, but money sure doesn't hurt, either. And when you're straining to draw 700,000 people in a small market, or 500,000 in any market, the money isn't necessarily all that easy to come by.

That wouldn't surprise me about the Macks, but aside from the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, which I know had relatively sophisticated marketing plans, what other teams do you know of back then that did?

Sophisticated may not be the right word, but it's fair to say that the Browns and Indians were heavily involved in promotional exercises when run by Bill Veeck.

You're welcome to, you know, articulate why it is you think it isn't true at any time, here.

I'm not the one making the assertion, you are. Please tell me why it would be better.

Do you need it spelled out for you, then?

Yes, yes I do. Please tell me why the sport would be better off in the long run with two teams in Boston, two in Philadelphia, three in NY...

That wouldn't surprise me about the Macks, but aside from the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, which I know had relatively sophisticated marketing plans, what other teams do you know of back then that did? Maybe the Tigers and the Cubs.

In the context of the times, the Indians, the Giants, the Braves, the Pirates, and the White Sox, for sure.

Everything needs to be understood in context, and at every point in time, there will by definition be some teams at the bottom of the pile in terms of marketing sophistication. The issue is that even within the context of the times the A's of the early '50s were a complete luddite. It isn't unreasonable in the least to conceive of how the A's operation might have been substantially improved.

But the real problem with baseball's TV policy (or lack of it) in TV's early years was--I repeat--the way that nearly all teams would televise their home games, but not their road games, again the exact opposite of what the NFL was doing. And when one team for one year tried it baseball's way (the Rams, in 1950) with utterly disastrous results, the very next year the NFL issued a league edict requiring all road games and no home games to be televised. IOW one mistake was enough to straighten out the entire NFL. Whereas one baseball team after the other saw thousands of fans deserting the ballpark for the TVs in their neighborhood bars and suburban homes, and yet they never bothered to adjust. I'd say that was about as good a summary of the two leagues' relative intelligence as you're likely to see.

Yep. Thanks for making my point for me. The example of an actual sports league acting in a manner less idiotic than MLB in that period could hardly be less obvious.

Maybe so, but Johnson began with a million more customers in his first year than the Macks had in their last. And although I know that by the end of their run in KC the A's were coming up with prodigious farm-bred talent, the fact remains that the KC A's never had a winning season, and after the first few years they nearly always ranked at or near the bottom in AL attendance.

My point was that Johnson, inept as he was, was more competent that the incredibly clumsy Macks. And the farm system production that arrived at the end of the KC run was entirely due to Finley, not Johnson. Finley was as brilliant a baseball man as Johnson was dense.

And the KC attendance figures are an illustration of eternal facts:

1) The initial boom was just the thrill of the new, entirely short-lived
2) The long-term attendance was a function of the team and the market
3) A crappy team in a small market will draw crappily -- duh

And a further question would be: Before the free agent draft came along, which gave teams like the A's a big advantage, how many small market teams---once the Cardinals had gotten a huge leg up by getting there first---were able to establish first rate farm systems?

The Braves, the Reds, the Orioles, for sure. Trust me, I have studied this and continue to study this in excruciating detail:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-value-production-standings-1956-1960/

You need the "team abandons market = alienated fans" equation spelled out? Really? Really?

Yes, yes I do. Please tell me why the sport would be better off in the long run with two teams in Boston, two in Philadelphia, three in NY...

By moving existing teams into new markets rather than expanding into those markets, baseball essentially didn't exploit the existing, larger markets to their fullest extent. Philadelphia is the fourth-largest market in the United States, larger than the San Francisco Bay Area. Boston is the seventh-largest market, and has millions of rabid baseball fans. New York is by far the largest. Each market could easily support an additional team, provided that the team has moderately intelligent ownership.

Moving into Kansas City, Milwaukee, and California was certainly a good thing for baseball. But any team could have set up shop in those markets. Those cities could easily have been expanded into. However, once Boston and Philadelphia were made into one-team cities, it became almost impossible to undo that, and MLB was left weaker than it could have been.

I'm not the one making the assertion, you are. Please tell me why it would be better.

Please take the effort to read what I've posted in my link. The short version is that abandoning established old markets for emerging new markets was a false dichotomy; it could and should have been a matter of both, not either.

That wouldn't surprise me about the Macks, but aside from the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, which I know had relatively sophisticated marketing plans, what other teams do you know of back then that did?

Sophisticated may not be the right word, but it's fair to say that the Browns and Indians were heavily involved in promotional exercises when run by Bill Veeck.

You're right, of course, but I was thinking more of long range organizational plans. The marketing efforts of the Browns began and ended with Veeck, and the Indians' pretty much petered out after Veeck left, too. You can see this in part reflected in their quick and dramatic attendance drops from 1948 to 1953---more than 50% in just five years, in spite of being in contention (or at least high in the standings) in each and every race. Veeck left at the end of 1949, having drawn over 4.8 million in his last two years. By 1953, the second place Tribe barely drew a million.

My point was that Johnson, inept as he was, was more competent that the incredibly clumsy Macks. And the farm system production that arrived at the end of the KC run was entirely due to Finley, not Johnson. Finley was as brilliant a baseball man as Johnson was dense.

And the KC attendance figures are an illustration of eternal facts:

1) The initial boom was just the thrill of the new, entirely short-lived
2) The long-term attendance was a function of the team and the market
3) A crappy team in a small market will draw crappily -- duh

And a further question would be: Before the free agent draft came along, which gave teams like the A's a big advantage, how many small market teams---once the Cardinals had gotten a huge leg up by getting there first---were able to establish first rate farm systems?

The Braves, the Reds, the Orioles, for sure. Trust me, I have studied this and continue to study this in excruciating detail:

Points all well taken, especially now that you've jogged my memory about the Orioles farm system, which may be the best example of them all, seeing what they brought with them from St. Louis. All they needed was someone to teach them how to preserve some of those "Baby Birds'" arms and they might have established their dynasty half a decade earlier.

And good answers in general to all the questions I've raised. It is amazing just how consistently shortsighted the LOB have been.

You can see this in part reflected in their quick and dramatic attendance drops from 1948 to 1953---more than 50% in just five years, in spite of being in contention (or at least high in the standings) in each and every race. Veeck left at the end of 1949, having drawn over 4.8 million in his last two years. By 1953, the second place Tribe barely drew a million.

Not really. MLB-wide attendance dropped by about one-third from 1948 to 1953, for a variety of reasons. You're reading way too much into the Indians' attendance, which had been exceptionally, unsustainably high in 1948.

Veeck was indeed a brilliant marketer, whose skill one couldn't expect to match in succeeding ownerships. But Veeck did instill a sophisticated, modern marketing program in Cleveland that didn't just evaporate when he left.

Andy - yes, I see what you mean. I'd like to learn more about the decline of the Indians in the mid to late 1950's. It sounds like an interesting study in how not to run a franchise.

When I was starting to learn about Baseball history I was surprised to see that the A's, rather than the Phillies, had been the team to move, given that the A's had enjoyed 2 purple patches admidst long periods of futility, whilst the Phillies had been down and out forever. An accident of timing, I suppose - the Phillies had a recent pennant and were in the ascendancy when franchise shifts became in vogue, and Mack had reached the end of the line.

And good answers in general to all the questions I've raised. It is amazing just how consistently shortsighted the LOB have been.

Thank you. You are as always a gentleman.

You can see this in part reflected in their quick and dramatic attendance drops from 1948 to 1953---more than 50% in just five years, in spite of being in contention (or at least high in the standings) in each and every race. Veeck left at the end of 1949, having drawn over 4.8 million in his last two years. By 1953, the second place Tribe barely drew a million.

Not really. MLB-wide attendance dropped by about one-third from 1948 to 1953, for a variety of reasons. You're reading way too much into the Indians' attendance, which had been exceptionally, unsustainably high in 1948.

Veeck was indeed a brilliant marketer, whose skill one couldn't expect to match in succeeding ownerships. But Veeck did instill a sophisticated, modern marketing program in Cleveland that didn't just evaporate when he left.

I realize that baseball attendance was falling across the boards during the stretch I mention---even more precipitously in the minors, I should add---but what made the Indians' falloff even more stark is that they had a great team during the entire period: A close (6 GB) fourth in a four team race in 1950; on the Yanks' heels until the last week in 1951; barely beaten out in 1952 after a 19-5 September; and yet another second place (though distant in this case) finish in 1953. Not to mention that during those four years they had eight 20-game winners, one MVP near-triple crown winner, plus two more home run leaders and one more RBI leader. And four future Hall of Famers (Doby, Lemon, Wynn and Feller) to boot.

I know that there was the frustration of the bridesmaid, and I know that league attendance went down (though not as much as Cleveland's, even discounting 1948), and I know that having that big a stadium made it easy to assume that tickets would always be available.

But still, to go from 2.23M to 1.07M in just four years suggests to me that whatever promotional skills Veeck had weren't sufficiently transmitted to his successors. And that's not even counting the continuing dropoff after the blips in 1954 and 1959. By the early 60's that was one sorry franchise---you could almost say that looking at the Orioles organization, the Indians had over the course of a decade traded places with the Browns!

But still, to go from 2.23M to 1.07M in just four years suggests to me that whatever promotional skills Veeck had weren't sufficiently transmitted to his successors.

Fine, but that isn't the issue in this discussion. The issue is that the Indians had established what we would now recognize as a modern marketing/promotional program, and what was certainly in the upper-half of advanced marketing/promotional programs of the early 1950s. Once again, within the context of the times, the Indians were a forward-edge marketing organization -- setting an obvious example as to how the A's might have been easily improved.

And a further question would be: Before the free agent draft came along, which gave teams like the A's a big advantage, how many small market teams---once the Cardinals had gotten a huge leg up by getting there first---were able to establish first rate farm systems?

The Braves, the Reds, the Orioles, for sure. Trust me, I have studied this and continue to study this in excruciating detail:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-value-production-standings-1956-1960/

Now, wait a minute, Steve. That article is a red herring. That just shows the quality and quantity of players developed by each team. But that's not the same as a team being well-run in the sense we're discussing. That's being comparatively well-run, not absolutely well-run. Producing wins (and hence win shares) is a zero-sum effort. Yes, sure, the As could have done what the Orioles did. But only at the expense of the Orioles (or some other teams). All teams can't produce lots of win shares.

For a team to be financially viable, it has to be able to produce profits even when it isn't successful on the field, since on average it won't be successful half of the time. Its strategy for staying afloat can't be "win."

Your other arguments -- marketing, broadcasting (the latter being a subset of the former) -- are valid, but not this one.

Didn't Veeck himself say that without the winning the fan base will dry up regardless of what shenanigans he pulled? Veeck himself was already seeing a decline in attendance and probably revenue, the year after the World Series. The guy walked a tightrope and I really don't think what he was doing would be a blueprint for anybody else.

Moving into Kansas City, Milwaukee, and California was certainly a good thing for baseball. But any team could have set up shop in those markets. Those cities could easily have been expanded into. However, once Boston and Philadelphia were made into one-team cities, it became almost impossible to undo that, and MLB was left weaker than it could have been.

You could also have absorbed previous minor league franchises into the majors, particularly in the PCL's case. I doubt the Oakland Oaks struggled for attendance as much as the A's have at times - you'd be capitalizing on local loyalties, rather than plopping down Philly and New York's rejected franchises.

I think it's obvious that the majors needed to expand by the 1950s, as almost every team seemed to have guys who were buried in the minor leagues until their late twenties or thirties, then got a shot and became productive or better major league players. There were 79 million Americans in 1902. In 1952 there were 157 million Americans, plus the game was integrated, plus there were forays into Latin America, plus the majors were monopolizing almost all of the best talent, unlike the early half of the 20th century.