Stiglich: Lew Wolff touches on San Jose ballpark, revenue sharing and playing waiting game

I attended a Q&A session involving A’s co-owner Lew Wolff this afternoon hosted by the Rotary Club of San Jose. It’s interesting to see Wolff operate in that kind of environment. He represents the bad guy to so many A’s fans. But he was on friendly terrain Wednesday, speaking in the same downtown area where he hopes to build his new ballpark someday – and he drew laughter with a few sharp one-liners. You can’t help but wonder how he would have been greeted in Oakland for a similar function.

–If the team does indeed move to San Jose, they will be called the “San Jose A’s,” which has been assumed. Wolff pointed out how the franchise has moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland, always keeping the “Athletics” label. There was a stuffed Stomper on hand at Wednesday’s event, with the A’s mascot wearing a “San Jose Athletics” uniform.

–Getting an answer from MLB on the stadium issue “in the next couple months would be great,” Wolff said. Someone asked how long he might wait for an answer before throwing in the towel on building a ballpark. “I’m not going to continue this much longer,” he said. “What we want is an answer. We want a ‘Yes, you can relocate and share the territory,’ or ‘You can’t.’ But not having any answer is difficult not just for me, but for the 130 people that work for us, for planning, for our baseball team every year.” So what happens if his timeframe expires and there’s still no answer? Would Wolff and his fellow owners sell? He said he’s not entertaining that option yet.

–Despite the trades of three All-Star pitchers over the winter, Wolff thinks the A’s will field a quality team this season. “We’re going to fool a lot of people with our team, I think,” he said.

Throws (in) towel.