How Another Giants WS Could Help the A’s

Before you unbookmark this page and never look back, hear me out.  And don’t worry there are no slideshows, or 5 arbitrary reasons why I think this.  But in a bizarre, speculative way it seems like it could be a good thing for everyone in the Bay Area if the Giants complete this comeback against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS, and go on to the World Series to take down Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers for their 2nd championship in 3 years.  Again, hear me out.

Oct 11, 2012; Oakland, CA, USA; A general view of O.co Stadium before game five of the 2012 ALDS between the Oakland Athletics Detroit Tigers at O.co Coliseum. The Oakland Athletics announced the tarps covering seats will be removed for extra seating if the team advances to the American League championship series. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

We all remember after the 2010 championship all we heard about was Giants, Giants Giants everywhere.  Even the Oakland Athletics themselves took out an add in the San Francisco Chronicle congratulating the Giants on their title.  For an A’s fan it was a rather rough experience.  The A’s were already considered 2nd class citizens in the Bay Area sports realm, and the Giants taking away the singular argument A’s fans could always fall back on, that they had never won a title since moving to San Francisco in 1958, gave the A’s fans zero ammunition in any trash talking battle.

So as we sit here now in 2012, the Giants are in the thick of a tough series with last year’s champions and seem poised to make a comeback with the final 2 games at home and their 2 best pitchers at the moment scheduled.  It’s hard to say the Giants are in a good position considering they’re still down 3-2 in the series, but it just feels like they’ll do it.  So for the sake of this article lets assume they win, and defeat the Tigers in the Series.

If the Giants add another title, and despite the A’s incredible season and division title themselves, they will cement themselves as the kings of the Bay Area now and for the foreseeable future.  Without having an inside track into the minds of the Giants brass, this is all pure speculation, but it seems possible that the Giants may find themselves not caring one bit about the A’s.  As we’re all tired of hearing, the Giants and the A’s are in a ridiculously drawn out battle over the rights to the San Jose area where the A’s wish to move and build a new state of the art ballpark.  Another championship for the Giants could finally put an end to that battle.

There are two ways this could happen in my book.  The first possibility would be that the championship euphoria the Giants would experience gives them a shred of mercy and they relent on their demands and work out a deal with the A’s to let them build their stadium.  It seems like a long shot for the Giants to show anything but the same greed they’ve displayed throughout this battle, but perhaps their arrogance would be so high that they think not even a new A’s stadium could take down their cash flow.

The other possibility would be that a Giants title would put them so far ahead of the A’s in this market that Bud Selig finally clues himself in to what’s going on and forces a decision to be made.  Thus far Selig has been downright frightened of a legal battle, but if the A’s situation became so dire that even he couldn’t ignore it, maybe he’d finally be motivated to make something happen.

Neither of these possibilities are likely in the grand scheme of things, but if there could possibly be a silver lining to the Giants winning another World Series this is it.  All this said, I still don’t think it’s a risk I’m willing to take.