And here we go again. It seems that on a monthly basis I can give an update on something Lew Wolff, managing owner of the Oakland Athletics, said in public that either enrages me or puts my mind at ease. If you read through the thousands of words I’ve written about the stadium and ownership “progress” it may appear that I’m flip flopping on my support or condemnation of Lew Wolff. In fact, I can simply see it from both sides of the argument and sometimes he makes a good argument, sometimes he doesn’t.
Last month I wrote a piece demanding answers from the Oakland Athletics ownership group. As the debate raged on Twitter, most fans agreed that Lew Wolff didn’t need to play his hand just yet but simply let fans know he was at the table. In an interview earlier this week, he did just that and it has, still, enraged fans.
In the interview, video below, Wolff criticizes the notion that he is hell-bent on San Jose and states that the legal hurdles that would have to be jumped to make a move south work simply weren’t worth it. It has been clear to most that the A’s stopped actively pursuing San Jose a couple of years ago and considering the money and influence the A’s ownership have, it could have been done fairly easily years ago had they been willing to fight.
Ok, so that’s good news for the “stay in Oakland” crowd. He’s come out and specifically said that the Oakland Athletics are not moving to San Jose. This should be enough to satisfy fans for the time being. Lew Wolff has always been on record saying they had no desire to leave the bay area and now he’s removing San Jose from the equation entirely. In the interview, however, he is ambiguous and says that they’re looking for a top notch venue “here, there or on Mars.”
Clearly, Mars is off the table because the temperatures would require a dome ceiling and there’s really no public funds available for infrastructure improvements. So what did he mean by that? Simply, it means that he’s not going to play his hand until the Coliseum City idea is off the table. If he came out in an interview and said, “we’re going to be right here for the next 50 years,” then he’d be giving public approval to the only public plan at the moment and he wants no part of that. By making an ambiguous statement he’s saying that Oakland is very much on the table but we’re not going to be playing in Coliseum City.
This could also be good news for the “he doesn’t care” crowd. Lew Wolff critics love to read between the lines when it makes Wolff look like a diabolical monster but tend to take things at face value when it makes him look like a responsible business owner. By playing his cards so close to his chest in this interview, it may signify that there’s a bigger announcement on the horizon. Maybe his plan is forthcoming. Of course, that is wild speculation but every word that has ever been written about Lew Wolff or the Oakland Athletics coliseum woes by any writer has been wild speculation.
Also, reading between the lines, he makes a point of saying how much he respects Mayor Schaaf and it doesn’t take a brilliant analytical mind to see that he’s giving a big verbal bird to former Mayor Quan with that comment. He chooses his words carefully, as a smart business man does, but he’s also a sardonic old man with a sense of humor his critics don’t always pick up on. If there is always subtext to his comments, one must analyze all the comments, not just those that best serve your argument.
Lastly, there’s a seemingly unrelated topic that I must address because I think it’s more related than fans are giving credence. After the A’s win on Monday night, their first opening day win in a decade, the familiar sounds of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” were replaced by “Theme for Oakland” by the Phenomenauts. Game regulars have heard the song during the seventh inning stretch last year but nobody has heard it after a win until this week.
How is this related? I’ll tell you, save your questions for the end.
For the past few seasons, every time Oakland isn’t mentioned by the A’s, it has been seen as a cryptic dig at the city. The scoreboards said A’S instead of OAK during lease negotiations (which I think was absolutely a dig), there’s not enough mention of Oakland at Hohokam stadium (even though the first thing you see in the main gate is Oakland), the list goes on and on. During the opening night game, television commentators were discussing Oakland at length and attaching “Oakland” to there sentences so much it sounded like a verbal tick. After the game, in person, the A’s played a song called “Theme for Oakland” written and performed by an Oakland band. The same people that complained about the scoreboards complained about this song but it is clearly an attempt to mend bridges between the team and civic pride.
Was I a fan of the change? Not really. Was I a fan of the message it sent? Absolutely. The team didn’t do this by accident. There are a thousand songs that are suitable for a post game win. If they just wanted a change for the sake of change, which Susan Slusser reported was the motivation for the new song, they could have picked any of those tunes but they picked an obscure song that nobody has ever heard on the radio (and, as Damon Bruce points out, sounds a lot like Chelsea Dagger by The Fratelis) because it is specifically about Oakland.
There is subtext to that decision that shouldn’t be ignored. On the same day that Lew Wolff says San Jose is off the table and claims that the A’s are “going to be here a lot longer than anyone expects” the public relations department makes a clear and obvious push to mention Oakland as much as humanly possible but we’re to believe these aren’t related?
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I’m not trying to put words into the mouth of Lew Wolff but, to my mind, this is exactly what so many fans claimed they wanted after my last article on the topic. He’s not playing his hand yet but he’s letting us know that he’s at the table and that should be seen as, at the very least, positive news. We can complain about the length of time it is taking until we’re blue in the fact but remember this, there have been many timetables that have come and gone in regards to building a new stadium. The Oakland Athletics have started from scratch at least three times in this process and, although it’s been a decade of work, they are fairly early in the current stage of “development” as far as the current location goes. No team gets it done quickly, especially in California and especially not with a second tenant involved in the process.
Read between the lines of this article with a positive slant, for a change. You determine how you interpret his words. At face value, very little was said. On the positive, he’s done with San Jose and is open to negotiations. On the negative, he wants to move to Mars.
You decide the narrative you’re going to preach.