STICK THAT UP A VARIETY OF HOLES

JOHN C FREMONT


FREMONT, CA



Can we talk about baseball, please?


For the umpteenth-billionth time; the A's make plenty of money and do not have to cry poor. If the A's didn't make money Schott y Hoffman never would have bought the team. The Keebler Elf (Lewis Wolff - who is not the majority owner of the team, John Fischer is) has ulterior motives and is using the Oakland Athletics Baseball Club as a front to churn out more real estate profit. He'll do it at the expense of the taxpayers and under the guise of "private money". Private money that is returned via hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks. Ask the Mets and Yankees were both able to swing ballpark deals without having to raise bonds or vote on measures.


Lew Wolff is using his real estate experience to drive up land prices in Fremont where he will eventually build anything but a ballpark (Schott y Hoffman can build homes). There are so many outliers and unanswered questions about this deal that it's rather silly that the A's will even make an announcement any time soon. Your best bet is to read Neil DeMause and crew at Field of Schemes


The A's marketing research, because of a possible name change alone, has shown that very few are in favor of the move.


The A's are attempting to maneuver some leverage some negotiating power with anyone in the BayArea. How many times did Steinbrenner threaten to move the Yankees to New Jersey? The fact is that any stadium deal will cripple very small principalities in the Bay Area. The A's haven't even submitted preliminary plans to make plans...

"The city doesn't have a project yet," Councilmember Anu Natarajan told the Mercury News. "There cannot be one because we don't have an application yet."


Fremont Vice Mayor Steve Cho said he is open-minded to the idea, but warned that city taxpayers should not have to pay for any part of the new stadium.


"It sounds like something that should work out for the city," Cho told the Mercury News. "But the devil is in the details."

You really have to question what the hell Wolff and Michael Crowley are doing. They suppressed attendance with their tarp idea. They cut down on concessions and vendors. They raised parking and ticket prices. Then they cry poor. Which is a laugh in and of itself. Maybe if you stop trading for contracts like Jason Kendall's (the A's do get a $7 Million balloon payment from the Pirates in 2007) and signing players like Mark Kotsay and Eric Chavez for their "defense in spite of their offensive ineptitude" well above market. Kendall, Chavez and Kotsay represent almost half of the A's payroll.


If the Royals are going to be accused of working the system to their advantage via revenue sharing - the A's also should stop acting like they are going to lose their laundry unless we take a collection. The A's make plenty of money - Wolff and his group would not have bought the A's unless they we guaranteed a profit even if everything fell apart.


You can take that to the bank and tell the Keebler Elf to shove it up a variety of holes.