That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

SAN JOSE–I remember when San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed became Mayor I got a chance to speak with him about the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum as I’m the vice president of the museum. Reed seems like a very grounded person as he comes from a financial background.

I like this mayor and I don’t know what he’s thinking on the issue of pension reform that the city can’t afford to continue to pay out these retirement checks out but they can afford to pay to build an A’s stadium if they can get the team to move to San Jose. I do believe that Reed wants the A’s in San Jose and he knows what a Major League franchise means to a city.

He’s knows what 81 home dates during the regular season would mean to the city’s revenue and he’s in favor of building a Major League park making San Jose a Major League town, we’ll see how things go for the A’s whose been a very successful franhcise over the decades. Every year the A’s sell a lot of merchandise.

In San Jose you see Sharks merchandise all over the place, when you have MLB it’s makes the town a Major League town. It sounds redundant but that’s the way it is and baseball is not a sport it’s a game. It’s a game that has the World Series and Major League Baseball it is more popular than it ever has been before.

I understand what Reed is doing and he’s a smart guy and he wants the A’s to go to San Jose and it could happen with the city suing MLB and of course the Giants are claiming territorial rights in San Jose. Reed has some good business people behind him in San Jose and he’s running one of the biggest cities in California after Los Angeles and San Diego and San Jose has the third largest populaton in the state.

The state of California is financially in trouble with the pensions too it’s a two edged sword it’s tough when your dealing with a town like San Jose it’s a big town your dealing with problems too but it would be a political victory for Reed if he was to get the A’s.

Reed politically is going to have to see what is best for San Jose and I can not speak for him but the police, fire, and emergency services and civil servants say he’s gunning for the pensions but if he brings the Oakland A’s in downtown San Jose that could be a tremendous asset and Reed has to realize this is a balancing act and we saw what happened in Sacramento when Mayor Kevin Johnson saved the Sacramento Kings.

The mayor will be going into a dog fight with his employees over pension reform but at the same time if he was to land the A’s all that would be forgotten. If he doesn’t get pension reform and fails to get the A’s it would be a political wreck for Reed.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president at the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk