by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN FRANCISCO–The jury is still out for me regarding if the Oakland A’s are not going to move to San Jose they can only play at Oakland. The Giants say you can play at AT&T Park while their building a new park while their building a new park in Oakland. It would probably would make sense that the A’s would have to talk to the Giants and coordinate all of this. The City of Oakland wants to keep the A’s but their going to lose the Warriors who are gone, they’re going to build a nice place south of AT&T Park.

The Raiders, no worries only ten home games per year but their probably are going to be gone too. The City of Oakland needs the A’s more and the A’s need the City of Oakland. The ten year deal is possible although it’s just posturing now unless A’s owner Lew Wolf says no right away. Right now it’s more positioning and were not sure if it’s going to happen quickly.

This is a like a domino effect that things will fall into place that might as well happen, it’s a very weird situation and I don’t see why Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig doesn’t meet the A’s and Giants in the same room and say to them it’s for the better of the game let’s do a deal here.

The A’s can approach Giants president Larry Baer and ask him, “do you want $100 million?” so the A’s can go to San Jose and get terriorial rights back. The A’s gave the Giants territorial rights to San Jose under former A’s owner Wally Haas. San Jose was not the headquarters to Silicon Valley and it was just another city. It’s a very confusing situation and Wolf is not getting any younger and maybe he could sell the team and maybe somebody at Clorox or Dreyers might be able to come in and buy the team.

The A’s are not worth a lot of money now, their a bargain at $300 million in baseball terms, I wish I had $300 million and you could probably buy the A’s for $350 million. San Jose is a warm market town and it’s a warm weather baseball town. San Jose Mercury News reporter Mark Purdy says that San Jose has the population to support the A’s.

Remember it’s in the Bay Area and people who support the Giants don’t only live in San Francisco but they can come from Alameda, Marin, Palo Alto, and San Jose and former Giants owner Bob Lurie did a study a few years ago on who goes to Giants games at Candlestick, a lot of people during the Candlestick era said they came from the South Bay.

I hate to say it if you build a brand new ball park in downtown San Jose in a town with that kind of income and those people down there make good money. It’s the most properous area the Silicon Valley. It was named by the census that these kids down there are making six figures and they support the Sharks and it’s 41 home games and not 81 home games like in baseball.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week on Sportstalk