by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

mercurynews.com photo: One of the possible locations for envisioned new Oakland A’s ball park located at Jack London Square a waterfront ball park

OAKLAND–The Oakland Athletics remain the only  team in Major League Baseball sharing a stadium with an NFL franchise (Oakland Raiders)but that is not the only reason the Athletics need a new “baseball only”ballpark. The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is a rundown facility, for a franchise that has won four (4) World Series titles at Oakland. We know for a fact the Athletics are not moving to San Jose, as many envisioned not that many years ago, and some in the media campaigned for such move, but that is not going to happen.

It is a challenge for the A’s to share the same facility with the Raiders. These are two totally different sports, you can play football under rain, mudslides and even snow, but baseball is much different, the field must be manicured to perfection. Not to mention that every time I go to call an A’s game at my little broadcast booth at the Coliseum, right after the Raiders have played, chairs are missing and it looked like the Raiders TRULY believe their name, they came-in and “Raided” the booth also!

Of course the best chance for the Athletics to stay in Oakland is to build a park in Oakland. The Oakland Coliseum was not a bad baseball stadium, until they built that monstrosity in center-field (Mt Davis), -as history has it- to lure the Oakland Raiders back to Oakland from Los Angeles. The current Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is one of the most accessible parks in all of baseball, within walking distance of Hwy 880, to the west and BART an easy walk to the east. It is very easy to see an Athletics game at the Coliseum via BART of driving your car.

Location is not a problem. Why not build a new park right there at the same location?  I remember talking with A’s great and Hall of Fame Rickey Henderson and he agreed, why not built the new park right there at the same location as the Coliseum.

That obviously is not in the plans, but Baseball Commissioner Manfred said prior to game three of the NLDS at AT&T Park that we will know about the plans for a new park for the Oakland Athletics within a year he did mention Laney College as a location. Looks very likely that the Oakland Raiders might move to Las Vegas and the Athletics will be the only team (of the main pro-leagues) left in Oakland, since soon the Warriors will be playing in San Francisco.

Who has the most to lose? It is the City of Oakland, since if the A’s are not moving out of there, and the Raiders and Warriors probably will, they will stand to lose more revenue in taxes and such, than anybody else. If you are old enough to remember when the A’s and Raiders were winning, Oakland was called “City of Champions”.

So it makes all the sense in the world for the brains at Oakland City Hall to put all their marbles in the A’s basket, that is an easy decision even for politicians. If you lived in the Bay Area for a long time, you know what happened to the Giants and how many times they failed at the ballot box, and there is little chance that a city like Oakland with so many challenges would put a measure on the ballot and asked their taxpayers to pay for a new ballpark. That is not going to happen.

So the only logical thing to do is for the Major League Baseball, the City of Oakland and the Oakland Athletics to put their three heads together and come out with a new ballpark for the Oakland Athletics someplace in the city. Will logic prevail?

I will believe it when I see it.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio talent on the Oakland A’s radio network and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com