Oakland A’s team president David Kaval has been negotiating with the Oakland Coliseum Joint Authority and said the negotiations have been positive from last their last meeting on Thu Feb 15, 2024. (AP News file photo)
On That’s Amaury News and Commentary:
City of Oakland wants an Expansion team
By Amaury Pi Gonzalez
The season for the A’s begins on March 28, 2024, their last year in the lease with the Oakland Coliseum. Working on the premise that the A’s will be playing in Las Vegas by 2028, the City of Oakland and the Oakland A’s are currently negotiating (preliminary talks) to extend the lease for a few more years, possibly 2025-2026-2027—three more years until their inauguration in Sin City.
The City of Oakland wants a guarantee that if the A’s leave, as expected as of today, in return, Major League Baseball will let Oakland have an expansion team. Sheng Thao, the Mayor of Oakland (currently under a recall campaign), might save her job if she can get such a deal.
Still, it is not a sure thing since the main reason for the recall by Oakland citizens is not about the A’s but about the crime in her city and lack of security. A year after she fired the Police Chief, a new Police Chief has not been named yet.
The Oakland Athletics inauguration in Las Vegas is scheduled for 2028, but expansion teams might not come until 2029. Oakland is not seen today as a possible city for an expansion team. Oakland would have to wait in line after Nashville and Salt Lake City, the current front runners for a new franchise. Commissioner Rob Manfred said, as recently as last week, that MLB will name two expansion cities by the time he retires, according to ESPN.
Let’s suppose the A’s move and open in Las Vegas in 2028, just like they have it planned. Oakland might or might not be one of those two expansion teams until 2029, five years from today. But, since Michel de Nostredame, aka Nostradamus, died in 1566, I do not believe there is anybody today alive in ESPN, the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, the San Francisco Chronicle, or the Wall Street Journal qualified to predict how this is going to end.
BREAKING NEWS: Drakes Brewery, a famous San Leandro brewery, just pulled their sponsorship three days before Fans Fest. Last Dive Bar, one of the organizers wrote on Facebook. The fan group said it had incurred expenses including “sponsor banners, a digital marketing package” and “rented equipment to set up a Drakes beer both.” The Oakland A’s deny they have anything to do with this
Around and around it goes, where does its stops nobody knows”. This was one of the lines from “Major Bowes Amateur Hour” a popular radio show that ran from 1934 to 1948, later made the transition to television as “Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour” and to their credit many stars were discovered in his show, including the one and only Francis Albert Sinatra.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Oakland A’s lead play by play voice on the Oakland A’s Spanish radio network on 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsburg and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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