So many players are competing in the California Bay Area baseball game viewers need a scorecard to keep track of who is playing what position. A glossary of terms would also help.
On the need for a glossary of terms, take as an example a comment by Rob Manfred, baseball’s incoming commissioner. He was reacting to on an appellate court decision in California upholding a lower court dismissal of antitrust claims in a lawsuit filed by the city of San Jose against Major League Baseball.
“Litigation often distracts people from what the real issue is,” Manfred said last week. “The real issue for us going forward is that Oakland needs a new ballpark, and we need to get focused on making sure that we get that done as fast as we can.”
Upon my initial reading of that comment, I thought Manfred was saying the Athletics would have to stay in Oakland so they better find a new park there instead of moving to San Jose, which is what they want to do.
But something Lew Wolff, the A’s owner, said when I talked to him about the latest judicial decision prompted me to call the commissioner’s office to seek clarification of Manfred’s comment.
When he said “Oakland needs a new ballpark,” did he mean the Athletics or the city of Oakland, where the A’s currently play? If he meant the city, he would seem to be telling the team there was no way to San Jose.
However, I was told Manfred meant the Athletics need to find a new park, leaving open the possibility that Manfred could still pave the way to San Jose, unlikely though that may be.
It remains to be seen if Manfred will make a major move counter to Selig’s planning. For one thing, Selig will be around for five more years as commissioner emeritus at $10 million a year.
For another, Manfred worked increasingly more closely with Selig as he worked his way up to chief operating officer and learned to think like Selig. When Manfred’s predecessor, Bob DuPuy, learned that he would not be Selig’s hand-picked successor, he left in 2010.
Selig is not doing Manfred any favors leaving office without a decision on the Athletics’ request for permission to move to San Jose. Some may say that Selig’s non-decision is a decision. But the A’s owner, Lew Wolff; the fans, the cities of Oakland and San Jose and the rest of the major leagues deserve a definitive answer.
Instead, Selig has erected a façade that he uses to explain his lack of decision. In two months, it will be six years since Selig named a three-man panel to study the Bay Area situation. Six years and no decision! When Selig has been asked why it’s taking him so long to make a decision, he has said his committee has more work to do. Did someone utter the phrase “insulting our intelligence?”
Will Manfred adopt the same excuse, or will he want to shed the disingenuous malarkey of his boss and mentor?
Manfred, meanwhile, has a ready-made excuse to put off a decision. San Jose officials, fed up with waiting – and who can blame them? – have vowed to pursue their lawsuit to the end, appealing decisions of the district and appellate courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. Baseball officials have said MLB will make no decision while the case is active.
Last week’s decision of a three-judge panel of the 9th U. S, Circuit Court of Appeals came as no surprise; most everyone, including me, expected it because MLB always wins these cases because it is exempt from antitrust laws under a 1922 ruling by the Supreme Court.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court has said if baseball’s exemption is to be altered, Congress has to do it. Congress has never exhibited an interest in taking that step.
Practically speaking, San Jose and MLB face two possibilities. The Supreme Court could refuse to take the city’s appeal, which would end the case, or the court could accept it, schedule it for hearing and spend months deciding the outcome.
In the meantime, the Athletics seek a new home that fans would find more palatable than its existing ancient, dreary home.
“The lawsuit I never thought was worth anything,” owner Wolff said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I sort of disregarded the lawsuit. By having it we can’t work on anything until it’s resolved. We have to have a new ball park in the Bay Area and a new fan experience.”
It was here that I committed a geographical error. Not completely familiar with the Bay Area, I have referred to it as San Francisco and Oakland. So when Wolff said he was looking for a new park in the Bay Area, I thought that excluded San Jose and I asked him if he was giving up on San Jose.
“I’m not giving up on anything,” he said, “as long as we can stay in the Bay Area. We’re exploring Oakland. If we get a chance, we’ll explore San Jose. We want to remain in the Bay Area at the best location we can get.”
In a subsequent e-mail, Wolff added:
“The lawsuit filed on behalf of San Jose is, I am told, being handled at no charge to San Jose. Maybe some type of contingency. Maybe for the publicity that may accrue to suing a professional sports organization. I believe ‘free legal work is worth what it costs.’ The A’s are not in favor of the lawsuit. We will process our desire and need within the rules of MLB as guided by Commissioner Manfred.”
There is one possibility we haven’t considered, and while it is unlikely, this is a good time to quote Joaquin Andujar. “You never know,” the former pitcher always used to say in assessing situations.
Well, here’s a situation. The Supreme Court accepts San Jose’s appeal. The Supreme hears oral arguments and studies the briefs of both sides. Some months later the court, in a 5-4 decision, rules for San Jose, wiping out Major League Baseball’s 93-year-old exemption from the antitrust laws.
How would the Giants feel then about their arrogance in refusing to relinquish the territorial rights Walter Haas Jr. ceded to them when he owned the A’s and shared territorial rights to San Jose with the Giants, who wanted to use it as leverage in their attempt to get a new park in San Francisco?
How would Selig feel about his six-year stall in deciding the request of his college fraternity brother whom he induced to buy the A’s? Oops, there goes my legacy.