The Oakland A’s have been ruining baseball for Oakland for many years. Now they’re threatening to ruin Oakland for Oakland.
In the latest development, the city of Oakland failed in its bid to land a $182 million federal grant it hoped to use for infrastructure on the A’s proposed development at Howard Terminal.
The team and the city have long been negotiating over who pays for what, to the point where the deal seems to be hanging by a thread. The grant rejection stretched that thread thinner.
Oakland City Council members were already practically to the point of busking at BART stations for spare change to make the deal work, to keep the project alive and keep the A’s in Oakland. Now they might have to throw in a few bake sales to close the massive shortfall.
The grant rejection might be a blessing. If the A’s-Oakland deal is going to fall through, let it happen sooner than later. Oakland is a dynamic town, with some super-committed civic leaders, but major stuff is getting delayed, and possibly killed, by the increasingly silly dance over Howard Terminal.
Time is crucial. For example, a group of Oakland business and civic leaders, the African American Sports & Entertainment Group, is hoping to land a WNBA expansion team, which would play at Oakland Arena.
However, the A’s megadeal impasse keeps everything in limbo. The A’s are in the process of buying a half-interest in the Coliseum property, but the Howard Terminal negotiations cast a pall of uncertainty and delay over any potential Coliseum development.
AASEG will be competing against Warriors owner Joe Lacob for that WNBA franchise, which almost surely will land somewhere in the Bay Area. The WNBA is expected to make its decision this year. The murky future of that Coliseum property could hurt AASEG’s bid.
A WNBA franchise would be a huge boost for Oakland, which is hungry for a legit sports team to rally around. It would be a financial and spiritual uplift for the town. If that opportunity goes away, it goes away forever.
The Oakland Roots of the second-tier United Soccer League Championship would also benefit by a speedy resolution of the A’s-Oakland negotiations. Oakland’s super-progressive, super-popular club needs a new home, ASAP. The Coliseum land would be a great spot, but again, how long can the Roots wait to see who will own and develop that land?
The Roots aren’t threatening to move out of Oakland — quite the contrary. But a soccer stadium could be a perfect fit in a new Coliseum village.
A commercial/residential/sports development at the Coliseum is long, long overdue. Every day or year of delay is a day or year that the community misses out on the benefits.
Speaking of roots, here’s a bit of advice for Oakland’s new mayor, Sheng Thao. Please stop using the phrase “rooted in Oakland.”
Thao told the Chronicle last year, “I do believe there is a pathway forward to keeping the A’s rooted here in the city of Oakland.”
“Rooted in Oakland” is a buzz phrase created by the A’s to promote the illusion that the team is deeply committed to the town. The phrase was put into play by A’s president Dave Kaval right about the time the A’s started to put the squeeze on the city for a massive, risky contribution to the Howard Terminal project.
While Kaval and his boss, John Fisher, have been talking about being rooted in Oakland, they have been openly planning a move to Las Vegas. If you try to root yourself in two places at once, you risk a major groin pull.
“Rooted in Oakland” is a joke phrase, mock sincerity. The last Oakland mayor, Libby Schaaf, used the phrase all the time. When “Rooted in Oakland” is used by a mayor or City Council person, it sounds like sucking up, which is exactly what the mayor and council can’t be guilty of during negotiations. Sucking up is what past Oakland politicians did, to the crushing detriment of the citizens.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred recently put Oakland on notice: Find a way to make Fisher happy in 2023 or lose the A’s and their glorious port project. It was a transparent strong-arm move by Manfred on behalf of one of his bosses, Fisher, but it might have been useful. Manfred is right about one thing: The A’s ballpark search has slogged on long enough.
That grant rejection should give both parties a clearer picture of the financial risks and realities, and speed the process.
Manfred and the A’s are always threatening to pull the plug, but Oakland also has a plug to pull. If the deal seems to be leading nowhere, Oakland can and should put the A’s on the clock.
Losing the A’s would be sad, but delaying Oakland’s progress indefinitely would be much sadder.
Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com
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