MLB's Draft was must watch TV

@Ynotisay Agree. But the major overlay here is Manfred's tone-deaf and ham-fisted handling of the A's stadium issue, not to mention outright lies and irrational arguments. That was the major reason for the booing imho because it has broader implications for MLB than just for Oakland. And when it was the A's pick the booing changed to chants of "Sell The Team" and "Stay In Oakland" like it was at the Reverse Boycott game.

@dancingtongue Yeah. He can be a loose cannon. But as the far as the A's I see that falling TOTALLY on the shoulders of the owner John Fisher. We'll see what happens when the owners vote on it but Manfred isn't responsible for how that's gone down. I grew up in the Bay Area and when I was kid would save my small allowance for chores, take a bus in to the stadium, pay 2 bucks for bleacher seats around drunk people, and me and a couple of thousand people would watch a game. There were times they were drawing less than 1,000. Hell, their 'reverse boycott" game recently didn't even get 30K to show up. It's a shitty stadium, in a shitty part of town and they haven't won their division in more than 30 years.

I hate the idea of local fans losing their team, and the jobs that come from it, but it's a two way street. They drew less than 10K a game last year and ownership gutted what was left of the team. Clearly to make way for this proposed move. And they most always have one of, if not the, lowest payrolls in the league. And they just don't have the fan support. Most in the Bay Area follow the Giants. But even if they did, I have a feeling Fisher would still want to make that move. Maybe it won't move past his desk. Or the owners will vote it down. Highly doubt that though. This is solely about money.

@Ynotisay The fan base is there when the owner and management invest a little in the team, the amenities, and marketing. Sounds like you are only familiar with the Fisher years. They drew 2 million-plus during the Haas years, and were actually the Bay Area team at that team. At that time it was the Giants who were struggling and actually were sold to Tampa Bay except MLB owners did not approve Tampa Bay ownership.

Fisher has systematically followed the script from the movie Major League, continually gutting the team to keep the payroll small while pocketing competition welfare checks from the luxury tax and making no effort to improve amenities or marketing until he decided on his pie in the sky real estate development for the Howard Terminal. Then he launched the big Rooted In Oakland campaign, launched a bunch of interim band-aid upgrades to the stadium to appeal to the Millennials, an all access membership program (since copied by a number of MLB teams) that was highly successful in bringing in new fans, and started lavishing us long time season ticket holders with various gifts for the 50th Anniversary to build support for the approvals and tax payer subsidies he wanted at Howard Terminal.

The City actually negotiated in good faith with him, helping him push through expedited environmental approvals, overcoming objections from the various port interests, and agreeing to a special tax district and securing other grants to provide a larger subsidy than Las Vegas is providing. But he kept moving the goal posts, demanding more subsidies and balking at affordable housing requirements for the rest of his development (which actually are required by both state and local law) and a long term commitment to stay in the city. The County had sold their half of the existing stadium to him at far below market price for the land alone which, despite your depiction, is 150 acres of the most accessible property in the Bay Area by every means of transportation and was essentially shovel ready to build a new ballpark which could have been open with a fraction of the hassle by now. He got the sweetheart deal because he stated in writing that it was the back-up plan if Howard Terminal did not work out.

Enter Commissioner Manfred. He declares the Coliseum site as not viable for baseball, and that MLB would allow the A's to pursue relocation to Las Vegas; indeed, provide an incentive to do so by waiving the relocation fee for doing so. All because, in Manfred's view, the city and county were not doing enough to keep the A's. Overnight Fisher and Kaval picked up the cudgel of the Coliseum site being unviable, Howard Terminal or bust, the city isn't providing enough support while they cancelled the popular all access membership plan, doubled the price of season tickets and at the same time offering cut rat discounts on single game and partials package tickets, and gutted the team once again. So he has gone from having 150 acres of real estate in a prime location that could be easily built on, to shoehorning a grandiose development of hotels, housing, an arena and btw a ballpark on to a 55 acre site that is barely accessible, to a 9 acre site that he won't even own on the Vegas strip upon which architects and engineers are wondering how to squeeze a retractable roof ballpark.

Yes, the problem is the owner Fisher. And the truth is that the office/hospitality/upscale housing market in the Bay Area disappeared while he was trying to squeeze a few more nickels in subsidies out of the taxpayers, which makes Howard Terminal even a bigger fantasy than it originally was. Reality also is that he also already has 150 acres of very accessible land shovel ready to build upon and there are other interests (Bobbitt/Bobb and the African-American Sports & Entertainment group) already in negotiations with the city for the other half who want to develop the area as an entertainment and sports destination and already has tentative agreements with soccer teams and the possibility of a WNBA franchise, plus affordable housing. They also have broad-based community and city council support. A marriage made in heaven, except the Commissioner has declared the site unviable for baseball and provided all sorts of green lights and financial incentives to move to Las Vegas. He is the enabler and a big part of the problem, who keeps bad mouthing the city and the fans and outright lying about the sequence of things, including who walked away from negotiations with a cursory phone call in the night saying they had entered into a binding agreement on 42 acres in Las Vegas. A binding agreement that lasted less than a week.

Sorry this is so long. But not a simple story to tell, even leaving out the complicity of MLB and the previous Commissioner over how Fisher came to own the team and the bogus territorial rights invocation by the Giants.