Manfred says A's need quick agreement on new stadium
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said the Oakland Athletics need to quickly reach a binding agreement for a new ballpark and that relocation could be considered if a deal isn’t struck for a facility in the Bay Area.
“I was at the Coliseum myself recently,” he told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday before the All-Star Game. “The condition of the Coliseum is a really serious problem for us. I’ve said it, this is not news. It is not a major league-quality facility at this point.”
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is pushing for approval of a waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted last month to reclassify a 56-acre terminal at the Port of Oakland as a mixed-use area where a new ballpark could be built. The team, under controlling owner John Fisher, also has explored a possible new ballpark in Las Vegas.
An Oakland City Council vote on a ballpark is possible later this year.
“Mayor Schaaf continues to work hard to try to get an arrangement, an agreement to develop the Howard Terminal site,” Manfred said. “I’m hopeful that that can still happen. And I said this recently and I’ll repeat, it needs to happen now. It needs to be done.”
The A’s have played at the Coliseum since 1968 and their lease expires after the 2024 season.
After proposing and withdrawing plans for ballparks in Fremont and San Jose, the team announced in November 2018 it had found a waterfront location for a new ballpark at Howard Terminal, close to the Jack London Square neighborhood. The stadium would cost more than $1 billion, with views toward San Francisco, the Bay Bridge and Port of Oakland.
After trading veterans and cutting payroll to a major league-low of $48 million on opening day, the A’s are an AL-worst 32-61 and have drawn a big league-worst 362,756 in home attendance, an average of 8,637.
Betts sends a message with shirt before game
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts wore a T-shirt over his uniform during batting practice before Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium. Across the front it said, “We Need more Black People at the Stadium.”
Betts said SportsNet LA reporter Kirsten Watson had shown him the shirt online and he bought one.
“I agreed with it so I decided to wear it,” Betts said.
“I figure this is the right stage to get the message out.”
A recent study found that 38% of major-league players are persons of color. But Black participation in baseball has been in decline for years with the number of Black players in MLB also declining.
Just 7.2% of players on opening day rosters were Black, according to a study from
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) released in May. That number is a 0.4% dropoff from 2021 and the lowest number since TIDES began assessing the league in 1991. Players represented about 17-18% of MLB rosters annually for most of the 1970s and 1980s.
“You just don’t see a whole lot of Blacks playing the game of baseball — which is fine,” Betts said. “I mean, they don’t see themselves. I’m just trying to be that person they see and can become.”
Betts acknowledged seeing progress in the fact that four of the first five picks in this week’s MLB draft were Black.
“We’re heading in the right direction,” he said. “We’re getting some culture in the game. The whole world is kind of going in that direction. So baseball needs to as well.”
Manfred defends minor league pay
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred defended the sport’s treatment of minor leaguers, prompting immediate criticism from the players’ advocacy group.
“I kind of reject the premise of the question that minor league players are not paid a living wage,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America before Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
“I think that we’ve made real strides in the last few years in terms of what minor league players are paid, even putting to one side the signing bonuses that many of them have already received. They receive housing, which obviously is another form of compensation.”
MLB raised minimum salaries in 2021, increasing Class A pay from $290 to $500 per week, Double-A from $350 to $600, and Triple-A from $502 to $700 over the roughly five-month season. Players are only paid in-season.
Amateur players residing in the United States and Canada who are selected in this week’s amateur draft have slot values for their signing bonuses, which clubs use as guidelines, ranging from $8.8 million for the first pick to just under $150,000 for the last selections of the 10th and final round.
Last November, MLB announced it was requiring teams to provide furnished accommodations, with a single bed per player and no more than two players per bedroom. Teams are responsible for basic utility bills.
“Most minor league baseball players work second jobs because their annual salaries are insufficient to make ends meet,” Harry Marino, executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, said in a statement responding to Manfred. “His suggestion that minor league pay is acceptable is both callous and false.”
Commissioner wants Rays to stay in Tampa Bay
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s preferred location for a new Rays ballpark would be on the Tampa side of the bay rather than in St. Petersburg but he says the site alone won’t be a determining factor.
Tampa Bay’s lease at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the team has played since its inaugural season in 1998, expires after the 2027 season. The Rays said in January that Major League Baseball had rejected the team’s plan to split its season between Florida and Montreal.
Manfred said he had not spoken in recent weeks with Rays owner Stuart Sternberg for an update.