San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Fans send message: Coliseum site works
The Coliseum is the place to be this weekend, and how often is that the case? Big crowds, playofftype vibes and the A's and Giants — two of the majors' best teams — grinding toward the playoffs.
Imagine if a shiny new ballpark were situated at 7000 Coliseum Way, replacing the old stadium and arena, with infrastructure upgrades to provide better access and parking.
It likely would rock, but A's ownership continues to say it won't work and that Howard Terminal is the only site that makes sense.
I never heard a reasonable explanation for why the A's shouldn't build at the Coliseum site, so I asked team President Dave Kaval during an informal group interview on the field before Friday's opener.
“We've been really clear. The league has been really clear,” Kaval said. “This site does not fit the 21st-century vision for baseball in North America. You need a downtown urban location to be successful, especially in a two-team market, where you have the Giants in a similar stadium on the waterfront.
“We're going to do everything we can to have a stadium that can be at the level or eclipse what they have at Oracle Park in San Francisco, and we have that vision now at Howard Terminal.”
I reminded Kaval many parks flourish across the majors that aren't located downtown, including recently built facilities in Atlanta and Arlington, Texas. To which he said, “Not in a two-team market.”
I mentioned to Kaval two-team markets don't tend to have downtown facilities, including in Chicago. That also goes for New York and Los Angeles.
“Like I said,” Kaval said, “in a two-team market, you really need something that competes at the same level, and that's something that's really important part of us being successful here in the Bay Area.”
Kaval wasn't budging, making it clear owner John Fisher doesn't like the Coliseum property, even though it has better public transportation and better parking potential than the waterfront site and plenty of space for development, retail and housing.
Kaval's main point wasn't about how teams in other two-team markets conduct business. It was about going head to head with the Giants, a keep-up-with-the-Joneses mentality that, theoretically, is about attracting many more fans and corporate partners than at the current site.
For a couple of decades, the A's have been dominated by the Giants at the gate and in the trophy case, and perhaps a waterfront park would put the Oaklanders at least on equal footing.
Maybe it would be the case at the Coliseum site, too. Parking was a mess
The Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr. shook the Coliseum crowd with a game-winning homer against the A’s. at Friday's game, and Kaval said it showed why the A's “need a new ballpark in an urban site.”
But the A's should have been better prepared for the big crowd. They waited until less than an hour before first pitch to announce they'd accept only prepaid parking passes and that others would need to park off-site. That turned off many a fan.
Then again, can anyone imagine a Howard Terminal ballpark without parking issues?
Around the majors Too bad Madison Bumgarner didn't have this extended stretch of starts leading to the trade deadline; we might see him elsewhere now and targeted for pitching in the postseason for the first time in five years. Instead, he's still with the Diamondbacks and has posted a 1.93 ERA and 0.90 WHIP in seven starts since coming off the injured list in midJuly. Now the question is whether the Diamondbacks will agree to eat most of the rest of his contract and trade him in the offseason, which probably is the lefty's only way to pitch in the playoffs the next couple of years. It's no longer just about the MVP race for Shohei Ohtani. He could get love on the five-man Cy Young Award ballot, too. Everyone's favorite Angel (sorry, Mike Trout) not only leads the majors with 40 homers and an OPS north of 1.000, but he's made 18 starts and is 8-1 with a 2.79 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 100 innings. Let's just say it. Is it not the best overall season in baseball history? The 2022 sequel to this year's Field of Dreams Game, a White Sox-Yankees epic, will feature the Cubs and Reds. It's targeted for next Aug. 11 in Dyersville, Iowa, where
Tim Anderson won this year's game with a home run into the corn where
Shoeless Joe and other immortals reside. It should have been CubsCardinals next year, a genuine rivalry. Next up, it's time to cross the Mississippi, as baseball did in 1958, and make Field of Dreams Game III a Giants-Dodgers
affair. Despite the extra travel, GiantsDodgers has the makings for a classic showdown and ratings bonanza. Make it happen. Mets owner Steve Cohen suddenly turned into a modern-day Ray Kroc. Cohen popped off about his team on Twitter after Tuesday's 3-2 loss to the Giants, writing, “It's hard to understand how professional hitters can be this unproductive. The best teams have a more disciplined approach. The slugging and OPS numbers don't lie.”
Which brings us to Kroc, who didn't have Twitter available when he owned the Padres in 1974, so he grabbed the public address microphone — in the eighth inning of his first home game as owner — and ranted to a stunned crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I suffer with you,” started Kroc, and because it was 1974, he was distracted when a streaker emerged. “Get that streaker off the field. Throw him in jail.” Kroc continued his rant to the audience, which included this gem: “This is the most stupid baseball playing I've ever seen.” Always interesting watching televised introductions of Little Leaguers when they state their name, age and favorite player. The Petaluma National Little League team made it on TV, finishing one win shy of reaching the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., and we heard the kids reel off plenty of Giants and A's as their favorite players. And they ran the gamut, from Elvis Andrus (fave of Max Comma )to Willie Mays (Zander Cunningham; kid knows his history). Petaluma had a lefthanded third baseman, Declan Romo, who made a key late-game play by taking a throw from the shortstop and quickly applying a tag while outside the bag, a bang-bang play that was ruled an out after it went to review. A right-handed third baseman couldn't have reached across his body in time. By the way, we need left-handed catchers in the big leagues. We've had none since Pittsburgh's Benny Distefano in 1989.