S.F. threatens suit if A's move to San Jose

[madinmaryland]

City Attorney Dennis Herrera gave Major League Baseball a little chin music on Thursday, firing off a letter suggesting San Francisco would sue the league if it approves moving the Oakland Athletics to San Jose.

The city has a financial interest in the Giants, including about $3.6 million in annual rent a Giants affiliate pays the city for its waterfront ballpark and a nearby parking lot. The Giants have long-established territorial rights to San Jose, and say moving a team there would undercut their fan base and revenue.

"I need to make sure the interests of the city and its taxpayers are protected," Herrera said. "The city and county of San Francisco has a vital interest in making sure the Giants are successful and viable so they can make good on their obligations to the city."

The threat of a lawsuit could wind up being largely symbolic because of Major League Baseball's federal antitrust exemption, which gives the league broad power to assign territorial rights.

Herrera, though, contends a 1997 letter from the league approving the Giants' ballpark deal with San Francisco was an acknowledgment that Major League Baseball would not take "any action to undermine the financial viability of the Giants."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/18/BA521B5T0T.DTL#ixzz0a4WhwpQF

[hughee99]

1. I'm not sure how the fan base is distributed, but isn't San Jose

further from SF than Oakland?

[madinmaryland]

2. I was wondering what Upton thought about this.

:shrug:

[El Supremo]

3. Will the A's now be able to get Splash Hits?

That is sooooo important!

[madinmaryland]

4. I thought attendance was most important.

:shrug:

[Onceuponalife]

7. No, wasn't it air pollution?

[Upton]

8. No, it's body odor

that's why your hero Manny* is always taking a shower..

[KamaAina]

12. Um, no.

San Jose is several miles from the southernmost end of the Bay. Even after recent rains, the Guadalupe "River" would barely pass muster as a creek back East.

[Yavin4]

6. Don't You Know The Way To San Jose?

You've been away so long.

[madinmaryland]

10. By train.

:shrug:

[KamaAina]

11. Quite a bit further

but for years the Average Sized Team has claimed the South Bay has part of its home market, with the East Bay belonging to the A's.

I don't see why they don't just swap the two: the two East Bay counties (Alameda and Contra Costa) together are quite a bit larger than Santa Clara County, of which San Jose is the seat.

Amazingly, if everything breaks right, we could end up in all four (or five) major league sports: we already have the Sharks (and the MLS Quakes), the Niners are moving forward with a plan to build a stadium in neighboring Santa Clara, the A's are now looking seriously at us, and there's even a move to bring an NBA team into the Shark Tank, with speculation centering on the Sacratomato Kings.

[thatsrightimirish]

5. 47 percent of the Giants fanbase is from the South Bay area

Therefore the city has an interest in keeping the A's in Oakland

[Upton]

9. As a former resident

who grew up in Santa Clara County (Los Altos)..I can tell you the vast majority of fans in the South Bay root for the Giants. They don't want any dirty A's or their supporters there..

San Jose is Giants country.

[KamaAina]

13. The irony is, years ago, the Giants themselves were thinking of moving down here

before they got the ballpark built at Mission Bay.