Despite a total lack of interest from Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff, Oakland city officials have settled on a Victory Court site for a new waterfront ballpark and plan on pitching its merits to a MLB committee tasked with finding an A’s facility solution.
Victory Court is located near Lake Merritt Channel, along the Oakland Estuary. It’s close to another A’s ballpark site pitched in the past by Oakland officials: Jack London Square.
The decision was spurred by the election of Jean Quan as mayor, replacing Ron Dellums: She ran on a platform calling for the city to be aggressive in keeping the A’s in Oakland. (Her opponent, Don Perata, said he would do nothing to keep the A’s in Oakland and received a $25,000 campaign donation from Wolff for his stand.)
MLB clearly isn’t thrilled with the prospect of the A’s moving to San Jose: it would open a messy territorial battle with the San Francisco Giants, the sort of battle that Bud Selig clearly hates and avoids. With Oakland stepping up with a ballpark site and a promise to use city revelopment funds to help with the project, it will give MLB’s committee amuninition to recommend the A’s remain in Oakland — clearly something Wolff does not want.
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