During a speech Monday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, owner Lew Wolff (above) said the A’s will be moving out of the city after 40 years no matter what happens to a proposal to build a new stadium and 200 acre “baseball village” in Fremont.
Wolff said the team can’t succeed while sharing the same stadium with a football team.
Though the A’s earlier this year announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art baseball stadium near Fremont’s Auto Mall Parkway, they haven’t submitted a formal application to the city.
Marine Layer, responsible for a blog tracking the A’s new stadium developments, finds the time while watching a Pittsburgh Maulers / NJ Generals game on ESPN Classic to opine,
Those who have been following this for a while know that this is no fundamental change in Wolff’s stance since the Cisco Field plan was unveiled. Fremont was really the only plan in place. This time, Wolff added what amounts to a complete dismissal of Oakland as a possibility.
As the A’s close their 40th year at the Coliseum, it seems a certainty that the team will not see their 50th year there. I suppose there’s some strategic value in Wolff sending the message so bluntly, but I have to question it. What’s to be gained by going this route? It won’t make Fremont officials move faster. It won’t move the needle on regional support. And it definitely won’t win over any die-hard Oakland-firsters.