The latest sign that the city of Oakland, California needs to become the former home of Major League Baseball’s Athletics franchise sooner rather than later is a humorous one. Apparently, a rather large and unwelcome opossum has decided to make the visitors broadcast booth’s his new habitat and has taken up residence in the Oakland Coliseum.
He doesn’t seem to be willing to be relocated.
But the franchise sure should be.
This is just the latest in a long list of reasons the well-traveled franchise – born in Philadelphia (1901-1955), moved to Kansas City (1956-1967), and finally to Oakland (1968 – present) – needs to make a fourth move. The Oakland A’s have had well documented success, like three World Series titles in the early 1970’s and another in 1989, plus numerous playoff appearances since, as well as a leading role in the popular movie “Moneyball.” But for whatever reason, the city and its residents have never appreciated the team and placed enough value on the franchise to even assist in building a new “up to today’s standards” facility.
The Athletics franchise deserves much better than an outdated, run down, over-sized stadium with sewer issues and now…opossums.
Meanwhile, folks in Salt Lake City, Utah – led by Gail Miller, a former owner of the Utah Jazz and former National League MVP Dale Murphy – have made it known that they want to be in the mix to acquire an MLB expansion franchise. MLB expansion – adding two more teams to reach a nice even 32 – is on the docket. But so is relocation of both A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays, two franchises dealing with stadium and attendance issues. Nashville and Portland already have organizations in place and are ready to make their official pitch for expansion teams, while Las Vegas is seen as the leading candidate to land the A’s when – not if – they finally move. And there remains a lot of support for putting a team back in Montreal.
With a roughly $2 billion price tag, adding two new franchises would be incredibly lucrative for the MLB owners, and give an additional 52+ big league jobs to the players, so everyone is on board. But relocation seems to be ahead of expansion on the priorities list, so it appears that four cities, not two, need to prove they’d be great homes for Major League teams before the owners can cash in.
Flipping the script a bit, and relocating the A’s to Salt Lake City to solve that problem would be the best first step. Miller and Murphy’s group looks rock solid, with previous ownership experience AND the perfect face – Murphy – for the franchise. The professional and college sports fans in the area have more than proven themselves worthy.
As soon as they build a stadium – and they appear to have already zeroed in on a site – Salt Lake will be ready for the big leagues. In media market terms, Salt Lake is already ahead of Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Kansas City and San Diego.
Putting an American League team in the Mountain time zone would also be a terrific counterbalance to the Colorado Rockies NL franchise…and give those who like to fuss and complain about Denver’s Mile High altitude something else to gnash their teeth about. That would leave Vegas as the best western expansion candidate, with Nashville and perhaps Montreal as the best new homes in the eastern time zones.
It all fits perfectly. Relocation followed by expansion and finally realignment would make everyone – including the opossums in Oakland – very happy.
