Welcome back. If you just tuned in, check out Movers and Shakers: Part 1 and Part 2. In part one we discussed whether teams were going to be contracted (they aren’t) or moved (possible). In part 2 we discussed where teams would not be moving. In this space, we’re going to discuss possible places where teams might move.
Number Five*: Las Vegas, NV. The obvious choice
Las Vegas*: I’m putting an asterisk next to Vegas for two reasons. First, it should be number one and second, asterisks are fashionable in baseball discussion these days. Of all the cities I’ve listed, Las Vegas has the most chance of supporting a baseball team long term. In Las Vegas you have an exploding population center. When I visited Vegas two years ago, a tour guide we had at the Hoover Dam told us the Las Vegas/Clark County area was net gaining about 2000-4000 people per month. You have a place with a cost of living that will be approaching New York and Los Angeles over the next few years. Any luxury boxes will sell out in about an hour because every casino will want to own one for their high rollers (Wiseguys from Jersey checkin out their Yankees against the Vegas Athletics… check). Bachelor parties grabbing a $10,000 box for their friends’ last free weekend? Any casino that doesn’t end up with a box will end up with season tickets down the baselines.
The second thing a team in Vegas offers is yet another thing for tourists to do. Tourists come to New York City and go to a Yankees game because that’s one of the things you do in New York City. As an owner, you can make a team in Las Vegas a “thing to do,” and you suddenly have 10,000 people per night there who don’t care about the Las Vegas team or even really about baseball. Granted, the Las Vegas won’t have 100 years of history and media overexposure to make them a “place to be,” but if you move the Athletics there, you probably keep a decent amount of the fanbase. The A’s in Vegas gives you a pre-existing fanbase, instantly sold out boxes, excellent baseball weather year round, and an entire city ready to have their own professional sports team.
Moving the Marlins there would present a tough decision to baseball. They would either have to move them to the NL West, making another situation where you have a six-team and a four-team division, or they would have to move the Marlins to the American League to fill out the AL West with a fifth team. If they choose the latter, they’re left with a four-team NL East and a six-team NL Central. At that point they could decide whether or not to move an NL Central team to the NL East. If they did, I imagine they would move the Pirates as they are the most “East” and it wouldn’t exactly break up any heated rivalry and probably create one for the Pirates and Phillys.
The reason they won’t move a team here is baseball is terrified of gambling. It’s terrified with being associated with gambling, terrified to look like it’s in bed with casinos, and just all around terrified to be associated with Vegas. Even though casinos have almost managed to successfully divorce themselves of their seedy, shady image and replace it with happy-fun-time image, I still don’t think baseball is ready to make that leap. It’s unfortunate, because this city will fanatically support the first organization to make the leap. It looks like the NFL, as usual, will have to break that ground.
Number Four: Brooklyn, NY. Watch Steinbrenner’s Eyes Bleed
There are plenty of knocks against putting a team in Brooklyn. Most of these are similar knocks to putting a second team in Boston; the pre-spoken for rabid fanbase, the cold weather, the expense of getting the stadium built, the ire of competing owners. However, besides being one of the top ten cities in the country by population (if it was separated from New York City), Brooklyn offers things that Boston does not.
1) A tradition of baseball. When the Dodgers left, Brooklyn baseball fans did one of three things. A) Start following a team 3000 miles away (not easy to do in 1962). B) Became Yankees fans. C) Considered suicide. When the Mets came along, they picked up some of Groups A and C. However, putting a team back in Brooklyn and identifying them as Brooklyn, would get some of them back to a new Brooklyn team. This is based on observation 2.
2) People knock New York City a lot, specifically Manhattan. There’s a difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn. People in Manhattan think they’re high class and better than you (I should know… I do). People in Brooklyn don’t care about your class and KNOW they’re better than you. If you ask someone from Brooklyn where they’re from, they tell you “Brooklyn.” People in Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx say “New York” because they want to sound like they’re from Manhattan. People in Manhattan tell you “Manhattan” or “New York” interchangeably because they’re synonymous. If you put a baseball team in Brooklyn and slap “Brooklyn” across the uniform, people from Brooklyn (who aren’t Italian, the Yankees have that market cornered) will support it.
3) You start, right off the bat, with a cross-town rival actually in your division. This gives you a guaranteed 10 sellouts per year at your home stadium. You get another 3 sellouts per year when they work inter-league play vs. the Yankees into your schedule (and the Howard Beach folks take the shorter train ride)
4) The Dolans waiting, salivating, with a television contract in their hands to put your team on their MSG network.
Most of the arguments stem around the fact that “Steinbrenner would never allow it” and “it’s failed miserably in Northern California.” Looking at each of those arguments individually; George really has nothing to say. It takes three-fourths of the owners to veto a move. Do you honestly believe any… and I mean any… other owners are going to support him? He (and Wilpon for that matter) didn’t give Peter Angelos any support when they dropped a National League franchise 40 miles from his team. Steinbrenner can’t move his team since The City just handed him public parkland to build a new stadium on (which is a crime, in and of itself) in 2009. At the end of the day, even Steinbrenner knows that another team isn’t going to tap into his fanbase. The Mets are in a similar situation with a new stadium being built, and I don’t know that the Mets would even vote against it. The Mets get 10 sellouts a year (regardless of whether or not the Marlins suck). One could argue that the Mets could be upset about the hit their minor league Cyclones franchise would suffer, but let’s be honest… it’s a different market. And as for the failure of the Oakland/San Francisco franchises, the New York City/Long Island/New Jersey area has more than four times the population in the public transit area around the city. Brooklyn alone accounts for half the residents of the Bay Area, with the greater New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area accounting for 18-20 million people. This area of the country could support a third baseball franchise without the other two even noticing the new franchise is there.
In all honesty, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this happens, but I do think that Brooklyn has a better chance of supporting a team than cities five through ten, even if it is the third team in the city.
Number 3: Sacramento, CA. Build us a stadium where we can’t see another stadium from it please
You can see McAfee Coliseum from AT&T Field. The Bay Area just isn’t that big. When you have a team that is consistently good, but can’t draw fans because the park across the Bay offers more amenities, it’s time for you to find somewhere new. A good compromise (if you can’t move to Vegas) is Sacramento. With Sacramento being only 80 miles from Oakland, it seems to offer everything the A’s could want in a new location. They stay in Northern California, they move far enough away from the Giants to not have to compete for fans, they get a new stadium, and they keep most of their fans while creating new ones.
The A’s staying in Oakland seems more and more unlikely as time goes on. They don’t draw as much the Giants, the public is still smarting from (and paying) the $200 million it cost them to get the Raiders, and there doesn’t seem to be much support from the city to build a stadium.
As of writing, the ownership of the A’s has a plan in place for a new 35,000-seat (smallest in baseball) stadium for Oakland. If this is approved, Sacramento drops from third to about 125,342nd on this list, roughly right behind Baghdad or Tehran, because there’s NO WAY they would move the Marlins 3000 miles to be 80 miles away from two other franchises.
Number 2: East Rutherford, NJ. Giant Marlin Stadium?
This offer came through recently. The Giants and the Jets recently signed a 99-year lease with the state of New Jersey. New Jersey, in turn, are building them a stadium as part of a giant $2 billion project in East Rutherford that includes shopping centers, restaurants, and the opportunity for wiseguys to sun themselves. The officials in New Jersey, much to the chagrin of a lot of people, mentioned the fact that they’re going to have an empty stadium they can refit for baseball come 2009.
This offers an intriguing solution for the Marlins. Many of the same arguments that apply to putting the team in Brooklyn apply here; 20 million people near the stadium, a stadium ready to go, a population who will support a baseball team simply because they’re local. No one else likes anything in Jersey and, frankly, they don’t like you either. The knock against New Jersey is city people getting to the stadium. The Meadowlands, while only about 30 seconds from Manhattan by car, is not easily accessible via public transportation. Without a PATH station or an NJ Transit station, they are going to have a hard time getting city folk to come to the games. This is not a problem with the Giants because, well, they’re the Giants… for a new team trying to make a mark on the city, it would be desperately important.
There is also the problem that Giants and the Jets really, REALLY don’t want it to happen. The Giants and the Jets are throwing a hissy fit, currently, about the parking situation that would be created by having a restaurant and shopping complex sharing parking lots with their fans on Sundays. The idea of the Marlins being in a separate stadium, ALSO sharing those parking lots from August through possibly October is something they are even LESS happy about. The Giants and Jets ownership will fight this plan tooth and nail, along with the Yankees and Mets ownership. The combined dollars of the Steinbrenners, Wilpons, and Maras might be too much power to overcome.
In all honesty, if you were going to move a team to the Northeast, Brooklyn would be worlds better than Jersey simply because wherever they put the stadium would be easier for people to get to than the Meadowlands. And… it’s not in Jersey.
Number 1: Portland, OR. We’d really like to support a team of non-maniacs
This city has bubbled to the top in just about every test you can put against it. They’re a city that has strongly supported the Trailblazers (before they became a team of animals with people packing up and leaving at halftime) in the past. They’re a small market, but still bigger than Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and San Antonio, and the city actually wants them to come. Even with the Trailblazers sucking this season with an NBA-worst 21-61 record, they still pulled in almost 20,000 for their final home game. In 2004, Portland pushed hard to get the Expos. They lost to the nation’s capital. When the president wants a ball-team, that’s a tough act to overcome.
Flash forward two years. Portland has a new mayor, one that seems less inclined to roll out the red carpet. Last time around, the state of Oregon unveiled a plan that would allow the players’ and front offices’ salary be used to pay off the stadium. The state wants it, the city wants it, the residents want it, and it doesn’t offer any of the problems of the other locations. There’s no fanbase to split, there’s no 24-hour party town, there’s no humidity, there’s no snow in April or October, and the Trailblazers certainly aren’t going to raise a stink. Everyone ends up pretty happy with the whole situation.
Loria, for as much as people have killed him about it, has trimmed his team up to rookies and second year guys. Mike Jacobs? In 1997 they got Derrick Lee for Kevin Brown. Yeah, that Kevin Brown. Anibal Sanchez and Yusmeiro Petit? Remember AJ Burnett was a Met who got shipped to the Marlins in their post-97 fire sale (and look at Scott Kazmir… the Mets enjoy sending future superstars to Florida). The guy the Mets got in return is announcing on YES these days. Granted, past performance is not an indicator of future results, but he certainly did pick up some “can’t miss” prospects. Loria spent time putting together a team that will be cheap for him this and next year in South Florida, still pretty cheap when he moves in 2008 when most of them start to grow up, just in time for him to spend some money on some key free agent signings which gear them up to stay pretty close to their every-five-or-six years World Series plan.
All of these things combined put the Marlins (or the Athletics) in Portland by 2008. If it’s the Marlins, it will be interesting to see 1) what they name them and 2) how the divisions look that April.
Did I miss a city? Think of something I didn’t? Want to tell me New York City doesn’t need a third ball-team? Send me an email and let me know.
Quick Hits
- Albert Pujols hit 14 homeruns in the month of April. Do you think Bud Selig made a few calls and told teams to ensure Albert gets 73 this year? Do you think he got this idea from Darth Stern?
- Is anything better than Keith Hernandez in the booth this year? So far, he’s given us “I don’t think they belong in the kitchen” and on Sunday we got “This was the idea of some genius who went to college and thinks he knows how to manage a ballgame.” I love Keith.
- Joe Torre laid into the Red Sox fans for booing Damon on Monday. Get over yourself Joe. Guess what Yankees fans would do to Jeter (or will do to Roger Clemens) if they ever showed up in Yankee Stadium wearing a Red Sox uniform. I bet you know. Damon didn’t go back to the Royals, he went to the Yankees. The only person to surpass the rivalry booing is Julio Franco, and that’s only because it’s disrespectful to boo your grandfather.
- Who knew the Nuggets would decide they didn’t feel like showing up for the playoffs? Well, besides me, who picked the Clippers. Lack of outside shooting and Carmelo deciding to go home in the second half during the series. Buh-bye.
