OAKLAND, Calif. _ If it was the intention of baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to set some East Bay nerves on edge, he couldn't have done better than Thursday's suggestion that the A's were a possible candidate to be moved to Las Vegas.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Manfred told a group of sports editors "if we were looking at relocation, Las Vegas would be on the list," adding that "until the Tampa Bay and Oakland situations are settled, I can't see talking about expansion."
The A's, in the person of president Dave Kaval, reacted with nonchalance, saying Manfred's words would have no impact on the Oakland club. Kaval is on record as saying the club will build a new stadium in Oakland and that both a site and a timetable would be announced by the end of the year.
The A's are looking at the current Coliseum site in addition to Howard Terminal at Jack London Square and two locations near the Lake Merritt BART station, Laney College and Brooklyn Basin.
"We're building in Oakland," Kaval told the Bay Area News Group. "All of our effort is going into that. We're working with all our stakeholders to get this done. We're looking at four sites in Oakland and we're on target to announce the site and the timeline this year."
The team has gone in an all-Oakland mode, including having "Rooted in Oakland" as its marketing campaign for this season, underscoring the team's ties to the city.
Manfred has made it clear he would like to see new facilities for the A's and the Rays, both of whom are playing in outdated stadiums. The Coliseum is in its 50th year of hosting baseball.
It is at the end of its tenure hosting football, however. The Raiders have been granted approval by the NFL to move to Las Vegas. The Golden State Warriors currently play in the arena adjacent to the Coliseum, but they are building a new arena in San Francisco and will be gone before too much longer.
It should be pointed out that when the Coliseum was being made over to the specifications of the Raiders in 1996, the team opened the season in Las Vegas' Cashman Field, playing the first homestand there while work on the Coliseum continued.
Manfred's words likely played well in some parts of the Las Vegas sporting scene, not so well in others.
Last month, Clark County Commission chairman Steve Sisolak summarily dismissed the idea of having a major league team in Las Vegas.
"I see a basketball team," he told the Bay Area News Group. "I don't see baseball. That would require another stadium. I don't see a lot of support for another sport that needs a specific stadium. We're getting a little sticker shock."
Clark County residents are contributing $750 million through a hotel room tax for the Raiders' new $1.9 billion stadium that is scheduled to open in 2020. Nevadans probably will need to add another $100 million to $200 million for road work associated to the stadium.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, however, wants her city to have a full menu of major sports teams. Goodman specially wants a downtown ballpark behind City Hall to counter the more popular Strip outside of city limits.
The city soon will own the downtown Cashman Center where the minor league baseball team Las Vegas 51s play. City officials are negotiating with a United Soccer League expansion team to share Cashman Field. The USL is a second-division professional league.
"We're going to have the NBA, MLS and we're going to have a major league baseball team," Goodman said last month.
