Oakland A's headed to Las Vegas

If you stripped all the pro sports franchises out of the Bay Area, its citizens would wake up the next morning still sure of their place as one of the vital cosmopolitan centers of our nation. This kind of high-pressure shakedown works on markets that still have some gnawing doubt about whether they are more than just a jumbo-sized Pocatello. Places like Oklahoma City or Milwaukee or Nashville … or Sacramento.

 

Good points - especially since unlike Phoenix and Vegas, I don't think Bay Area residents feel their economy is as dependent on tourism, because it isn't. People don't visit the Bay Area to be entertained so much as to see the Golden Gate Bridge and ride a cable car.

 

It's not the heat, it's the humidity in the Lou.

 

And it was worse when they had turf.

 

They don’t make airport hangars … err, domes … like Holt Arena anymore!

 

If Portland had a viable facility they'd have the A's at least temporarily. Bigger market, better weather, natural rivalry with Seattle. Superior to Vegas on every other metric.

Screw the city for giving PGE Park to the Timbers and the not helping to finance a viable Triple-A ballpark, as was promised.

 

That was at Busch II, which held the heat well.

 

Sorry for the delay, but that was part of the plans former Kings owner Fred Anderson had for that land. He also owned the Cal League team in Modesto and the CFL's Gold Miners. But he was eventually persuaded to keep the ballclub in Modesto and we all know how well the CFL's southern expansion went.

 

The turnpike weirds me out. There’s no exits except at a few points. Did Harrisburg to Philly and that was all I could think about.

 

Portland's political scene is probably more screwed up than Oakland's. I don't know where you'd put a park with adequate parking AND light rail access AND nearby restaurants etc. The Portland Meadows site would have been decent - but that was gobbled up.

 

Or not. Inside Sports had a fan quote decades ago in a story on the Niners that went something like, "Eight months of the year we're Fag City. But not during football season."