Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Craig Way alongside the producer Cameron Parker. Glad to have
you with us as well as we take you all
the way up until five o'clock this afternoon. As I mentioned,
the final ever ever game. I say ever ever is
a long time, but you know, the way things have
gone in Oakland, I don't know that we could ever
(00:25):
realistically expect a baseball team to set up Oakland, California
as its home city and residence ever again. So the
final ever baseball game is going on in Oakland, California,
(00:46):
and it involves the Texas Rangers. Rangers and A's playing it.
Last night was the last night game. The Rangers won
that one after Oakland won the opener. So it's the
final game there and they are scoreless in the bottom
half of the second inning. You're a Ranger fan, I know,
did you have any any interest in this at all?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think a little bit, and even just as a
baseball fan, as sports fan, it's it's always sad to
see franchises move away from from cities from good fan
bases because of the way an owner has treated them.
You know, I think back to Charlotte with how George
Shin kind of treated the city of Charlotte in the
organization and the fans, which ended up, you know, resulting
(01:27):
in him moving the team to New Orleans before the
Hornets came back as the Bobcats. Of course, now the
Hornets with the new ownership group and Michael Jordan playing
a big role in that. I mean, I mean Saint
Louis happened with the Rams. Of course, your team Craigs.
So it always sucks to see, you know, Seattle, I'm
an okay, see thunder Fan happened the same thing with
(01:48):
Seattle and this the city just was not interested in
paying for a new stadium, this and that and all
just becomes about money and the way John Fisher, I mean,
he's they they have not put any money into the
A's as long as I've been alive. I mean, of
course they had that fun moneyball run in the early
two thousands, but outside of that have never really contended,
(02:09):
never really had a chance. And just like, what is
John Fisher's end goal here? Because now he's in Vegas,
but like, don't you want to win? And it doesn't
seem like he has really cared about winning it all
since I don't know, bless them when they is irrelevant.
Were what the eighties when they won the World Series
nineteen nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, I mean they had a few years where they
got into the playoffs after that. But yeah, and I'm
with you on that, the city does deserve some consideration
on things. Now, this is a double edged sword. Cities
(02:52):
can kind of feel like they've been held hostage that
unless they agree to put up the money for a
new arena or stadium, the owner is going to take
his team and go. And then the argument comes in
there people say, well, there's a civic obligation and responsibility
and all that other kind of stuff. And then there's
(03:13):
the other side that says, no, it's his team. He's
the one paying the salaries. If he feels like he
has a greener pastor and can make more money, then
he should be allowed to go. This argument has gone,
you know, gone on forever. I mean, I can say
better what the senators with the expos I mean, it goes,
(03:33):
it goes way. I'll take you back further than that. Dodgers, Well, yeah,
I'll take you back further than that. There was no
teams had moved from Major League Baseball, which was really
considered the only real major sport in the early forties.
Pro football was trying to get a hold. Pro basketball
(03:54):
was nothing more than barnstorming. There was no you know,
there was no.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Back then.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So teams would up and move quite a bit. If
you look at the early early standings in the in
the NFL, you'll see teams from towns you've never heard of.
One of the one of the early teams to pay
attention to was a team called the Decatur Staleys. They
(04:22):
were from Decatur, Illinois. It didn't move well enough. They
moved to another town and became known as the Chicago Bears.
And so that's you know, so there was there was
a lot of movement there, but not so much with baseball.
And there's been a lot of talking about, you know,
wanting to move baseball to the Pacific coast. So in
nineteen forty one, finally Bill Veck was the owner of
(04:45):
the sing Lois Browns and he had Major League Baseball
convinced to approve him moving the Singles Browns to Los
Angeles beginning for the nineteen forty two season, and the
meeting to approve the move was to have happened on
a Monday, the Monday, December eighth, nineteen forty one, one
(05:11):
day after Pearl Harbor. So once the attack on Pearl
Harbor appened, all of that got put aside. There's no
way they're gonna put a baseball team out there. They
were worried about defense of the Pacific Coast as well.
So it was another twelve years before a Major League
Baseball team finally did move. And it wasn't the Browns.
It was the Boston Braves who moved to Milwaukee. And
(05:32):
then after that then the Browns moved to Baltimore, and
the Philadelphia A's moved to Kansas City, and then a
few four years after that, then the Dodgers moved from
Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and the Giants moved from New
York to San Francisco, and then in nineteen sixty one,
the Senators moved to Minnesota to become the Twins. So
Major League Baseball put a replacement franchise in Washington, which
(05:56):
then struggled for eleven years and then moved to Arlington
and became the Texas Rangers. And so this has been
going on for a while, and so folks have said, okay, well,
can a guy moves in The real hot button thing
that really just threw all this into overdrive was Al
Davis and the ensuing the NFL to move the Oakland
Raiders to Los Angeles. He won it, won the case,
(06:18):
he moved LA, won a Super Bowl there and then
promptly moved back to Oakland, and then his son then
moved it to Las Vegas. So owners is going to
move the team that I rooted for forever and ever.
The Los Angeles Rams actually began in Cleveland in the
late thirties. Is the Cleveland Rams won an NFL title
in nineteen forty five, but they weren't drawing, and so
(06:39):
they moved to LA in nineteen forty six, and they
were there all the way through nineteen ninety four. And
then Georgia Frontier moved to Saint Louis. It was for
greener pastors and the brand new trans World Dome which
became the Edward Jones Dome later, and I went to
some games there and there were fans of were very
(07:00):
very excited and uh and and the Rams won a
Super Bowl there while in Saint Louis. But a few
years later some of the attendants had dropped off and
she had sold the team to stand cronky, and he
wanted certain upgrades and certain things done, and they weren't.
So he moved the team to Los Angeles, and he
was looked at as being this incredible uh, traitors villain
(07:20):
for moving the team back to LA but because of
the new stadium and saying that, you know, it's just
what the NFL wants to do, you know, get the
teams in the markets. Never mind that there were at
least as many, if not more, forty nine er fans
at Sofi Stadium last Sunday as there were Rams fans.
That's going to take some time, even though they've won
(07:42):
a Super Bowl since they've been back in La so Uh.
But but all teams want the new Facilita San Francisco
move to the to Levi's team that's down in Santa Clara,
it's not San Francisco. The Cowboys, we know moved, you
know when they When Bud Adams didn't get it the
way he wanted in Houston, he moved to Tennessee, and
Houston area sports fans and Oilers fans said that's fine,
(08:04):
you go, we will build a new stadium, but not
for you. You in specific, Bud Adams, and that's how
the Texans came to be. So this has been going
on for some time, but there are better ways to
handle it than some have handled it, and it has
been poorly handled by John Fisher, this whole thing about
(08:26):
the a's moving, and it's a shame that it's worked
out that way. By the same token, it is fair
to point out that several times it was put there
on a ballot and folks in Oakland refused on the
tax to build a new ballpark. Same thing happened in
Seattle with the Sonics, where the owner, Clay Bennett, was
(08:47):
from the state of Oklahoma. So he moves them to
Oklahoma City where he could get a new arena, which,
by the way, he's getting another one, you know, coming up.
So this has gone on and off. Georgie Shin, you know,
threatened to and ultimately did move the Charlotte Hornets out
of Charlotte to New Orleans simply because he wanted a
(09:09):
new arena. And in the arena was what six years old,
seven years old, very new, and it was a great arena.
I was there for the nineteen ninety four Final four.
But he didn't have enough of what he wanted, so
he moved the team to New Orleans, and then of
course Katrina heads and he gets moved to Oklahoma City
for a time and with the proviso that it would
go back to New Orleans, and it did, and then
(09:31):
of course Oklahoma City had proven itself to be an
NBA market and so Clay Bennett moves to Sonnics there.
So that's how all that stuff works. So, you know,
communities find themselves. The Cleveland Browns fans had to do
without a team for three years and finally got a
team back. Fans in Baltimore there are some fans who
(09:52):
have never fully accepted the Ravens, even though they've won
two Super Bowls, but have signed off ever since the
Colts left in the middle of the night in the
moving vans for Indianapolis. And that's an amazing story in itself.
So yeah, there's a lot of that that happens. And
it's a shame that it's happened like that with the
(10:12):
Oakland Athletics, but they're going to be in Sacramento at
least two maybe three years before they finally get the
deal done in the ballpark built in Las Vegas. All right,
coming up next, we're gonna hear from Long worrn's head coach,
Steve Sarkisian when we continue on sports Radio AM thirteen
under the Zone and the iHeartRadio app.