A’s relocation to Sacramento? Timeline of past threats to leave Oakland

The A’s appear ready to leave Oakland, their home since 1968.

The team had scheduled meetings with Oakland and Sacramento officials several days in a row this week and is close to reaching an agreement to play next season at Sutter Health Park, home of the Triple-A affiliate of the Giants, Sacramento radio host Dave Weiglein. reported Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the team remains silent: Attempts to reach A’s spokesman and team president Dave Kaval went unanswered Wednesday evening.

A spokesperson for the Sacramento mayor’s office declined to confirm whether the meeting scheduled for Wednesday had even taken place.

The organization is reportedly ready to hold an internal meeting tomorrow.

All of this leaves Oakland fans in limbo, waiting for them to lose a third team since 2019. Of course, the A’s have threatened to leave before — multiple times, in fact.

Here’s a timeline of Oakland’s often tenuous hold over its baseball team:

1970: Two years after moving the Kansas City A’s to Oakland, owner Charlie Finley reportedly spoke with Toronto representatives about moving the team to Canada.

1975: Finley, the absentee owner who lived in Chicago, hoped to be in the middle of a three-city “trade” that would send the A’s to Chicago and leave Oakland empty-handed. The Chicago Tribune reported that the plan would see the White Sox move to Seattle and the A’s move to Chicago to become the White Sox.

1978: Finley arranged to sell the A’s for $12 million to Colorado oilman Marvin Davis, who would move the team to Denver. Coliseum and Oakland officials reportedly agreed to allow the A’s to break their stadium lease — which had 10 years remaining — on two conditions: Oakland would have to be bought out of the lease for $4 million and the Giants would have to agree to play half. of their games at the Coliseum for 10 years for the right to be the only team in the Bay Area. Oakland planned to use the $4 million to build luxury suites at the Coliseum for Al Davis to keep the Raiders in town. The deal collapsed when it was discovered that direct allocation of funds to the Raiders project would constitute a misappropriation of public funds.

1979: Still desperate to sell the A’s, Finley began negotiations with Eddie DeBartolo Sr., who two years earlier purchased the 49ers and turned management over to his son Eddie Jr.. DeBartolo planned to move the A’s to New Orleans. Finley’s sales hopes were again dashed by the Coliseum lease as well as baseball’s reluctance to sell a team to DeBartolo, who had ties to gambling (he owned casinos and racetracks).

1979: Finley once again agreed to sell the A’s to Marvin Davis for $12 million. The Oakland City Council, however, blocked the A’s from moving to Denver by voting to keep the Coliseum lease intact.

1980: Finally tired of trying to get approval for a sale that would ship the A’s out of Oakland, Finley sold the A’s to a local group led by former Levi Strauss CEO Walter Haas Jr., who commits to staying at the Coliseum.

1996: The A’s sign a deal to move to Las Vegas…sort of. The A’s agree to open the season with a six-game homestand at Cashman Field in Vegas while workers put the finishing touches on Mount Davis at the Coliseum.

2000: MLB lawyers are discussing the Oakland A’s as possible candidates for contraction. One proposal was to disband the A’s and let Oakland ownership take over ownership of the Angels. Another concept was to disband the Angels and have the A’s players move to Anaheim to become the Angels.

2000: A’s owners Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann are discussing the possibility of moving to San Jose with Major League Baseball.

2002: The A’s are beginning to explore the possibility of a baseball stadium in downtown Oakland, near City Hall.

2004 : Ownership is beginning to consider building a new stadium on the Coliseum property in the north parking lot.

2005: New co-owner Lew Wolff and co-owner John Fisher announce that their group will focus on building a new stadium somewhere in Oakland.

2006: Wolff says the A’s will build a new ballpark in Fremont’s Warm Springs neighborhood. The expected move-in date into the 32,000-seat Cisco Field would be as early as 2010.

2009: A’s abandons plans to move to Fremont, citing “real and threatened” delays in its proposed project. Obstacles included local opposition to the increased traffic and decreased property values ​​that the new stadium would bring.

2009: San Jose city leaders begin courting the A’s, who later announce they will focus on building a stadium in downtown San Jose. Commissioner Bud Selig later appointed a blue ribbon committee to explore possibilities for the stadium, particularly regarding the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights in the South Bay. This would prove to be a six-year battle.

2009: Oakland city officials are proposing a waterfront baseball stadium near Jack London Square and along the Oakland Estuary, called Victory Court.

2011: Oakland leaders scrap plans for Victory Court and instead propose a new development at the 66th Avenue site called Coliseum City.

2012: Cisco Field is proposed to be built in downtown San Jose, adjacent to the SAP Center and San Jose Diridon Station.

2013: MLB lawyers reject A’s request to move to San Jose. San Jose city officials filed a lawsuit that eventually ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

2014 : The A’s sign a 10-year lease to continue playing at the Coliseum.

2015 : The U.S. Supreme Court rejects San Jose’s request to overturn MLB’s decision to deny the team’s proposed move to the South Bay.