San Jose sues MLB over A's blocked move

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle / 6-19-13

The city of San Jose sued Major League Baseball on Tuesday in an effort to move the Oakland Athletics to the South Bay, a lawsuit that challenges the Giants' claim to the region and MLB's monopoly over the business of professional baseball.

The San Jose City Council voted behind closed doors Tuesday to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

The suit follows years of political wrangling by A's owners John Fisher and Lew Wolff to move the team out of O.co Coliseum.

The lawsuit claims Major League Baseball and its commissioner, Bud Selig, have violated state and federal laws regarding unfair business practices and anticompetitive conduct. It also challenges the exemption to antitrust laws that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld for Major League Baseball in 1922, which has allowed the league to control everything from merchandising to broadcast rights to team locations.

MORE: http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/San-Jose-sues-MLB-over-A-s-blocked-move-4607373.php

[KamaAina]

1. Behind closed doors, eh?

Typical. I'm going to hazard a guess that the vote was 8-3, with Mayor Reed and his woodwind section (Reed instruments, get it?) in favor, and the three remaining labor allies opposed.

To recap, we don't have money to pay cops or keep libraries open, but we do have money for fat legal bills to help us get the privilege or spending even more nonexistent money so we can steal Oakland's team.

[Jamaal510]

2. There's no shame in Chuck Reed's game. (no pun intended)

I know that dirtbag owner Lew Wolff has wanted to ditch the Town since he first became the owner, but I still can't believe that Reed has been so adamant about trying to steal another city's baseball team, even though there still are plenty of Oaklanders (myself included) who attend the games. San Jose already has the Sharks, the Earthquakes, and the SaberCats. Why do they want to rob Oakland of one of our teams? First the Warriors are leaving town, and now this. I guess this city is not supposed to have ANYTHING going for it, huh Chuck Reed? Lew Wolff? And the least that Lew Wolff could do is pay for his own damn stadium instead of relying on taxpayer money for it.

[KamaAina]

3. Don't look now, but the Raiders are heading for the door, too.

I have heard that the plan is for the Silver and Black to tag along to the Niners' shiny new Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, next door to San Jo, much as the Jets did with Giants Stadium.

That would leave Oakland without any teams at all. That's not just a blow to civic pride. Thanks to dear old Prop 13 , the only way California cities can raise revenue is by finding a way to draw people in from outside and have them spend money there. For Oakland, that draw has been the Coliseum. Without it, they'll have even less money to do things like pay cops; as you know, the OPD is already stretched so thin that burglars knock over houses up in the hills in broad daylight, figuring they'll be in and out before anyone responds.

The problem facing Wolff and Reed is that, even if MLB were to expand, SJ wouldn't be on the list, since the Bay Area already has two teams. Hence, their attempt at larceny.