Manchester City had one hell of a day.  First they got out from under the controversial ownership group to a new one.  Then it looked like they were going to make bids for David Villa and Berbatov.  But in the last hour or so, the team did the unexpected and swooped in to sign Chelsea's target Robinho. 

So then Man U came in and sign Berbatov.  It's been a fascinating day in the Premier League.  I've always loved the sort of step child attitude of the Manchester City folks, so I'm really happy to see the Robinho signing happen.  Then again, I'm not exactly sure when Robinho fits with City.  They didn't seem to have much of an issue with strikers and up front talent.   I guess you can never have too many talented strikers.

What do you think of the moves?  I've watched a few City matches already this year and really like that team.  I'm rooting for Mark Hughes gang.

Here is the conclusion of Athletics Nation's four-part interview with A's managing general partner Lewis Wolff.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you.

In case you missed earlier parts, part I is here; part II is here; part III is here.

I do want to thank Nico, baseballgirl, notsellingjeans, monkeyball, louismg and taj for offering help with crafting several of these questions.  This was an incredible experience for me especially since I could've probably continued the interview.  Lew never gave me any indication that he was short on time or rushed.  He clearly understood the value of sitting down with this community.

Without further ado, the end of AN's interview with Lew Wolff:

Blez:  What's your favorite seat at the Coliseum?

Wolff:  What I like to do is to go to the diamond seats at the beginning of the game and people say I do that for the free food, but I like to see how the pitchers look after a couple of innings.  Then I prefer to be closer to where the players go to the dugout.  Not that they give a damn, but it makes me feel good.  I don't like the box at all.  We have a big box but I don't like sitting up there.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday you read part II.  Monday was part I.

Here is Part III.  Enjoy.

Blez:  Bob Costas reported on his Costas Now show that MLB teams start out with $40 million due to revenue sharing.  Is that fairly accurate because it would mean that the A's are close to breaking even before even selling a ticket given the current payroll?    

Wolff:  I think we're closer to $30, but that number is probably OK when you factor in everything.  Salaries aren't the only expense we have though.  We have to buy bats, balls.  We have to have an accountant or two.  (laughing)

Blez:  Those ash bats are making things especially expensive.  It feels like a different era in baseball then when you're talking about payroll versus revenue sharing.

Wolff:  We would rather be a contributor to revenue sharing.  Or at least neutral, so just having revenue sharing isn't a reason to be in the business. 

Blez:  But doesn't it encourage you to spend more?

Wolff:  Oh yes.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday was Part I of the Athletics Nation exclusive interview with A's managing general partner Lewis Wolff.  Today is Part II.

Enjoy!

Blez:   Would it be fair for the fans to give up on the A’s for a couple of seasons since most of them seem to think, probably rightly so, that the team won’t truly compete?  These are hardcore fans that are saying this. 

Wolff:  Do I think it’s right?  I think it’s their privilege.  I would hope they wouldn’t.  The fan we need is someone who understands us and feels like we did the right thing.  The fan that wants to see Gio Gonzalez have a good game and then a bad game and a good game and to see where he’s going.  But that’s a sophisticated fan.  I’m not saying they need a Harvard degree.  Also our venue is such that there is really no scarcity of seating.  Even with the tarp.  We have not filled up very often.  Even during our playoff run.  So the fans in Oakland have the luxury of going to the game if they want to and they don’t have to worry about getting a ticket.  That luxury is nice for the fans and not so great for the owner.  (laughs)

Blez:  I’m going to get to the tarp and the Coliseum a little later, but how do you sell a team that is in rebuilding mode to a market that at times can be ambivalent?  The Coliseum wasn’t even selling out when the A’s were the class of the AL a few seasons back.  Does it take a World Series victory or even two to motivate these fans again?  Or is this just a dead market?

Wolff:  I do think that the proximity between us and the Giants hurts.  They’ve actually moved closer to us.  The six years prior to the year 2000, the Giants outdrew us by around a half a million on average per year.  In 2000 they opened the new ballpark and the attendance has jumped and pretty much has stayed there.  The difference is now about a million and a half although I haven’t checked it this year.  That (the new venue) has something to do with it.  Maybe not 100 percent.  Secondly, Barry Bonds was a big attraction there and we didn’t have Barry Bonds.  The other side of it is the demographic.  Both the Giants and ourselves have a lot of water in front of us so there isn’t anyone else living there.  A couple of other owners tease us that we may be the only inelastic demand team in baseball.  That means that if you won the World Series, the next year would you have two and half or three million out there?  In other words, our band of attendance has been approximately 1.7-2.1 million, win or lose that’s where we’ve been.

Blez:  Does that make you feel helpless as an owner?  It has to be really frustrating that no matter the product you put on the field you’re in the same range.

Wolff:  It’s a very helpless feeling.  It’s been the saddest thing.  And I want to be careful here because the people who do come, they deserve whatever we can give them and we’ve tried to do that.  I always laugh because we have $2 Wednesday night and dollar hot dogs with a limit of 10.

Blez:  I was thinking I could go over that, easily.

Wolff:  (laughing)  I want to be able to drive the person home who eats all 10.  But I don’t know too many ballparks that offer that opportunity.  That’s just our current market.  It’s challenging.  All I would like is to have more fans and we have to earn that.  We can’t ask them to just voluntarily show up.  So our players when they go out on the field are stimulated by a full stadium.  We have to earn that though.  We can’t ask the fans to do our players a favor and come to a game.  I’m not suggesting that.  We have a 40-year-old facility which we share with a football team and we’re in a market that is somewhat lesser than the market 16 miles away.  We have our challenges.  We bought the team knowing that.  But we did buy the team with the idea that we’d get a new venue in the general area.  If we can produce that, we’ll do everyone a favor even though some say, well you’re moving to Fremont that’s like you’re moving to Las Vegas or something.  We don’t consider it that way, but fans might.  We’re not looking to have a huge increase in ticket price, we’re looking for a huge increase in attendance. 

Continue reading this post »

Diamond Dallas Braden was great tonight as he led the A's to a 2-1 win over the Costa Mesa Angels.  He needed to be as the A's offense, as is expected, could only muster a Daric Barton solo home run off of Jered Weaver and the winning run was a wild pitch that plated, of all people, Big Frank Thomas.  The only blemish on Braden's night was an opposite field bomb to Mike Napoli.

There was some discussion in the game thread as to whether or not to leave Braden in for the eighth inning because he had only given up seven hits through seven innings and no walks.  My feeling was that A's have these excellent assets in Devine and Ziggy, so why not use them and let Braden walk away knowing that he pitched well and get a confidence boost for next time?

Any way, it always feels good to beat the Angels, even if the A's are not playoff contenders.  And better yet, I like how Braden is pitching.  Yes, he's not only of the higher profile A's prospects, but he could be a fill-in guy until some of those higher profile pitchers are ready.  Course Braden didn't have to face Vlad tonight and that will weaken any lineup. 

Any victory for this team is good at this stage in the season because it shows that they aren't just rolling over, but it's especially sweet to knock down the Angels.

Oh and don't forget, I will be posting the second part of my Lew Wolff interview tomorrow morning around 7 a.m.

Dallas Braden is pitching to contact nicely.  He's gone seven innings and only given up a Mike Napoli home run.

Braden also just had a fantastic web gem.  A's up 2-1 going to the eighth.

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!

Well the game is pretty much meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I still love beating the Angels if we can.  It's not news, but I can't stand that team.

Any way, the A's send Dallas Braden to the mound and I think Braden has actually been pretty good this time in the rotation.  Maybe it's just because my expectations haven't been terribly high for him, but he's looked good to me even if his results haven't shown it.  His splits in August aren't good.

Here are his stats for the year:

The A's face Spicoli tonight in Jered Weaver.  Ironically, Weaver has a similar ERA to Braden right now.  Course he has a career ERA under three against the Oakland A's offense.  Not that that's a shock or anything.  Here are his stats for the year:

The lineups tonight are as follows:

The best news?  We're a week away from September call-ups.  I wonder who we shall see before the end of the year.

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!

Lewis Wolff, the managing general partner of the Oakland Athletics, was kind enough to sit down and do an interview with me last week.  The interview is long and pretty much covers all aspects of your team.  I want to just publicly thank him for giving me nearly two hours of his time and blatant honesty.

So rather than comment more on it, I'll just let you read the first part of what will be four parts that will run this week every morning on Athletics Nation.  I hope you find it as interesting to read as I did to participate in.  Enjoy Part I.

Blez:  First of all I want to thank you for sitting down with me.  It isn’t every owner of a sports franchise that will sit down with someone who runs a blog about the team.

Lewis Wolff:  It’s a very good blog and I know it’s the only one Billy (Beane) really looks at.  I look at it when I have time.  The only other one I look at is A’s new ballpark.  I think the guy is an architect or something. 

Blez:  He posts on Athletics Nation a lot.  His name is vertig0 on AN.  He’s pretty awesome and does a great job with the ballpark.  He’s obsessed with the process of the new ballpark getting done.

Wolff:  Well so am I (laughs). 

Blez:  (laughing) I can understand that.  Let me start off with a bit of a retrospective question.  You’ve owned the A’s for more than three years now and have had some serious peaks and valleys during that time.  2005 was a tough year, the team then goes to the ALCS in 2006 in a really fun and exciting year, and now a down year last year due to the record-setting injuries that led to the rebuilding which, in turn, led to a tough year this year.   How difficult has it been from an owner’s perspective to go through those peaks and valleys?

Wolff:  The difficulty comes from being a fan, which I am.  I’d rather win than lose.  Thanks to some great people here, I’ve experienced so much in the last three years that some owners who’ve owned teams for 20 years haven’t experienced.  It was a condensed experience.  We produced a winner and got to the final four which hasn’t happened with this team in a long time.  That was on my watch and it was because of Billy and all his guys.  That was a thrill but it didn’t really impact our attendance or fan interest at the ballpark as much as I had hoped.  I’m not criticizing them but we didn’t sign as many season ticket holders going into the next year as everyone in the league thought we would.  It taught me that demand in the area was inelastic.  I’m not sure if we won the World Series if we’d see a bunch of people sign up for the next year.  I mean we have 7-8,000, and I don’t even know if it’s that many, the Giants have in excess of 20,000.  What’s the difference?  The ballpark is the difference.  Barry Bonds was the difference.  In terms of record and performance, I think we’ve outclassed them since 2000.   It’s been a great learning experience.  We’ve had our ups and our downs and our payroll was over $80 million.  One year it produced a lot and the next year it didn’t produce anything.  I’ve seen the theory that Billy and his team have taught me about aging players and at my age, anyone under 60 is young (laughs).  I’ve learned a lot very quickly and I think the A’s are fortunate that we’re flexible.  We don’t have any real complicated decision making.

Blez:  What do you mean by that?

Wolff:  Well if Billy calls and says, “What do you think of this?”  I’ll ask him what he thinks of it and he’ll say it’s great and then we’ll just say, “Let’s do it.”  There’s no one else to interject.  Billy is very analytical and by the time he calls me, he’s analyzed all the potential results.  He’s got great people.  It’s a tight-knit organization and what I need to bring to it is an organization that everyone has a great time in if we can.  But still in a size that fits the market.  We’re the smallest two-team market in baseball.  I can’t go out and build a 60,000-seat facility.  In fact most of the ones that have added an extra 10,000 seats, such as Seattle, Colorado, Arizona, they’re ruing the day they did that.  We have to look at our market.  If we were by ourselves…

Blez:  It’d be different.

Wolff:  It would definitely be different.  But that isn’t the cards we’re dealt.