Re: BLANTON to the Phillies
FWIW:
Stadium Issue
Team owners have been faced for several years with a problematic venue issue. The Oakland Coliseum was originally built as a multi-purpose facility. After the Oakland Raiders football team moved to Los Angeles in 1982, many improvements were made to what was suddenly a baseball-only facility. The 1994 movie Angels in the Outfield was filmed in part at the Oakland Coliseum.
Then, in 1995, a deal was struck whereby the Raiders would move back to Oakland for the 1995 season. The agreement called for the expansion of the Coliseum to 63,026 seats. The bucolic view of the Oakland foothills that baseball spectators enjoyed was replaced with a jarring view of an outfield grandstand contemptuously referred to as "Mount Davis" after Raiders' owner Al Davis. Because construction was not finished by the start of the 1996 season, the Athletics were forced to play their first six-game homestand at 9,300-seat Cashman Field in Las Vegas.
Although "official" capacity was stated to be 43,662 for baseball, seats were sometimes sold in Mount Davis as well, pushing "real" capacity to the area of 60,000. The ready availability of tickets on game day made season tickets a tough sell, while crowds as high as 30,000 often seemed sparse in such a venue. On December 21, 2005, the Athletics announced that seats in the Coliseum's third deck would not be sold for the 2006 season, but would instead be covered with a tarp, and that tickets would no longer be sold in Mount Davis under any circumstances. That effectively reduced capacity to 34,077, making McAfee Coliseum the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball.
Since the expansion of Coliseum seating, ownership has stated that a new and smaller baseball-only facility is necessary to ensure the economic viability of the Athletics. In 2005, owner Wolff made public his plans to build a 35,000-seat baseball-only stadium not far from the present facility, as part of a larger commercial and residential development. However, those plans never moved past the nascent stage, in part because the cost of the renovations to McAfee Coliseum made public funding for a new ballpark too politically risky. After the city of Oakland failed to make any progress toward a stadium the A's began contemplating a move to the Warm Springs district of suburban Fremont just north of the Santa Clara County line in the vicinity of San Jose on a parcel of land just north of Mission Blvd currently owned by Cisco Systems. Fremont is about 25 miles south of Oakland.
Finally, on November 7, 2006, many media sources announced the Athletics would be leaving Oakland as early as 2010 for a new stadium in the city of Fremont which was confirmed the next day by the Fremont City Council. The team will be playing in what is planned to be called Cisco Field, a 36,000 seat baseball only facility. The proposed ballpark would be part of a larger "ballpark village" which would include retail and residential development. While the existing Oakland Coliseum is easily accessible via public transit on BART, the new stadium does not lie near the existing BART lines, and could be problematic for those not wanting to drive to the stadium. However, the new stadium site does have direct access to both Amtrak's Capital Corridor train system and the Altamont Commuter Express rail lines. BART already has plans for a Warm Springs expansion station which, via a people mover or shuttle, would make the new stadium much more accessible by public transit as well. In addition, Wolff has stated the transit to and from the stadium is a prime concern of his and that it will be addressed. Speculation abounds that, when the move is made, the geographical part of the team's name might change accordingly.
Before the 2008 season began, the organization announced the reopening of the section of upper deck behind home plate in an "All You Can Eat" offer. Tickets are sold at $35 each, in which fans can enjoy as much as food as they like. Meanwhile, it is reported the completion date for new stadium, Cisco Field, will be likely delayed a year to 2012.
.