That whole year the city of Oakland thought the Athletics were going to Denver, so they didn't support the team.

Listening to a Yankees-Athletics game from a couple of weeks back, I heard Susan Waldman say that she'd heard (I know, I know, take it for what it's worth) that the reason the Giants are being so hard-headed about the Athletics moving to San Jose isn't so much because they want the Athletics not to play in San Jose, but that they want them to leave the bay area altogether. If they do, according to this source, the Bay Area would become the biggest market with only a single team, and the Giants ownership feels that, with the Athletics gone, they would enter the Phillies-Red Sox-Yankees elite, selling out their ballpark every night, etc. Become a whole brand, etc.

For this reason if no other, I hope the Athletics find a way to stay in Oakland or get to San Jose. I hate the f***ing Giants.

In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

mozartpc27 wrote:That whole year the city of Oakland thought the Athletics were going to Denver, so they didn't support the team.

Listening to a Yankees-Athletics game from a couple of weeks back, I heard Susan Waldman say that she'd heard (I know, I know, take it for what it's worth) that the reason the Giants are being so hard-headed about the Athletics moving to San Jose isn't so much because they want the Athletics not to play in San Jose, but that they want them to leave the bay area altogether. If they do, according to this source, the Bay Area would become the biggest market with only a single team, and the Giants ownership feels that, with the Athletics gone, they would enter the Phillies-Red Sox-Yankees elite, selling out their ballpark every night, etc. Become a whole brand, etc.

For this reason if no other, I hope the Athletics find a way to stay in Oakland or get to San Jose. I hate the f***ing Giants.

I read that in a long article the other day. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/s ... id=6665421

The Giants, newly crowned world champions, have told Selig that an A's relocation to San Jose would have a "dramatic and traumatic" effect on a franchise that believes that it is on the cusp of becoming a true financial powerhouse nearing the category of the Red Sox, Cubs and Phillies only through the risk and creativity of privately financing a stadium when few teams dared.

Said Crowley: "I don't doubt he's saying these things, I just doubt he can support them. If I were Larry, I'd be saying the same thing, too. If they got rid of us, they'd have the largest one-team market in baseball. That's his grand slam."

Back in the early 2000s, the Giants sold out every game already. They didn't manage to turn that into moving into the elite.

Now they've won a World Series, though.

Of course, I think what that shows mostly is that success in this business is fleeting. The Giants dipped a bit after peaking in the early 2000s (though if you look at their attendance figures, they were still always drawing healthily enough, and certainly far outstripping the Athletics), and needed to win again to recover their former position.

The Bay Area, when you include San Jose, certainly has enough money/population to support two teams, however, and from what I've read MLB seems committed to Oakland in a lukewarm sort of way, even if the Athletics' ownership isn't. Hopefully, they'll eventually get an ownership group in who can make it work there, and get a new stadium built, etc.

What's too bad is that the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum was a fine venue for baseball, until it was ruined for the Raiders return in 1995. If the Raiders wind up fleeing Oakland to return to LA - not outside the realm of possibility - simply knocking down Mount Davis and doing an Angels-style rennovation of the Coliseum would probably be enough to make that a very viable ML venue again. Look at what they did with Kauffman Stadium in KC as well; that remains a beautiful ballpark, despite being 40+ years old.

Speaking of KC< Chuck Finley was an asshole. He should have moved to Denver from Oakland, but then again he never should have left KC. Despite it coming about via the Yankees' interference (and thus ripping the Athletics away from Philly), I have to admit that was the right place for them. And then Finley fuck-ed it up.

the giants have market pricing for their tickets too which maximizes revenue, theoretically. it certainly does bring in more revenue than flat pricing. not a ton of sports teams are doing this. i think the giants are also involved in a good bit of social media type marketing. so they probably view themselves as cutting edge which just adds to their arrogance.

swishnicholson wrote:In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

The 1916 A's are not impressed. Sure they were "only" 54.5 out, but check out the next closest team.

Seems they also had Jack Nabors who had a record of 1-20. His career record was 1-25.

philliesphhan wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

The 1916 A's are not impressed. Sure they were "only" 54.5 out, but check out the next closest team.

Seems they also had Jack Nabors who had a record of 1-20. His career record was 1-25.

All part of Connie Mack's belief that fans get tired of seeing a winner after a while and you have to blow the team up and start over as fans like teams on the rise more than a constant winner.

I dunno. Moving any team to LA while the Dodgers mess is ongoing (and it's going to take awhile to clean that mess) strikes me as something MLB would very much not want to do. I'm not saying it will never happen, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

And I just don't see many cities/states right now splashing out big bucks to build a fancy new stadium. The Marlins new stadium was approved in 2008, what big projects have been approved since then?

stevelxa476 wrote:

philliesphhan wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

The 1916 A's are not impressed. Sure they were "only" 54.5 out, but check out the next closest team.

Seems they also had Jack Nabors who had a record of 1-20. His career record was 1-25.

All part of Connie Mack's belief that fans get tired of seeing a winner after a while and you have to blow the team up and start over as fans like teams on the rise more than a constant winner.

There is some truth to that I think. Look at what happened to Atlanta's attendance after the city got "bored" of the Braves. Peaked in 3.9M in 1993, then collapsed (like everybody) after the strike, recovered to a high of 3.46M in 1997 after they won the WS, then steadily declined after that.

Sadly, same thing happened to the Phils from 1974-1983.

Rose steadily from 1972-1977; in 1977, they drew 2.7M. That number dipped a bit in 1978, but the Phillies set their all-time franchise high at that time by receiving 2.77M in 1979 after the signing Pete Rose. Attendance actually dipped in 1980, to 2.65M; the strike collapsed the attendance in 1981 (1.64M, still quite good by the standards of that season). Attendance recovered to 2.38M in 1982, but dropped significantly in 1983, despite the Phils winning the NL East (to 2.13M), and dipped again in 1984, when normally you would expect to see a spike following a WS appearance, to 2.06M. Things wound up settling at a steady 1.9M, give or take, until 1993, and then collapsed again immediately thanks to the strike and the Phillies' ownership's parsimonious ways.

TenuredVulture wrote:Moving any team to LA

Who said anything about moving a team to LA?

philliesphhan wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

The 1916 A's are not impressed. Sure they were "only" 54.5 out, but check out the next closest team.

Seems they also had Jack Nabors who had a record of 1-20. His career record was 1-25.

That team had an ERA of 3.92, which seems fine by today's standards, but it was 1.10 higher than the next-worst pitching staff.

swishnicholson wrote:In 1954, the A's finished 60 games out of first place. That 's quite an achievement.

That team had Forrest Vandergrift Jacobs on it. He was known though as "Spook" Jacobs. That name sounds funny today.

The A's didn't improve when they got to Kansas City. Horrible owners and the worst teams in history. I mean, they never ever got close to being good until they moved to Oakland. In 1966, they finished 7th, were 74-86, 23 games out of 1st and that was their best season ever. They moved in 1968. During the time they were in KC, they finished behind the first place club by the following number of games:

33; 45; 38.5; 19; 28; 39; 47.5; 24; 31.5; 42; 43; 23; 29.5.

Yowsa.

mozartpc27 wrote:
Sadly, same thing happened to the Phils from 1974-1983.

The Phillies' case was a little different than the Braves', though I think your point still holds. what drives attendance is less success than the anticipation of success, since that's what creates excitement in the offseason, when season tickets are sold. The Phillies climbed steadily through the 70s, but after the three division crowns I think there was a feeling that they had gone about as far as they could could go. The world championship was actually somewhat unexpected, and seen as the last hurrah as an aging team, and the 83 title even more so. Teams can build up attendance with a successful run during the season, but I don't think you can ever catch up if you don't have that season ticket holding base to start out with.

Braves fans were just spoiled and clueless, though.

Baseball-as-corporate-entertainment wasn't as much of a thing in the late '70s as it is now, though. So I think that will prevent any falloff for Golden Era II to the extent that it happened in Golden Era I.

swishnicholson wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:
Sadly, same thing happened to the Phils from 1974-1983.

The Phillies' case was a little different than the Braves', though I think your point still holds. what drives attendance is less success than the anticipation of success, since that's what creates excitement in the offseason, when season tickets are sold. The Phillies climbed steadily through the 70s, but after the three division crowns I think there was a feeling that they had gone about as far as they could could go. The world championship was actually somewhat unexpected, and seen as the last hurrah as an aging team, and the 83 title even more so. Teams can build up attendance with a successful run during the season, but I don't think you can ever catch up if you don't have that season ticket holding base to start out with.

Braves fans were just spoiled and clueless, though.

I see your point, smitty, and I certainly don't expect the current Phils' squad to have the same dramatic drop off in attendance so long as they are winning.

But sometimes I think we give Philadelphia fans a little too much credit, or else we are a little too hard on Braves fans. I realize the mid-80s was a different time and all, but check out the Phillies attendance at Game 3 of the 1983 NLCS: 53,490, which seems pretty good I guess, until you realize that was over 10,000 short of a sellout at the Vet's capacity for baseball at that time. Game 4 had a crowd of 64,494.

Seems like Phils fans can get bored of a winner too.

Although, i realize the city had a "difficult" relationship with those Great Era I teams, as they were generally sort of unlikeable.

I went to Game 4 of the 83 series, I was only nine but remember the Vet being PACKED - we were way at the top. Lots of O's fans too.

21McBride wrote:I went to Game 4 of the 83 series, I was only nine but remember the Vet being PACKED - we were way at the top. Lots of O's fans too.

Oh, the WS games were all sold out.

Just not the NLCS games. Tbf to the Phillies, the first game of the NLCS in Los Angeles was 10,000 short of a sellout as well, and the Dodgers had won the World Series in 1981.

my dad caught a ball during that NLCS. Then I scuffed it up good in the back yard. He was pissed. For one brief moment in time, Charles Hudson was the man.

mozartpc27 wrote:

21McBride wrote:I went to Game 4 of the 83 series, I was only nine but remember the Vet being PACKED - we were way at the top. Lots of O's fans too.

Oh, the WS games were all sold out.

Just not the NLCS games. Tbf to the Phillies, the first game of the NLCS in Los Angeles was 10,000 short of a sellout as well, and the Dodgers had won the World Series in 1981.

I think this is part of the reason baseball stadiums have gotten smaller and all the new places have smaller capacity. Game 3 of the NLCS might've been 10K short of capacity, but it is almost 10K more than can fit in CBP now.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Moving any team to LA

Who said anything about moving a team to LA?

I thought I read it somewhere. Maybe in the article linked? I could be wrong though.