John Fisher, who might be the luckiest idiot alive because no dunderheaded maneuver he makes can seem to deprive him of the money that must’ve been chucked out of a moving car at him, has once again caught a break in that, with the Super Bowl being in Vegas this week, it’ll mask that the latest indignity he faces. It’s that the mayor of Las Vegas thinks his plan is moronic.
“I thought, this does not make sense, and so why is it happening?” Carolyn Goodman said.
Yes, that’s all of us, Mayor.
Usually, when a team announces a move to a new city, you’ll find the mayor of that new city decked out in team colors and amplifying what a bonus this is for said city, and just how excited everyone is and how they can’t wait to throw out the first pitch and some reference to a future World Series/Super Bowl/Larry O’Brien Trophy/Stanley Cup. It’s hard to think of another case where before the stadium design is even settled the mayor is saying, “This guy’s an idiot!”
Mayor Goodman was bemoaning Fisher’s insistence that the new stadium had to be on the Strip, which will make it utterly impossible to drive to cleanly, instead of another site that was at the hub of a couple highways and easier for residents to access. She also rightly pointed out the passion of the Oakland fan base that does not deserve to be saddled and sentenced to Fisher, and apparently would very much like to see her constituents not have to wear that same stone of shame.
The mayor has since backpedaled on her comments Tuesday, saying: “I want to be clear that I am excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball in Las Vegas, and it very well may be that the Las Vegas A’s will become a reality that we will welcome to our city.”
Goodman’s comments come on the heels of the Nevada State Education Association filing a lawsuit to stop public funds from being used to build this stadium no one will want to go to all that much, which would kill the move. If Fisher’s lack of clarity on how he’ll provide his portion doesn’t do so first, of course. You’ll recall the teachers’ union first tried to get a ballot referendum on a ballot first, which didn’t work out, though they have appealed the court’s decision. This lawsuit is aimed at the Nevada legislature specifically, not the A’s, and claims that the vote to open the funds to the A’s actually required a two-thirds vote instead of a majority because public revenue is being created, which is what the Nevada Constitution states.
And all of that comes in the wake of this very public shoulder shrug that made the rounds on social media when Fisher was supposedly trying to hype the money people that are supposed to back this verkakte undertaking:
Feel the passion. Prostate exams get more of a reaction than this.
There’s still no rendering of this new park, now two months after the A’s were supposed to deliver it. Fisher is still begging for anyone to relieve him of the responsibility of paying for his share of this yet figment of a ballpark. And no one’s rushing to do so. They still have no idea where the A’s will play for the three seasons after this one and before this barely-a-concept edifice is actually built and open.
And in broader terms, this complete flaming trash heap of a process still has the aims of moving a team from one of the largest markets in the country to the smallest, where MLB owners will almost immediately be bailing out Fisher through revenue sharing when their TV deal comes up with nothing. Or they have to share a league-wide one with the A’s, and the A’s won’t be providing many eyeballs, too. They’ll also play in MLB’s smallest stadium. In July. In the desert, praying that enough tourists want to sweat their underwear into vapor to watch their team grind out a 4-2 win over a faceless A’s team, because Fisher isn’t going to pay for anything else, while their charges are massively hungover. What’s good about this — any of it — again?
To recap, a blithering idiot wants to take the baseball team he destroyed away from a much bigger place that loves it dearly and was offering him a better stadium deal than he’s getting from the much smaller place that doesn’t want them, where he hasn’t proven he can build a stadium or fill it, and needs the most weasley commissioner in recent sports history to outright lie to cover his dumbass.
Rob Manfred’s MLB, everyone.
