Not really as John Fisher trying to move his Oakland baseball business in the worst way.
It is April Fool’s Day, a day where it is perfectly fine to pull a practical joke and then yell. April Fools! The practice of playing pranks on April 1st may date back to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales which was written in 1392. It is very hard to tell if Major League Baseball Commissioner, the Harvard Law School graduate Rob Manfred, is serious or is continuing to pull pranks on baseball fans who love the game but not the business of baseball. Manfred, of course, works for baseball owners but his role in the saga of the Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher’s planned relocation of Fisher’s baseball business from Oakland to Las Vegas looks like an elaborate prank. It has been almost a year since Fisher decided to move his business to Las Vegas and without a doubt this has been the worst attempt to move a franchise in sports in years. Fisher and his associates, which includes Manfred, have looked like fools as potential Las Vegas stadium venues have been floated and it took a while to settle on a nine-acre site near the Las Vegas Strip. The mayor of Las Vegas has told Fisher to go back to Oakland and work out a deal there. Stadium renderings may or may not be official and have been laughed at.
Fisher, in his quest to find a temporary home for his business as it will not be until at least 2028 that his new venue will open, has kicked the tires at various minor league parks and has even spoken with Oakland officials to stay at the place he plans to leave for an indefinite time. Nevada teachers do not want state money, $380 million worth of it, to go into the project and are trying to sue to stop the handout from going Fisher’s way. But no one is shouting April Fools!
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
