The Athletics franchise remains in limbo.
One day, the real story behind of the departure of team president Dave Kaval from Major League Baseball’s formerly known as the Oakland Athletics, Athletics franchise will come out. Kaval did the bidding for Athletics’ owner John Fisher which included the deal that took Fisher’s business out of Oakland to the green pastures of the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Except Fisher has not yet been able to finance his portion of the tab for a Las Vegas stadium. The Athletics baseball club of Sacramento, California put out a statement which read Dave Kaval is resigning so that he can “pursue new business opportunities in California.”
Was Kaval pushed out because he could not extract a dollar more than $380 million from Neveda lawmakers for the Las Vegas ballpark will which cost more than $1.7 billion to build? Or did Kaval leave on his own after eight years on the job? “He guided our organization through a period of significant transition, and we sincerely thank him for his unwavering commitment to the team,” team owner John Fisher wrote in the statement. Kaval was the guy for Fisher, his negotiator, his lobbyist on the ground in Las Vegas, begging, cajoling and criticizing politicians who controlled purse strings. He failed in Oakland to get a waterfront stadium-village built near Howard Terminal which sits at a dock of the bay, the San Francisco Bay. Kaval had problems with the San Francisco media as well because he thought the San Francisco media was mean to his boss, John Fisher. He attended National Hockey League playoffs games in Las Vegas taunting Oakland A’s consumers with glowing social media posts about Las Vegas. But did Kaval do a good job for Fisher? The team is playing for the next three years in Sacramento and a Las Vegas stadium remains a dream.
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