The Athletics want to move to San Jose. The Giants want nothing to do with it and are using their leverage to keep the A's out of their neighborhood.
But it's possible that Bud Selig could circumvent that leverage, get 75 percent of the owners to approve the A's move ... and then the Giants could sue Major League Baseball.
Possible is the key word, but it's certainly a large part of Yahoo! Sports' Steve Henson's excellent -- and ominous -- article on the two franchises battle by the bay, and it paints a dark picture of the problems facing Commissioner Selig as the need for the A's to find a new home comes to a breaking point.
"This might be the most difficult decision in baseball history because of the circumstances," one MLB executive told Hensen.
As you likely know, the A's play in Oakland, at the very non-baseball-friendly Coliseum. They'd love a new stadium in new-money San Jose, but the Giants own territory rights and don't want to give up a pile of fans who currently root for San Francisco. Hensen reports that the Giants "aren't even negotiating" with the A's and baseball right now, though they could begin soon.
What makes this spicy, though, is that if Selig let's the A's move forward with a San Jose stadium, the owners could do something that they've agreed not to do: sue baseball.
"Some people believe the Giants would sue, other don't think so," the MLB executive said.
Sports
It would be awkward, for sure. Suing baseball and Selig isn't something you take lightly and it's possible the Giants won't wan to go down that road. But if Selig tries to force something through on the Giants, it's possible they'll understand he's fooling around with his long-term legacy and the Giants could decide to use the hammer that is a lawsuit against him.
There's no telling how long that would last, and if it meant Selig retiring while he and MLB were being sued, well, it's hard to imagine him doing anything to the Giants that would allow that to happen.
All of this is to say that there's plenty of contentious stadium talks forthcoming between these two "immovable objects."
