The Oakland A's 2009 season is not even 24 hours old, and the "San Jose A's" business is already shifting up another notch. KCBS is reporting that San Jose City Council will begin discussions tonight on their attempts to lure the A's to San Jose.
Tuesday night's San Jose City Council meeting will be the first time the full Council debates the A's issue, with public input and everything. Citizens need only to submit a yellow card to the City Clerk during the meeting, and then you get the opportunity to scream right at the Council members.
Per San Jose City Council's web site, the foregone conclusion at which Council hopes to arrive at is a set of "actions San Jose can take to prepare for the possibility that Major League Baseball (MLB) makes a decision allowing the Athletics (A's) to consider relocating to San Jose."
They do not sound skeptical about this "possibility".
To be sure, it doesn't seem like anyone on San Jose's City Council needs much convincing on this debate. There are ten elected councilpeople on San Jose City Council, and three of them are already on the record as being pretty gung-ho about luring in the A's. Mayor Chuck Reed has already openly lobbied City Council to get this going, and he's got a vote too. Council will also decide on how to poll San Jose residents to gauge their support for bringing in the A's.
Oh, has there already been some polling on this topic? The San Jose Business Journal conducted an informal poll, and found 70% approval for the idea of an MLB team in San Jose. The San Jose Business Journal also cooked this poll pretty thoroughly by polling only well-paid executives at South Bay corporations.
Nornally a shameless cheerleader on the San Jose move, A's owner Lew Wolff is doing his best to not seem too excited and play this off legit. MLB.com obtained an email from Wolff to Mayor Reed dated Feb. 26 in which Wolff claims with a straight face that "My near-term efforts include enjoying my baseball team, Spring Training (I was in Arizona today), the World Baseball Classic and Opening Day, I am doing my best to 'accomplish' the aforementioned activities. "
Sports
Yeah, sure Lew. Just like Playboy magazine subscribers are doing their best to 'accomplish' looking at just the stereo reviews.
But San Jose is clearly lining up it's ducks in anticipation that Major League Baseball will be in favor of this move. Their main concern is making sure residents of San Jose are in favor of this move.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who swears he's reading it only for the stereo reviews.
