Selig jumps into Oakland A’s stadium issue

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Bud Selig has had enough of waiting. The baseball commissioner wants the Oakland A’s out of the Coliseum, and today he appointed a committee to find out why the A’s haven’t reached a deal for a new ballpark.

A’s owner Lew Wolff, a college fraternity brother of Selig, is not on the three-man committee.

In 2006, Wolff announced the A’s would move south to Fremont, but Wolff scrapped the plan last month. He also rejected Oakland’s request to renew talks about a new stadium there and all but set his sights on San Jose.

The San Francisco Giants have territorial rights to San Jose, although Selig and the owners can vote to change that at any time. Selig publicly charged the committee with analyzing ‘the prospects of obtaining a ballpark in any of the communities located in Oakland’s territory,’ but you can assume the committee also will evaluate San Jose. If the owners can be persuaded they’ll all make more money if the A’s play in San Jose, the Giants can forget about their territorial rights, despite their protests.

But that is not the biggest problem. In California, we have realized that building stadiums and arenas at public expense does not benefit the public, at least not financially. So Staples Center and Home Depot Center were privately financed, while the NFL stays away and the San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers and Sacramento Kings try to get someone to pay for new facilities, or at least most of it.

The A’s planned to foot the bill for the Fremont ballpark -- if they got substantial development rights around it, with the revenues from the shops, offices and residences repaying the stadium construction costs. But the credit crunch is so severe now that Selig and his committee might not be able to solve anything.

-- Bill Shaikin