LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS

I stopped serious gambling in my early 20’s, after an oldtimer advised me to never get into a game I couldn’t afford to lose. "Fearing that you’ll lose is the best way to guarantee that you’ll lose," he said. Which is true.

That is, after all, how Al Davis played us, isn’t it? He could afford to stay in LA, or move somewhere else. We thought that we couldn’t afford to be without the Raiders. In this case, "losing" was the same for both parties…not getting the Raiders back to Oakland. With that advantage, Davis could afford to ask for everything, and we bit. And are still getting bit.

The issue comes up again with this idea of a new baseball stadium in Oakland. There is general agreement that if no new baseball stadium is built, the A’s will soon leave. No-one knows if this is actually true, probably not even the A’s owners right now. But in these negotiations, perception is as good as reality.

But before we get into serious negotiations, we ought to look down into the abyss. Don’t ask if Oakland can afford to keep the A’s. Ask if Oakland can afford to lose the A’s.

The question breaks down into economic and psychological portions.

On the economic end, the public discussion has centered around how much a downtown or a Jack London area ballpark can help downtown development. That’s an interesting question, not yet settled. But more important, how much do the A’s presently contribute to Oakland’s economy, and how much of an economic hit would we take if they were to leave? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like this would be too difficult to find out. Maybe start by looking at the four years that bracketed the Raider departure. Did Oakland keep pace with the rest of the Bay Area during that time? It would be a good thing to know, in this present assessment.

As for the psychological issues,don’t confuse the A’s with the Raiders.

The loss of the Raiders in the early 80’s was a hit to Oakland’s psyche in large part because the Raiders very much reflected Oakland’s image of itself at that time. Oakland of the 60’s and 70’s was a scrappy, unpretentious, working class, roguish-kind-of town and the old Raiders were a scrappy, unpretentious, working class, roguish-kind-of team. Folks like Madden and the Stork and Stabler and Atkinson were so beloved because they were so much like us. Losing them at the time was in many ways like losing our own youth. Overnight, we felt like we had grown old.

The old A’s of the 1970’s were very similar to the old Raiders. The difference is that while the Raiders left, the A’s stayed through a period when both professional athletes and Oakland changed dramatically. I doubt if most Oaklanders think of the present A’s players themselves, as individuals, as citizens of this city…more as commuters who come here to get a paycheck. Losing them, I don’t think, would be as big a psychological blow as when the Raiders went.

More troubling, however, is Oakland’s lack of general self-esteem as a city. Part of that has to do with how we often compare ourselves…unfavorably…to big neighbor San Francisco. But part of it…maybe a larger part…has to do with how many Oaklanders feel a little bit uneasy about the fact that we were once a majority-black city, with a government once run primarily by African-Americans. Maybe a little shame, too, both among black Oaklanders and white. We’ve never talked about that attitude, not as a community. We should, because that underlying sense of unease about ourselves…an unstated, disquieting lack of self worth…continues to cause us to make too many bad public assumptions and decisions, all with bad consequences.

One of the bad consequences could be in our giving up too much to keep a professional sports team because we think we need a professional sports team to bolster our prestige, when actually the best chance of keeping that professional sports team might be to conclude that we don’t really need it (as opposed to want it), because we’re worth more than we think we are.

A mouthful, I know. But something to think about as this stadium thing goes forward.

Can we afford to lose the A’s? If not, then we can’t keep them.