SJ Merc leads booster-club pursuit of A's; what's wrong with this picture?

The San Jose Merc, even under the stewardship of Dean Singleton's BANG Papers, has been noticeable in its blatant boosterism of the A's intentions to move to San Jose.

The latest: the Merc's Tracy Seipel press-release story of a group of 75 Silicon Valley leaders endorsement and "urging the timely approval of moving the Oakland A's to San Jose."

Indeed, even Merc veteran sports writer, Mark Purdy, has written numerous pieces extolling the virtues of an A's move to San Jose. Purdy has a right to his opinion. He's a columnist and thus, his opinion and semi, pet-project advocation of the A's Southbay pursuit is within protocol.

His paper's dogged pursuit is another story.

I'm not suggesting that the Merc is working toe-to-toe with A's front man, Lew Wolff, but I do notice a pattern of pro-San Jose pieces in the paper's pages and website. It's akin to a Lew Wolff PR machine that ignores his many practices in Oakland that has stifled attendance in spite of the team's better-than-expected play on the field.

Meanwhile, MLB and Bud Selig has given no indication of a pending ruling regarding the A's future---and let's assume San Jose gets the nod. Then what?

The Giants own territorial rights in the Southbay and have directly and indirectly threatened to protect those rights in court, (it helps when your owner is a former Microsoft lead lawyer), in addition, what about these little ditties:

-- How will San Jose secure financing, (of its portion of the project,) when its just layed off numerous police and firemen; the city, in fact, has an estimated $117 million budget deficit.

-- In the worst recession in over seven decades, how politically feasible and viable is it to sell your voters on the idea of subsidizing a billionaire's stadium project? In this climate? Good luck with that.

Maybe the Merc knows something we don't know.



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