Former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) showed up at a community meeting on the A's plans for a new ballpark and said, "Whatever you do, don't build at the Coliseum," according to Matier & Ross of the S.F. CHRONICLE. The meeting was "one in a string of informal meet-and-greets" that A's President Dave Kaval has set up to "get feedback on the three sites" in Oakland that the team is considering for a new ballpark. Boxer "owns a condo just around the corner" from the meeting's location and had "just flown into town." She asked the team to "build at one of the two sites downtown.” Boxer said that her opinion was "based on years of traveling around the country and seeing that 'the most successful ballparks were the ones downtown, in the middle of residential development.'" Boxer noted the A’s have "pretty much given up on the Howard Terminal site favored by Mayor Libby Schaaf over concerns about the lack of transportation access, regulatory hurdles and other issues." Their sights now "appear to be set on the Peralta Community College District property -- but they’ll need a buy-in from the neighborhood to make the deal work." Kaval’s tour "wraps up" tomorrow (S.F. CHRONICLE, 8/28).
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT: A's Exec VP/Baseball Operations Billy Beane said that he is "gathering up a teamload of hot kids so the roster will bloom when the new ballpark opens." In S.F., Scott Ostler writes if A's Managing Partner John Fisher is "gearing up to sell the team" as his $30M-plus annual revenue-sharing gift "peters out over the next three years, wouldn’t a great strategy be to stock the A’s with kids working for minimum wage?" That would give Fisher a "plausible excuse for not dipping into his pocket for real salaries, and it would make his team much more attractive to a prospective buyer" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 8/29).
