A's Owner Lew Wolff for the first time in nearly a decade said that Oakland "might have a viable location for a new ballpark" in the Coliseum complex, according to Matthew Artz of the OAKLAND TRIBUNE. Wolff yesterday said a ballpark on Port of Oakland property was "absolutely impossible." But he then made "a departure from years of declaring that he had exhausted all his options in Oakland." Wolff said, "That doesn't mean there isn't a place in Oakland where you could do something." He said the most likely location "would be where we're at right now," on land that is "controlled by (the city and county)." Rather than "continue his critiques of the aging Coliseum, Wolff emphasized that the team has 'an excellent relationship' with the joint Oakland-Alameda County board that runs the Coliseum complex and would like a longer-term lease than the recently signed two-year extension." Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said of Wolff's comments, "I think that's progress, and we'll reach out and continue to talk to him." Wolff's refusal to "outright dismiss the Coliseum site comes on the heels of Oakland business leaders renewing their push for a privately-financed stadium at the 51-acre Howard Terminal site." Wolff reiterated that the team "is not for sale and that his studies of the site showed that it would require an expensive environmental cleanup and present access issues" with public transportation nearly a mile away. Wolff: "It may get an A in artist renderings, but it's an F in implementation. We know that we can't do a ballpark on that site" (OAKLAND TRIBUNE, 12/17).
