The Oakland Athletics are officially going to Vegas

Praise, by the way, took over, it seemed like, the All-Star Game for a while. They had all four guys on the infield during the middle of one of the middle innings of the All-Star Game. Elliot Johnson is with us on the Adam Gold Show.

All right, sir, I was reading a story yesterday and you and I started texting and I thought, this is interesting. So there's a story about the Oakland Athletics, and this is actually written in the Athletic, and how they're like pushing back on Major League Baseball's assertion that there wasn't an offer in place from the city of Oakland to keep that team in Oakland, and it appears that there was one. So I guess I'm going to start about the commissioner here, Rob Manford, who I have taken shots at, because I'm not entirely sure that he loves baseball, or I actually have said I think he hates baseball actively.

What they have done, or it looks like they're trying to do, moving the team to Las Vegas, is similar to me to what Roger Goodell did, moving the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles, only Las Vegas is not the number two media market in the United States. Is that fair? That's a pretty fair analogy or comparison. Look, I think, you know, there's a lot of layers to this, Adam. I'm not necessarily against Oakland going to Vegas.

What I am against is an abundance. It's clear that owners don't operate in good faith. He's a fiduciary to his owners, Adam.

A lot of this stuff is smoke and mirrors. He's a businessman, clearly. That's all he cares about is furthering the owner's agenda, his own agenda.

Obviously, he's running for re-commissioner campaign, whatever you want to call it. And I suppose the frustrating thing for me is that no matter how awful he is and how terrible some of the things that he says, he somehow gets a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to accountability for the World Series trophy. He's just a piece of metal, alienating an entire fan base. Who didn't grow up loving the Oakland A's in some capacity? I grew up as a huge Cubs fan, but the Bash brothers and Ricky Henderson, George Hendrick. I've got so many players that I used to love. Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Miguel Tejada. Moneyball.

You can think of so many different things. It's a little bit annoying that he gets to get away with whatever he says. Minor league players are seasonal employees, by the way, that can't work for another team and are under contract for six years. There's so many things he says that just don't make any sense, and there's no accountability. He either feels like he's above it, and in some ways he's becoming public enemy number one for people that are really true fans of the game.

Elliott Johnson is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. It almost seems at times as though he says things without thinking, and I think this is where he ran afoul with the Oakland Athletics situation. Just to go back to the Athletics, I'm obviously significantly older than you, Elliott, because when you're talking about growing up and you start saying Bash brothers, and I'm like, wait a second, I thought you were going to say something about Vita Blue and Reggie Jackson, because that's where I was in the mid-70s when that was the team with the bright colors and the Charlie Finley A's and the vest and the white shoes.

No team wore white shoes. Only the Oakland Athletics did, and it was a hip, crazy franchise, and then he busted it all up. He sold all those players because that was Charlie Finley being just super cheap. To me, it goes back to what Rob Manfred did with minor league baseball, that they forgot that you cultivate fans through the minor leagues. It's not just kind of fun family night at the ballpark. You're building a fan base, and the college wooden bat leagues are nice and all, but you're not creating a major league fan at any of these Cape Cod league games. It's a different entity, and they just completely gutted minor league baseball. Well, imagine being able to watch Rana Kuna at 18 or 19 years old somewhere in Iowa or somewhere in the Pacific Northwest where you don't really have an opportunity to watch major league baseball, whether it's a thing where you can't afford to make that commute, because it's not like going to a major league game is cheap. Minor league baseball gives you an opportunity to get a glimpse at what it's like, and I'm telling you, as a kid that ended up growing up and becoming a big leader myself, we thought those guys walked on water at them. Any guy that had a uniform that played professional baseball was special. We knew how good they were.

We knew how talented they were, and we would take a paper plate and get them to autograph it if we could somehow manage to get to them. I think that it hasn't been good for the game, and then the other obviously thorn in a lot of fan side is the blackouts are just asinine. It's mind boggling that they can't figure this thing out, and how he gets the get out of jail free card on that. Not only that, but then the juice ball era there was how he gets to skate away from that, and there's never any ramifications there. You see what it's doing to your match right now, Francisco Lindor had such a huge year with the juice ball era years, and he parlayed into a $340 million deal, although a couple of those, obviously his best years in Cleveland there were with the juice ball.

There's ripple effects here, but nobody's there to actually be accountable to the ripple effects that have occurred from some of these decisions he's made. Lindor has not quite been a $340 million player. He hasn't been horrendous, but he hasn't been that player for the Mets that he was with the Cleveland Guardians.

You are a Cleveland Guardians legend, if I'm not mistaken. Elliot Johnson is joining us here. Manfred's talking about expanding the league, and by the way, before we get out of here, we're going to have to talk about Shohei Itani and speculate on what kind of contract he's going to get. But Manfred is talking about expanding from 30 to 32 teams, which frankly, yeah, okay. If there's cities out there that can support Major League Baseball, we have some right now that are not supporting Major League Baseball, but that's probably because of ownership. What are your thoughts on two more teams in big league baseball? Well, Nashville is a slam dunk, Adam. I think anyone that's been following along, I think that they're ready. That would be a great place to have a Major League team.

The other one that, you know, I had a friend of mine, shout out to Matt, that threw this curveball at me. You know, so remember when Cleveland moved to Baltimore and then Cleveland came back? Yes. So what if what if Oakland moves to Vegas and then Oakland is allowed back as an expansion with a new owner, with a new owner, and they get to stay the Oakland Athletics? I mean, to me, that's actually a brilliant idea because now you get a new owner who is actually wants to win and isn't using it as a piggy bank. Right.

Because clearly the current owner has no interest in trying to win. It's abundantly clear. You know, it's here's your budget. Good luck.

Go get them. And, you know, they'll make a movie out of it. Even if you don't win the World Series, if you just make it to the playoffs, we're going to make a movie out of it.

So I think that I think that's an interesting wrinkle. That's something that could happen. Nashville is abundantly a slam dunk.

The second one is harder. Obviously, we need to figure out how this plays out with Vegas and Oakland. But, you know, I don't see Salt Lake being viable. Charlotte's interesting. Portland, I don't see them being viable. You know, what keeps coming up is Newark, but that I just don't see them being able to fight off the Yankees fans.

No. So, I mean, it's really hard to find that second one. So that's why this whole Vegas Oakland shuffle is somewhat interesting. Here's where I know Nashville is obviously, I mean, it's almost a guarantee that they're going to look to Nashville. And I know they would like Vegas if Oakland decides to, if Oakland can manage to keep their team.

But you and I were texting about this. Wealth, population, passion. Mexico City, to me, why not? I mean, they love Major League Baseball.

It would be an absolute, I think it would be a financial success. You have to overcome, you know, almost 9,000 feet in altitude. In Mexico City, you have a super humidor, maybe like we have in Colorado.

But it checks every single box. And the climate's not terrible in Mexico City because it is at such an altitude that the temperatures are not brutal. And I mean, it's cooler in general.

And obviously, you're never going to get all that cold. Let me get to Shohei Ohtani before we have to say goodbye to Elliot Johnson. All right, so, he's one of the best hitters and one of the best pitchers and probably the best athlete in Major League Baseball. I don't know if he's going to stay with the Angels or not, but what does the next contract look like for him?

Oh, good grief. Well, so he's already on a, you know, a team-friendly extension. So the Angels do get some credit for being smart, being proactive and getting that piece done.

Okay. However, he's not going to stay with the Angels. I just don't see it happening. He's made it abundantly clear that he wants to win. And he doesn't, he's not super, you know, Japanese culture is very interesting, is very respect-driven. He is probably one of the easiest players to root for because how he carries himself, how hard he works, obviously how good he is, but he's a great person. So he's a great ambassador for the game. And I can't wait to see in 10, 15 years, the next Shohei Ohtani after the World Baseball Classic and what he's doing in the game right now. So the more that we can bring over here, the better the game is going to be for sure.

So, you know, I know Ichiro's already planted that seed in Seattle and you saw how they were, they're transforming the All-Star game. I don't see Seattle going out and writing that check for him. It's going to be north of 500. You know, it's going to cost, it's going to cost whoever ends up getting them.

It's going to be really, really expensive. An interesting one to think about that nobody's talking about is the Rangers. They've been more than willing to spend money. They want to win. There's somebody that could come in and make a play for them. There's probably only five real teams that are probably going to have genuine interest. You know, the Dodgers are always lurking.

Friedman is very, very patient with these things. But for a player like him, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Dodgers ownership saying, you know, let's throw any of our, I guess, conservatism on how we're going to do this to the wind and let's make sure we get this generational talent because the business that he's going to generate for us and winning together is going to be so phenomenal. So the Giants are kind of interesting there as well because they've got money to spend. If new ownership, you know, it's not going to happen with Oakland, but, you know, so we can put that to bed. But if there was a new owner that wanted to make a splash, that would be interesting.

So, you know, of course, Steve Cohen is always going to be lurking. The Yankees should make a play. But how sincere they're going to be now that the boss isn't there anymore. I wouldn't consider them a serious contender. So there's probably a couple of interesting names there, but it's definitely going to start with a five. And it wouldn't surprise me if it goes into six.

I think it's going to be bigger than that. I actually might not end up being in the six hundred million dollar number because he's twenty nine years old right now. I mean, our teams, I mean, maybe they will a 10 year deal. Yeah, I guess you could 10, 10 year deal.

And if that's the case, then, yeah, I do think it might be 10 years, 600 million. I mean, he is he's two players. Yeah, he's crazy. There's literally I mean, just on rosters, he can be listed. I think he might even be listed as a pitcher and a hitter.

Yeah, he's on two spots. Like, it seems unfair. One thing that Elliot Johnson said there and I'm going to fold it into a story I just saw here in a second. One thing that Elliot Johnson did say, though, that. And it didn't really occur to me at the time.

He'll be interested to see the next Otani's. So he's the first player. Really, since Babe Ruth.

Who has done both at the same time? Eventually, Ruth just became a hitter. Yeah.

But. While there have been several other mostly pitchers who were good enough hitters to have been used occasionally in other ways. I know Madison Bumgarner was used as a DH for a few series.

None of them have gone full. I'm a pitcher and I am a position player. And Otani has basically just been a DH. But he could play any play the outfield.

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Details at Macy's dot com slash pick up savings off sale and clearance prices. Exclusions apply. But because now Otani has done it. How many others will.

Insist on being allowed to do it. You know, we saw the kid in Florida. I don't remember his name because I didn't really watch a ton of college baseball this year that did not involve an ACC team. But there was a kid in Florida. Just same exact thing.

Did both. It's more common in college because you know, these great athletes are also able to play other position and we haven't gotten so much into specialization now. More often than not, we have if you can pitch, you pitch. But there's a lot of guys who do both.

But we've never really see it at the big league level. But maybe Otani will usher in that era. And I'm here for it. Yeah.

You know, if if you can pull it off physically. That's the key. But man, Otani is great and he is an attraction and he has embraced it. It's entertaining. Good for him.

Man, he's just he is an absolute blast to watch. All right. I saw this story and this should not come as a surprise to anybody based on a news item from probably six to eight months ago. The NCAA acknowledged today. This is from Jeff Borzello from ESPN.

It's probably everywhere. The NCAA has acknowledged today that it has discussed possible expansion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Now, remember six, eight months ago, they decided that the size of postseason tournaments could, not should or will, could correspond to the number of teams who play at that level. So there are over four or over three hundred and forty teams playing Division One basketball. Twenty five percent is the cap. Twenty five percent of that number brings us to about 90. It's actually more than that. It's more than 340. It's like almost three.

It might be might be 350 something. It brings us to about 90. Do I think the NCAA tournament is going to expand to 90?

No, I don't. But and I have been saying this for years as well. It seems that there is a level of imbalance and even unfairness in the in the way the NCAA tournament is structured now. If I were a six seed and I was going to play an 11 seed that is playing in a first four game, I would not be happy about it because a team that has just played two days ago is a whole lot more dangerous than one that hasn't played today.

That one that hasn't played in a week. And I've always thought, first of all, we might have to change the way the brackets look, but I have always thought that where they ultimately would end up is making all of the brackets look identical. So instead of two games between two 16 seeds in Dayton or wherever, and what we'll do is probably have another site, instead of two games like that, we'll have four games like that. Instead of two 11 v 11 or 12 v 12, whatever it is, instead of two of those, we'll have four of those and each bracket will look exactly the same.

That's where I think the next wave of expansion will come. I think that adds eight teams, which will get us to 68 76. Getting to 90 teams, which they can do, would ultimately force a second, it would force an earlier start to the tournament, which I guess is fine. Or the first weekend, if you will, would simply be longer. If we basically threw however many more teams into each bracket, whether it's four, probably four teams into each bracket beyond what we have now, it would probably just stretch out the opening weekend or opening. Yeah, opening weekend maybe wraps around Monday and Tuesday, starts Thursday and Friday, but ends Monday and Tuesday as you play three games to escape the opening weekend.

Maybe we eliminate the first four altogether and it starts Tuesday and Wednesday. It's tough on travel. Either way, it's all tough on travel and they don't care. It's about money.

Always remember that it's about money. Macy's one day sale starts tomorrow with deals of the day on the perfect wardrobe updates and home finds like 40 to 60% off summer style. She'll love up to 40% off her favorite shoes, handbags and wallets and 35 to 70% off bedding and bath featuring hotel collection and more. Plus get contact free curbside pickup or pick up in store today. Details at Macy's dot com slash pickup. Savings off sale and clearance prices exclusions apply.