Insider: Athletics owner Wolff looks toward the future
Short Hops | Love Letters
So I was sitting on this gorgeous veranda the other morning at a fancy resort overlooking a beautiful golf course and a vast expanse of Southern California land with Oakland owner Lewis Wolff.
Come on, I told him, level with me: Billy Beane had never even heard of slugger Jack Cust, right? Acquiring him was all your idea.
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| Athletics GM Billy Beane has endless reasons to hug owner Lewis Wolff. (Getty Images) |
Which is one sentence I rarely write about any owner, ever. Because as a general rule, I place 95 percent of the entire lot somewhere between Scrooge and Mr. Magoo. Cheap and short? No, cheap and clueless.
Turns out, Wolff owns a major stake in the resort, which is six minutes from my house. Which is why one of his guys called one of my guys -- well, me, actually -- and wondered whether I'd like to sit down and discuss the state of the Athletics and this cutting-edge new ballpark they're hoping to unveil possibly as early as 2011.
I am nothing if not a good neighbor. Besides. ...
"You golfed that course?" Cubs outfielder Jacque Jones asked.
No, not yet, I told him. I simply haven't had time. Which I figured was a pretty good bluff (hey, I can play Wolff's game of telling an entertaining fib), and far better than revealing the actual truth: I am to golfing what a bulldozer is to a vacant lot. My average divot is the size of Rhode Island.
"I have," Jones said. "One time. Really, really nice."
I don't know if Oakland's new stadium -- the one they've been awaiting since Rollie Fingers first curled his mustache -- will be as nice, but I do know this:
Soon as that sucker opens, and the blueprints are terrific, it will be a whole new world for the Swingin' A's.
No longer will the Athletics play street urchins to their across-the-bay rival San Francisco's castle dwellers.
