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Hendu Style · 07-29-2022, 09:05 PM

Sam Arkwright Diary
July 27th, 2022 (continued)

My Luna Spark is a pre-production model. As far as I know, there are only two of these on the road, and the guy driving the other one owns the company. My Luna has a HUD that allows me to browse the internet on the windshield, as long as the car is on autopilot. I spent the entirety of the drive to Boulder City learning everything I could about Dave Kaval.

Sharp kid. Stanford grad. In my experience, most Stanford guys -- and Ivy League guys, for that matter -- are sure to let you know within five minutes where they went to school. Kaval didn't bother to mention it. I like that.

As Kaval told me, he started up the Golden Baseball League as a class project with a fellow student by the name of Amit Patel. Kaval eventually left the GBL to become the team president of a Major League Soccer team in the South Bay. The GBL joined a couple of other leagues not long after he left to form the North American League. The league pretty much fell apart without Dave Kaval at the lead.

After seven years with the San Jose Earthquakes in MLS, Kaval was named Team President of the Oakland A's. He started a "Rooted in Oakland" campaign in 2017, reaffirming the team's commitment to building a ballpark in the East Bay.

The team quickly started making improvements to the Oakland Coliseum. They removed the tarps off the third deck. They hosted food truck rallies and made an all-access club called Shibe Park Tavern.

Kaval had dedicated hours where fans could come to his office and ask him questions. He was completely transparent. For all intents and purposes, he had won over A's fans. That's really hard to do given ownership's track record in Oakland.

Then things started changing. The A's suffered a humiliating defeat in 2017, when their was proposed stadium project near Lake Merritt was shot down by the local college board of trustees. So Kaval and company went back to the drawing board. Two years later, the A's moved forward with a 2019 plan to redevelop the Oakland Coliseum site, offering to buy Alameda County's 50% interest in the property for $85 million. The proposal once again blew up in Kaval's face when the Oakland City Council filed a lawsuit against the County over the sale of the Coliseum site, claiming it violated the Surplus Lands Act. That was two big swing-and-misses in three years. This was predated by two other failed stadium attempts long before Kaval's time. In 2006, A's ownership announced a plan to build a new field in Fremont, only to abandon it three years later due to public resistance. San Jose then offered up land and financing to build a ballpark for the A's in 2012, but that offer was quashed when the San Francisco Giants objected due to their so-called territorial rights to the South Bay.

I'm beginning to see why the A's ownership has grown so impatient and untrusting with the city and county in the last couple of years. That impatience and distrust came to a head when Kaval started making very public trips to Nevada, openly scouting and touting potential stadium sites in Las Vegas. Then he set twitter aflame with a tweet from Las Vegas, gushing over the city's NHL team while attending a Stanley Cup playoff game.

Ever since, every Kaval tweet -- no matter how innocuous or supportive of the A's -- has been met with pure disdain from the team's most passionate fans. He hasn't tweeted for more than two weeks now, and when you see the replies, you understand why.

His last tweet was a pregame photo at the Coliseum with the caption "Play ball @Athletics."

The replies?

"There's like 20 fans there. Way to go Dave!" -- @robertmcgee15

"Stop tweeting Vegas guy!" -- @sly_sf

"How does it feel to be part of the worst ownership group in all of North American sports! Sell the team already!" -- @aurejr408

"FYI... It was one of the worst experiences at the park yesterday... the food sucks. Cold hot dogs, churros were stale, employees walking around doing nothing... it shows nobody has any heart left there." -- @MarineScott

"#selltheteam #boycottfisher" -- @0akt0wn

"Sell to Lacob." -- @Winning_Slowly

Sadly, not even Warriors owner Joe Lacob could save the situation in Oakland. Looking at the A's sordid history in the Bay Area, I don't know if there's much of a future for the A's in Oakland. Their only path forward may be through Las Vegas, and I want to be the one to get them there.

Pictured: Oakland Coliseum, 2022

07-29-2022, 09:05 PM	#19
Hendu Style All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 1,452	Dave Kaval Scouting Report Sam Arkwright Diary July 27th, 2022 (continued) My Luna Spark is a pre-production model. As far as I know, there are only two of these on the road, and the guy driving the other one owns the company. My Luna has a HUD that allows me to browse the internet on the windshield, as long as the car is on autopilot. I spent the entirety of the drive to Boulder City learning everything I could about Dave Kaval. Sharp kid. Stanford grad. In my experience, most Stanford guys -- and Ivy League guys, for that matter -- are sure to let you know within five minutes where they went to school. Kaval didn't bother to mention it. I like that. As Kaval told me, he started up the Golden Baseball League as a class project with a fellow student by the name of Amit Patel. Kaval eventually left the GBL to become the team president of a Major League Soccer team in the South Bay. The GBL joined a couple of other leagues not long after he left to form the North American League. The league pretty much fell apart without Dave Kaval at the lead. After seven years with the San Jose Earthquakes in MLS, Kaval was named Team President of the Oakland A's. He started a "Rooted in Oakland" campaign in 2017, reaffirming the team's commitment to building a ballpark in the East Bay. The team quickly started making improvements to the Oakland Coliseum. They removed the tarps off the third deck. They hosted food truck rallies and made an all-access club called Shibe Park Tavern. Kaval had dedicated hours where fans could come to his office and ask him questions. He was completely transparent. For all intents and purposes, he had won over A's fans. That's really hard to do given ownership's track record in Oakland. Then things started changing. The A's suffered a humiliating defeat in 2017, when their was proposed stadium project near Lake Merritt was shot down by the local college board of trustees. So Kaval and company went back to the drawing board. Two years later, the A's moved forward with a 2019 plan to redevelop the Oakland Coliseum site, offering to buy Alameda County's 50% interest in the property for $85 million. The proposal once again blew up in Kaval's face when the Oakland City Council filed a lawsuit against the County over the sale of the Coliseum site, claiming it violated the Surplus Lands Act. That was two big swing-and-misses in three years. This was predated by two other failed stadium attempts long before Kaval's time. In 2006, A's ownership announced a plan to build a new field in Fremont, only to abandon it three years later due to public resistance. San Jose then offered up land and financing to build a ballpark for the A's in 2012, but that offer was quashed when the San Francisco Giants objected due to their so-called territorial rights to the South Bay. I'm beginning to see why the A's ownership has grown so impatient and untrusting with the city and county in the last couple of years. That impatience and distrust came to a head when Kaval started making very public trips to Nevada, openly scouting and touting potential stadium sites in Las Vegas. Then he set twitter aflame with a tweet from Las Vegas, gushing over the city's NHL team while attending a Stanley Cup playoff game. Ever since, every Kaval tweet -- no matter how innocuous or supportive of the A's -- has been met with pure disdain from the team's most passionate fans. He hasn't tweeted for more than two weeks now, and when you see the replies, you understand why. His last tweet was a pregame photo at the Coliseum with the caption "Play ball @Athletics." The replies? "There's like 20 fans there. Way to go Dave!" -- @robertmcgee15 "Stop tweeting Vegas guy!" -- @sly_sf "How does it feel to be part of the worst ownership group in all of North American sports! Sell the team already!" -- @aurejr408 "FYI... It was one of the worst experiences at the park yesterday... the food sucks. Cold hot dogs, churros were stale, employees walking around doing nothing... it shows nobody has any heart left there." -- @MarineScott "#selltheteam #boycottfisher" -- @0akt0wn "Sell to Lacob." -- @Winning_Slowly Sadly, not even Warriors owner Joe Lacob could save the situation in Oakland. Looking at the A's sordid history in the Bay Area, I don't know if there's much of a future for the A's in Oakland. Their only path forward may be through Las Vegas, and I want to be the one to get them there. Pictured: Oakland Coliseum, 2022 Attached Images __________________ Catch me on Twitch.tv as Dr. Dynastic (drdynastic) Previous OOTP Dynasties: SimNation Fictional Universe (est. 1889) This is Oakland A's Baseball Beane Counting: The Oakland A's Last edited by Hendu Style; 07-30-2022 at 06:52 PM.