Wolff's Pipe Dream Holding Up A's Progress

As our beloved, once-proud A's franchise stumbles to yet another losing season, we've started to wonder how much longer this can all go on.

Lew Wolff and John Fisher are holding up the progress of the A's simply because they have a pipe dream that will never happen. While they blindly pursue their unrealistic ideas of moving the team, Wolff and Fisher are holding loyal A's fans hostage.

When Wolff and Fisher bought the A's in 2005, they knew the lay of the land. They knew which territories belonged to them and which territories belonged to the Giants. They also knew that Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann before them had tried and failed for almost a decade to achieve the same pipe dream -- moving the A's to the South Bay.

For some reason, that didn't stop Wolff and Fisher from embarking on their wildly unrealistic quest to move the A's. So, eight years after Wolff first joined the Schott front office as "V.P. of Venue Development," we'll all still waiting for Wolff to, you know, actually develop a venue.

Instead, Wolff has failed. Again and again and again.

After all these years, Wolff and Fisher are no closer to making their pipe dream come true. Even worse, it seems that moving the team is all they care about, and things like winning, community and customer service have all taken a backseat.

As a result of Wolff's failed obsession, the team is mired in a constant losing spiral. Also to blame are Billy Beane's consistently poor drafts, one-sided trades and the strange decision to stick for four-plus seasons with unpopular and incompetent ex-manager Bob Geren before finally making a change last month.

As an A's owner, Wolff has been a total failure. Just like he failed to make changes at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco -- changes that the city and the community did not want. With the Fairmont last month, Wolff finally threw up his hands and gave up and said he and his business partners will sell the hotel.

Here's to Wolff doing the same thing with the A's. Here's to Wolff selling the team to someone who actually cares about the Oakland A's and its rich baseball history. If he doesn't sell the team soon, then 2012 will be another lost season; another year watching the Oakland A's franchise get slowly choked to death at Wolff's hand, especially as the Coliseum lease's 2013 expiration date looms.

To Wolff, Fisher, Beane and A's president/co-owner Mike Crowley, it's time to make yourselves accountable for the current poisoned state of the franchise. Please do the right thing. Please give up your unrealistic quest, which the vast majority of A's fans do NOT want. Please sell the A's to someone who will reward A's fans for their loyalty and will start to treat the franchise's rich history with some respect.