Post by TheShadow on Jan 3, 2010 22:39:06 GMT -5
www.sfgate.com/
John Shea, Chronicle Staff Writer
Greg Papa, for years the voice of pro sports teams in Oakland, has seen and broadcast better times.
He called Warriors games when Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin were "Run TMC." He did the A's in the 1990 World Series and early 2000s, when playoff appearances were annual. As the Raiders' play-by-play man, he was behind the microphone for the Super Bowl in 2003.
At various stages of Papa's career, the Coliseum and its adjacent arena were hopping with good teams and good times.
Now?
"If you lay out a map and put teams in the most desirable places, I don't think Oakland would be in the top 50 anymore," Papa said. "It's sad to say because I live in the East Bay and have worked with all these teams."
Oakland once was a city of champions. Its sports teams now are about lousy records, frustrated fan bases and questionable management decisions.
While the Raiders and A's would prefer to relocate because of the outdated Coliseum, the Warriors draw well as the only Oakland team without a San Francisco rival. Yet they're no better in the standings than the Raiders and A's.
A sampling:
-- The Warriors have had two winning records since the 1994-95 season, reaching the playoffs once (by going 42-40). During that 16-year funk, they've gone 460-769 (only the Los Angeles Clippers are worse) while burning through nine coaches. They haven't had an All-Star since 1997.
-- The Raiders have had 11 or more losses in six straight years, an NFL first - remarkably, the streak began immediately after their 2003 Super Bowl appearance. They're last in the NFL in attendance, averaging 45,125, their lowest since 1967, and seven of this season's eight home games were blacked out in the Bay Area after failing to sell out.
-- The A's have had three straight losing seasons since reaching the 2006 American League Championship Series. Their attendance has dropped six straight years, and they ranked last in the majors in 2009 with their lowest fan count since 1998, 1.4 million. They were last in their league in payroll.
"I think it's the owners and bad management," Oakland fan Morie Kahane said recently at Ricky's Sports Theatre and Grill in San Leandro. "Al (Davis, Raiders owner) needs a general manager, someone to make personnel decisions. The Warriors, with or without (Anthony) Randolph, they don't know what they're doing. The A's, you can't buy a jersey because they won't keep players year to year. They're only looking at the bottom line."
Silver, black and blue
Davis remains the Raiders' boss at 80 despite deteriorating health and poor decision-making. He guaranteed $84 million to his past three first-round draft picks: quarterback JaMarcus Russell, running back Darren McFadden and receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, and the result is an offense that ranks second to last in the NFL.
He has little luck with coaches, having fired four since the Super Bowl. That came after he "traded" Jon Gruden to Tampa Bay because of a contract squabble and clash of egos, only to lose to Gruden's Buccaneers a year later in the Super Bowl.
"It's probably the worst decision they made," said Ricky Ricardo Jr., proprietor of Ricky's. "If Gruden stays, we would've won that Super Bowl. You wouldn't have had the other coach knowing your game plan."
Gruden, now on the "Monday Night Football" broadcast team, remains popular among Raiders fans. On the eve of the Dec. 14 broadcast at Candlestick Park, Gruden was honored during a festive night at Ricky's in which former and current Raiders employees showed up to party with the former coach.
That infuriated Davis, and a team staffer called Ricky's to ask it to remove photos of Gruden posing with current Raiders employees from its Web site. Gruden is seen in a No. 34 Bo Jackson jersey and Raiders visor that he purchased on site. Fans chanted for him to return to Oakland, and Gruden wasn't dismissing the possibility.
"It was a pro-Raider party," said Ricardo, not understanding Davis' distress. "The guy (Gruden) is working for ESPN. ... It's like the Gestapo over there."
A team spokesman ignored several requests for interviews for this story before finally saying the entire Raiders organization had no comment.
It wouldn't be so bad if the Raiders weren't perennial losers. They're 30-82 since their Super Bowl appearance - the third-worst seven-year run in NFL history (behind the 1983-89 Buccaneers and 2003-09 Lions).
Compounding the problem is Davis' resistance to hiring decision-making assistants. Bruce Allen, who exited in 2003, was the last closest thing to a general manager, prompting Raiders fans to rent a billboard this season near the Coliseum with this message: "MR. DAVIS, DO THE RIGHT THING. PLEASE HIRE A GM."
Moneyball, or lack thereof
The A's have a GM, probably the most powerful GM in baseball. Aside from his duties of constructing the roster and overseeing all baseball matters, Billy Beane owns a percentage of the team, a gift from managing general partner Lew Wolff, who trusts Beane with practically every move.
But since the A's reached the playoffs four straight years through 2003 and appeared in the 2006 ALCS - the second year of the Wolff-John Fisher ownership - they've been virtually irrelevant with three straight losing seasons, all under manager Bob Geren. Geren replaced Ken Macha, fired by Beane after the ALCS over a "disconnect."
Wolff, the only owner among the three Oakland teams who's accessible to the media, said the A's were forced to change strategies after slipping from the ALCS in '06 to mediocrity in '07, a result of their "financial capacity," according to Wolff.
"Thus, in the winter of 2007, we came to the conclusion that the A's needed to rebuild and expand our resources on the draft and international players and rebuild our minor-league operations," Wolff said. "This is an ongoing activity and has resulted in a lot of positive trends for us. ... We realized we need to be patient and that results would not be immediate."
While the front office is determined to be patient with its youth movement, not all fans are. In 2009, the A's were in last place in their division every day beginning May 3, a stretch of 161 straight days, the longest stretch by an A's team in 63 years.
But Wolff, offering an upside, cited an improved farm system. Before the 2009 season, it was ranked No. 1 by Baseball Prospectus, No. 3 by ESPN and Baseball America.
Still, Wolff said the A's can't regularly contend without a better revenue-generating ballpark. His latest venture involving San Jose prompted Oakland to offer three waterfront options near Jack London Square, and the city of San Francisco to threaten Major League Baseball with a lawsuit if it allows the A's to move to San Jose.
Nice place, lousy tenants
The Warriors have the best venue in Oakland - the reconstructed Arena is the 11th largest in the NBA - but a team that continues to lose despite having high draft picks 17 times in 24 years. They've used those picks on the likes of Todd Fuller, Adonal Foyle, Ike Diogu and Patrick O'Bryant, players even basketball fans might not recognize.
Desired free agents have refused to join the Warriors. When Baron Davis escaped to the Clippers in the summer of 2008, they threw the checkbook at Gilbert Arenas and Elton Brand and were turned down, then settled for Corey Maggette (five years, $50 million), a nonstarter.
"I've never understood why players wouldn't love to come here," said Don Nelson, in the fourth season of his second stint as Warriors coach. "I know they want to play with a good team, and we haven't had a really good team here for a long time. But it's such a great area to live in with terrific fans. It's up to us to create a winning environment, and then I think people would love to be here."
The Warriors average 18,161, their lowest figure in three seasons but still among the top third in the NBA. Yet, while roughly a third of teams have current payrolls that exceed $69.9 million - forcing them to pay a luxury tax to the league - the Warriors always are below that limit.
"You don't have a 20-year reign in which you're going to win titles and contend unless you're a team that functions over the cap, like the Lakers and other big-market teams," Nelson said. "When you can't function over the cap, you've got to do a better job managing your cap and money and selection of players that fit."
Selecting players has been a problem. Executive Chris Mullin, one of the most popular Warriors in team history, was let go in May and replaced by Larry Riley. Mullin, who clashed with president Robert Rowell (reclusive owner Chris Cohan's right-hand man), had four lottery picks in five drafts and did well by selecting Andris Biedrins and Randolph and trading for three players (Davis, Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington) instrumental in the "We Believe" team that made the playoffs in 2006-07.
However, Mullin also drafted Diogu and O'Bryant, hired Mike Montgomery away from Stanford (a failed experiment) and gave huge contracts to Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Derek Fisher and Foyle, leaving little room under the cap for outsiders.
Mullin also brought back Nelson, who is within reach of the NBA all-time wins record but has never won an NBA title.
Is there any hope?
What does the future hold?
"I do think there are cycles. Some last longer than others," said 49ers executive Andy Dolich, a marketing whiz for the A's in 1981-94 and the Warriors in 1994-95. "I would say I'm a big believer and saw it myself that the East Bay is a very strong market, and I wouldn't hold to the point that it couldn't support the three teams."
Papa, the play-by-play man who anchors "Chronicle Live" on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, said both the Raiders and A's would benefit from new facilities, considering their inferior revenue stream compared with other football and baseball teams.
"The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is pretty antiquated for both situations," said Papa, who supports a Raiders-49ers joint stadium venture. "The worst three stadiums in the (NFL) are in California, including Candlestick and (San Diego's) Qualcomm. You're at a revenue-generating handicap."
Meanwhile, the '70s are just a memory. In Oakland's golden era, the A's won three straight World Series through 1974, the Warriors won the NBA title in 1974-75 and the Raiders won the 1977 Super Bowl.
"Things can change around quickly," said Al Attles, who coached the Warriors' only championship team. "We came out of nowhere to win it. Sometimes it takes just one draft pick and one player, like (the San Antonio Spurs') Tim Duncan. Players tend to want to play with someone like that. I'm still hopeful things will change around. I've been in the Bay Area a long time. I've seen the ups and downs. I'm an eternal optimist. It's going to get better."