Opinions to feed your nightmares

For the 4th and hopefully final post today, we have several opinion pieces. Let's start off with Monte Poole's feeling that Oakland fans have been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray:

Selig, then, is here to take some of the heat off his buddy. With Uncle Lew playing "bad cop," Bud sees an opportunity to pose as "good cop." He is piecing together the shredded letter and handing it back to Wolff for further consideration.

"Selig's office called us (Monday) to inform us about the committee," Dellums chief of staff David Chai said Tuesday via e-mail. "In addition, Lew reached out to us and would like to set up a meeting."

In other words, what three weeks ago was perceived by Wolff as pointless has, just like that, become a priority. Wow. Is anything in sports more impressive than mighty Bud Selig swinging into action?

The problem, of course, is that this sounds better than it really is. We know where Bud stands. In general, he stands wherever he must to avoid the bright light of accountability. In regards to baseball in Oakland, he has made clear he stands against the Coliseum and against the A's moving to San Jose.

Next, we have something from the Merc's editorial page:

And while the city has a great site in mind — 14 acres near downtown's Diridon Station — the details need more work. An environmental study for a 32,000-seat stadium was done several years ago, but it did not get close public scrutiny because there was no immediate prospect of landing a team. Nor did it take into account the new plans for high-speed rail stopping at Diridon, which will add to the complexity of the area — but also to its appeal for baseball.

Finally, Mark Purdy's a bit tardy in chiming in:

But why would Selig go to all that trouble and ruffle so many feathers if, in the end, no ballpark is built in San Jose? Answer: He wouldn't.

Of course, the flip side is that the movers and shakers of San Jose and the South Bay — not just the politicos, but also business people and corporate sponsors who will pay for luxury boxes and scoreboard ads — are never going to give maximum effort and dollars toward a ballpark unless they are certain that the territorial-rights issue is moot.

In other words, a classic Catch-22. Wolff always has sought a way to unlock that catch and thread the needle — to create a negotiating window where he could promise San Jose that if voters approve a ballpark proposal, the territorial-rights issue wouldn't matter.

All this activity almost has me thinking that next week's media coverage and events will strike an anticlimactic tone in light of what's happened the last two weeks. Fool me once...

Sleep well, children.