Oakland Ca Athletics

It is a normal training camp for the Raiders, if you are willing to overlook that they aren't sure where they will be playing and, if it happens to be Los Angeles, how it will feel entertaining in a stadium devoid of viewers. They also aren't sure who will be performing at quarterback, but in the context of other crises, this is a manageable problem. It happened for eight years during training camp that the Raiders found themselves in litigation, engaged all at once in as many as five cases.

In the office of the Chicago White Sox, the spokesman for the team is calm, anticipating the trade of Comiskey Parks, old for new. Final touches for the new are being applied. The office staff moves there Oct. 6. The team follows in the spring. And what happens to the old, which lies adjacent to the new? It has been spared dynamite. The wrecker's ball, coming in like a hard slider, is assigned the job after this season. The acreage will be used for parking. New Comiskey will seat 43,000.

Seated before the picture box, you watch dumbfounded. It is the All-Star baseball game. The American League has a runner on second base, two outs. Wade Boggs is at bat. The National League manager, Roger Craig, gives the sign to walk Boggs, picturing the next batsman as easier. That batsman is the highest-paid player in the history of baseball. Name: Jose Canseco. Craig guesses right.

The World Series champion Athletics are considering a plan to leave Oakland if the city succeeds in wooing the Raiders back to the San Francisco Bay area. The A's want the right to leave after the 1995 season if the city gets the Raiders back, according to city officials. The A's also requested a package of rent concessions and loan deferrals that would cost the city and Alameda County about $1.5 million per year if Oakland's latest return-the-Raiders plan works.

The City Council met behind closed doors to debate the latest plan to lure back the NFL's Raiders. The council is expected to vote on the matter next Tuesday. "If we vote this in, they will move to Oakland," Councilman Richard Spees said before the meeting. Fans hope the latest plan to return the team from Los Angeles will sit better with taxpayers than an earlier one trashed by public outcry.

Officials here Thursday unveiled the details of a new, much less generous Oakland and Alameda County offer to bring the Raiders back to the East Bay and vowed to try to complete a deal by the end of July. The offer contains none of the $428 million in ticket guarantees that marked the first Oakland deal with the Raiders, killed April 17 after massive local opposition. It replaces a $54.9-million franchise fee to the team with a $31.9-million, two-year loan, repayable with 10% interest.

The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously expressed its intent to kill the current deal to bring the Raiders back to the city. Acting at the urging of Mayor Lionel Wilson, the council, on a 7-0 vote, directed that a formal resolution to that effect be prepared for adoption next week. The reason the council could not act with finality Tuesday was that the matter had not been placed on the agenda with sufficient public notice.

Opponents of Oakland's $486-million offer to entice the Raiders back to the Bay Area filed 33,189 petition signatures Wednesday calling for a referendum on the proposed deal. Although the number of raw signatures easily exceeded the 19,716 required, Oakland officials have five weeks to ascertain whether they are valid. Regardless, officials who back the Raider offer have already indicated they are likely to reject the referendum on technicalities.