Columnist Ron Kantowski: Reports on A’s are way off base

Thursday, Aug. 2, 2001 | 11:14 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

An excited Oakland A's fan -- which is unbelievable in itself -- was on the telephone, asking what I thought about the reports that the A's had been sold and might be moving to Las Vegas.

I told him not very much. And this was before every person remotely linked with the rumor -- including the so-called new owners themselves -- called it hogwash.

Sound familiar?

You can add the A's to the Rockets (NBA), Grizzlies (NBA), Senators (NHL), Vikings (NFL), an unnamed NFL expansion franchise and the Super Bowl to the list of teams and events that won't be relocating to Las Vegas any time in the near future, despite outlandish reports to the contrary.

But any A's fans who rushed out to Cashman Field to buy tickets Wednesday night can't blame the local media for this one.

The San Francisco Chronicle in a copyrighted story Wednesday reported that a tentative deal to sell the A's to a group of "Las Vegas investors" had been struck.

That was the lead paragraph of the story. The second graph quoted Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb as saying the Las Vegas investors own minor league baseball teams, as well as -- get this -- the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.

(Insert loud wrong answer buzzer noise here.)

The Oakland officials apparently were referring to Peter Guber and Paul Schaefer, the Hollywood movie moguls who own the triple-A Las Vegas 51s and several other minor league baseball franchises. They do not, however, own Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.

They don't reside in Las Vegas, either.

Not that they couldn't afford a summer rental in Green Valley. Or for that matter, a penthouse suite in Steve Wynn's luxurious high rise going up on Paradise Road.

Maybe that's why this rumor lasted a full eight hours before it was quashed like a ... well, whatever one quashes.

Back in the mid 1970s, Guber and partner Neil Bogart formed Casablanca Records where they gave the Kiss Army its marching orders and did the hustle with disco diva Donna Summer.

Guber branched off into movies, producing the box office hit "Midnight Express" and eventually became chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. He formed Mandalay Sports Entertainment -- a division of his Mandalay Entertainment movie company -- in 1996 and began collecting minor league baseball franchises as if they were bobble-head dolls.

Unlike Shruti Misra, the penniless woman who was going to buy the Vikings with bullion stashed in a Las Vegas warehouse; or Paul Tanner, the all-hat, no cattle Texan who was going to build a domed stadium downtown and bring the Super Bowl to Fremont Street, it's not like Guber doesn't have the resources to buy the A's. It's just that he seems a little reluctant to spend his "Batman" money on baseball.

Why else would the 51s hit up Mayor Goodman for most of the nut to build a new triple-A park downtown when they could do it themselves with Guber's chump change?

One of these days -- er, years -- there may come a time when somebody with a major league pedigree cries wolf and the sheep around here actually have something to worry about. But unless somebody's lying like a rug in Refrigerator Perry's living room, this isn't it.

Again.