Relocation dislocation

 The World Pessimist Championships are going on in my head again, and today's category is this: Is Las Vegas a baseball town?

Pessimist Contestant No. 1 says no.

Pessimist Contestant No. 2 adds "And why does Oakland A's owner John Fisher think it will be, other than the obvious?"

The obvious being the $380 million welfare check the Nevada state lege just cut to help Fisher build a $1.5 billion ballpark out there in the Vegas desert.

The pessimists in my head look at this and see the usual fleecing of the taxpayers for a dubious enterprise. In other words, the Blob doesn't see how this will work.

See, in order to kick Oakland in the tender parts one last time on his way out the door, Fisher contrived to put a Triple A team on the field this summer. That might not matter now, but it will next year. I mean, what's the marketing strategy here? "Come watch my fake-MLB team play .271 ball"?

That's what the lame-duck A's are doing now, and that's after winning seven of their last 10 games. Before that, they were even worse.

Even worse than that, Fisher's now moving his fake-MLB team to what will immediately become the smallest market in the majors. And the A's proposed 30,000-seat digs will be the smallest ballpark in the majors.

Know what's even worse, or at least dumber, than that?

 Part of the proposed stadium deal in Vegas hinged on the A's promise to average 90 percent attendance for 81 home dates. No one in the majors averages 90 percent attendance, even the Yankees and Dodgers. But a fake-MLB team's going to do it?

Yikes.

Now, all that said, what's likely to happen here, as it has for the Raiders, is Vegas will become the most popular baseball destination in MLB, at least for awhile. As a friend of the Blob pointed out, the airlines will offer special package deals to out-of-town fans to come see a couple of games and hit the gambling tables. This means every A's game will in essence be a road game, with Yankees or Red Sox or Cubs fans filling the seats.

Thing is, even that likely will lose its novelty after a time, as those out-of-town fans inevitably say "Meh, been there, done that." Novelties are only novelties until you've done them, after all. After that ... well, suffice it to say depending on those Vegas junkets does not seem a sustainable business model for a major-league baseball team.

Of course, Fisher isn't bringing an actual major-league baseball team to town. So there's that, I guess.