The San Francisco Chronicle wonders if the Oakland Coliseum could go back to being a baseball only stadium. It would depend on the Raiders and 49's sharing a football stadium. That works well for the Jets and Giants. The Athletics could then restore the stadium, much like the Angels did when the Rams left Anaheim, at a much lower cost than building something new.

When I entered Harvard in 1978, the school was faced with a crumbling sports infrastructure. Building new was deemed too costly, so they came up with a plan to remodel. They built a new pool, but kept the foot print of the hockey arena and created a beautiful new facility in that footprint. They built a new indoor track and turned an old building that was used for similar activities into a basketball arena. The tore out the guts of the football stadium, replacing the support beams and concrete slab seats with prefab concrete, keeping the look and feel of the stadium while giving it a new 75 years lease on life. With the money they saved they were able to add new tennis courts and an outdoor track.

More recently, the Red Sox did the same with Fenway park. Their renovations over the last decade make it a much friendlier place to see a game while they've added premium seats.

The owner of the Athletics wants to make a new stadium part of a larger development. Maybe, however, this makes more sense for the baseball team.