Major League Baseball

MLB chief rebuffs mayor's request over Oakland A's

Published Apr. 11, 2013 10:25 p.m. ET

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San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's request to sit down with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to discuss the Oakland A's pursuit of a San Jose ballpark has been rejected, a newspaper reported.

In a response to Reed's April 2 request for a personal meeting, Selig said Reed should instead talk to Robert Starkey, a sports consultant who worked with the MLB on stadium issues for the Minnesota Twins, according to the San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/ZbftNX ).

Starkey is on a committee Selig appointed to study the A's potential move to San Jose.

Selig said the committee has been in constant contact with San Jose and added that Reed's reference to ''additional litigation'' over the proposed A's move was ''neither productive nor consistent with process that the Athletics have initiated under our rules.''

San Jose officials have grown impatient with the pace of deliberations over the potential move. Selig assigned the special committee more than four years ago. The San Francisco Giants have objected to a potential move by the A's to San Jose on grounds they relied on territorial rights to the San Jose-area market when they built their ballpark, AT&T Park.

The A's said those rights were only meant to support the Giant's failed efforts in the early 1990s to build a San Jose-area ballpark themselves.

Reed had said he hoped his letter requesting the meeting with Selig would motivate the commissioner to take some action soon. He told the Mercury News in a story published on Wednesday that he was encouraged to receive a response from the commissioner and would set up a meeting with Starkey.

''It's movement, it's a little something,'' Reed said. ''I'd just like to have that conversation. What are the problems?''

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Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com

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