It’s hard to say exactly where Dave Kaval is from. Is he from Cleveland? Silicon Valley? Las Vegas? What a liberating position to be in—no ties to a community. The one thing we can be certain of, he sure as hell isn’t from Oakland. For someone who beat the “Rooted in Oakland” drum ad nauseum, he has been remarkably consolable about leaving the town where he’s rooted. In fact, he has been chillingly indifferent about the whole thing. That’s some stiff upper lip on that guy.
People from Oakland recognized Kaval as an imposter early on. What did this guy ever know about being rooted in Oakland? People from Oakland don’t run around saying they’re rooted in Oakland—they just are. Fisher and Kaval’s Rooted campaign wasn’t so much about convincing us of their Oakland rootedness as convincing themselves. An ownership that needed convincing to stay in Oakland never should’ve owned the franchise to begin with.
Kaval is in the throes of a midlife crisis. He turns 50 in a couple of years; Las Vegas is his trophy wife. We have no choice but to write him off. By the time he gets the help he needs and snaps out of his mania, the A’s will be heading out of town. That’s an unacceptable price for Oakland to pay for one man’s circumnavigation to age-appropriate behavior. And there is also the little matter of his credibility being completely shot to hell. Dave, what was the price to buy your soul? Is there any money left to buy a moral compass, or have you already made the down payment on the bicep implants?
Neither here nor there, Oakland—and the Bay Area—would be a better place if Kaval were sent back to Cleveland in a gondola. That he thinks he can waltz his twig ass into Oakland and steal 57 years of A’s history doesn’t sit right somehow. In fairness, he made a Herculean effort to get the Howard Terminal project near the finish line. Too bad he didn’t have the moral stamina to see it through. Kaval could’ve been an Oakland hero if he had pushed the project across the finish line, but the Stanford embarrassment revealed himself to be nothing more than a billionaire’s errand boy. Shame on us. His pencil neck and noodlely arms should’ve reminded us that his was just a speaking part.