General Manager Billy Beane and President Michael Crowley will remain with the Oakland Athletics through the 2019 season, club owner Lew Wolff said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.”
Wolff said in San Francisco that the two executives have reached agreements to stay with the Major League Baseball team and that he expects them to sign contract extensions within 30 days.
Beane and Crowley both are limited partners in the A’s, with Wolff the managing partner. Wolff is chairman and chief executive officer of Wolff Urban Development LLC, a Los Angeles- based real estate firm.
“I view them as partners as well as executives,” Wolff said. “So if they are here another 30 years, that is fine with me. I may not be here to see it, but that will be fine.”
Beane, 49, has been the team’s general manager since the end of the 1997 season. He is the subject of Michael Lewis’s 2003 book on baseball economics, “Moneyball,” which was made into a film starring Brad Pitt as Beane. Lewis is a columnist for Bloomberg View.
Wolff, 76, discussed the extensions as part of an interview about his desire to build a new stadium in San Jose, California, and to move the team there in the next few years.
“Somebody said the reason I am doing it is I want one or the other to be able to wheel me into the new stadium,” Wolff said.
Crowley took over as team president at the end of the 1998 season.
Beane was traveling and unavailable for comment today. Crowley didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment made through A’s spokesman Bob Rose.
The Athletics were 74-88 last season and haven’t made the playoffs since 2006.
