Posted on 06/12/2023 2:56:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
“Tuesday night at the Oakland Coliseum” doesn’t sound like much, not for those who have followed the A’s in recent years. It sounds like the echo of plaintive voices in the gloom of desolation.
Not this coming Tuesday night, though. The Oakland Athletics’ “reverse boycott” night could produce some of the most memorable scenes in Bay Area sports history.
I didn’t think it was such a brilliant idea at first. The A’s seemed destined to leave town; would they really pack the stadium for a sort of maudlin farewell? It sounded to me like sadness, the kind that has swept over the fan base like an epidemic since ownership deliberately let the team — and the Coliseum — rot into irrelevance. It certainly didn’t sound like anything close to a sellout.
The way things look right now, Tuesday night could bring a fine, roaring madness, with hopes and spirits renewed. There’s still a chance the team stays in Oakland, and this is a fan’s chance to show A’s owner John Fisher, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and 29 other owners what “rooted in Oakland” really means.
It’s about people, not sports teams. It means heartbreak over losing the Raiders. It means disgust over the Warriors targeting San Francisco all along. It means following the A’s from a distance, wearing those green jackets and players’ jerseys in the backyard instead of the second deck. The soul of Oakland shines brightly in the face of incompetence, and if Fisher wants to make life so miserable as to eventually bail out of Oakland altogether, he won’t get paying customers pretending it’s OK.
My goodness, what a mess Fisher and team President Dave Kaval have made in Las Vegas. They arrived with a fleabag plan, flimsier than one-ply toilet paper, and got brutally exposed. I can’t imagine anyone in Las Vegas — fan, journalist, legislator, whoever you like — buying the A’s sickening load of contradictions and backtracks.
Maybe a few folks will be shamelessly bought off, enough to carry SB1 through the Nevada Senate and Assembly before reaching the governor’s office, but that seems a bit of a long shot now. There’s a very real possibility the A’s will be rejected in Vegas — which is pretty hard to do, incidentally. They love an old-fashioned sucker down there. But not when they are the suckers, asked to approve hundreds of millions in taxpayer money at a billionaire’s request.
Even if the A’s bill is approved — most likely made possible by old-fashioned graft and corruption — it won’t be a done deal by Tuesday night. That’s why the timing of this event is so perfect, not to mention that the owners’ meetings begin a three-day run on Tuesday. Manfred and his cronies will be watching carefully, undoubtedly shocked to realize that their deeply flawed rationale — A’s fans don’t care, so to hell with them — needs some work.
I urge the fans to pack the place. Make it the toughest Bay Area ticket all summer. Special T-shirts will be passed out, but just in case, bring some kind of sign, or just your vocal cords. Let’s have 40,000-plus people delivering the same forceful message to an owner who lost his way:
SELL!
They tried to move to San Jose but the Giants complained that San Jose was their territory and the stadium deal fell apart. Sad thing is that the A’s ceded that territory to the Giants back in the early 1990’s so the Giants could get a new stadium and the Giants won’t return the favor.
I cannot stand any of those Bay Area teams. I am a Rams, Angels, Lakers, Ducks and Galaxy fan.
A friend with an extra ticket asked if I wanted to go to the game with him. I decided to take a pass.
I don’t like baseball. I don’t care if the team leaves. And I don’t like the idea of leaving my car in the BART parking lot. I would also have drive through the ‘hood at night to return home.
The ridiculous thing is the Giants moved farther away from San Jose.
If the Giants had given San Jose back to the A’s, that stadium would have been built and there would be no talk of the A’s moving to Las Vegas.
I don't understand why it needs to be "given" back. Haas offered the Giants the San Jose area to the Giants. (Even though it presumably would help him if the A's were the only team in the Bay Area) But the Giants obviously didn't move to San Jose, in fact, they moved farther away.)
So, in what way would the Giants still own the San Jose rights? It was unjust enrichment? They took something from Haas without consideration.
MLB (Selig) ruled that San Jose is now Giants territory. Although I find it ridiculous, it kept the A’s from building a stadium there. Considering that San Jose is California’s 3rd largest city in terms of population, the A’s would have flourished there.
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