Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame the Oakland Politicians for Moving the A’s to Vegas By Hank Indictor
The news just broke out today that the Oakland A’s have purchased a plot of land for a long-needed new ballpark. Unfortunately, it won’t be the waterfront Howard Terminal Project in downtown Oakland that gave many residents and lifelong fans hope. Instead, they will be joining their former stadium the Raiders in Las Vegas. Talk about a slap in the face!
Imagine living in the city and being a lifelong fan watching your team knowing they’ll eventually move and going with that team will be 50+ years of great history featuring the likes of Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, The Bash Brothers, Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson and the Moneyball era. Now before we go out and blame the fanbase for not showing up over the past few years you will see in the reasons below why they aren’t at fault whatsoever. And given the timeline within the last five years of the city losing all its teams, (and yes I’ll even include the Warriors because I’m pretty sure many Oakland Fans hate the idea of losing their team to San Francisco) it’s also easy to look at this and blame the politicians for not making much of an effort to keep the teams in the city.
However, if I’m being honest, this can only really be a half-truth at best. There are plenty of factors as to why this day that many in the East Bay have dreaded has finally arrived. And with that another written episode of my revived version of Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame!
Honorable Mention
The Fanbase: I don’t care about how low the attendance has been, those who bled Green and Gold have been loyal to a fault since they moved from K.C. To Oakland after starting in Philadelphia. Want proof? just go to YouTube and look at the atmosphere of playoff baseball in Oakland Coliseum with those loud drums and horns playing in the background! Not to mention there have been several years where they’ve outdrawn the Giants, even as San Francisco established itself as a big brother (tho to be fair the Giants were also stuck at Candlestick for years but more on that a little later). And they’ve had their reasons for being fed up with the current situation but let’s start the list at No. 5.
5. Vegas Golden Knights: I can’t put them any higher than 5 because given the messy situation it’s likely the A’s might’ve moved elsewhere anyways but given the butterfly effect we still have to talk about the Knights because without their existence the idea of baseball in Sin City seems ridiculous. But then again so did having a hockey team, especially considering the area is practically a desert! But the Knights immediately fielded a competitive team that made it to the Cup Finals in its expansion season of 2017-18 and have become popular in the city since! This begs the question: Do the Raiders and or A’s even think about Vegas without their early measure of success?
4. San Francisco Giants: a big reason why the A’s could never stay in the Bay Area, let alone Oakland was because when trying to move to San Jose in the mid-2010s, the Giants blocked them due to owning territorial rights to the entire Bay Area. However, it’s their co-tenants that were a bigger factor in why they left.
3. The Davis Family and the Raiduhz!!: The best thing that could’ve happened to the A’s in the 80s was the Raiders moving to L.A. because it meant that they had the Coliseum all to themselves. And at one point it was a great place to be given the view in CenterField! And as a matter of fact in which the 15 years the A’s owned the Coliseum there were three seasons where they were outdrawn by the Giants (1986, 1987 and 1993).
Unfortunately, it can also be argued that the Raiders' return to Oakland may have been the beginning of the end of the Coliseum. The return of the Raiders meant the construction of the giant eyesore in CF known as Mount Davis which Al Davis felt was necessary for football. And not to mention there’s a reason why many baseball and football teams stopped sharing stadiums and a big one is due to overlapping schedule conflicts and having to constantly change up the field. Not to mention it was the Raiduhz who first moved to Vegas thanks to Mark Davis finally getting a shiny new Stadium all to himself that his late father always wanted.
But of course, there’s also a reason why both teams reached points where they wanted out.
2. Oakland Coliseum: It’s no secret that both teams have needed a new stadium for the past few decades. And Mount Davis was just the start of its problems. The Stadium was never properly maintained and taken care of and the latest example came just recently when visiting broadcasters couldn’t use the booth because of a possum infestation.
I’m sorry…..WHAT?!?!?!
Yes, you read that right. Years ago staying up to watch a late Yankees game that had to be delayed due to a power failure and those are just fractions of problems that have made it unsuitable to keep around. They even had to use duct tape just to keep parts of the stadium from falling apart!
Again, I wish I was kidding. This fanbase deserves so much better! So why can’t John Fisher complain to the owner? Well, it’s simple, he is the owner which brings me to…..
1. John Fisher: Truth be told there are several A’s owners that should be rolled up into one since a lot of them have operated under the mindset of businessmen who care more about the bottom line than the results on the field. And not to mention, it was the previous regime who strong-armed the city of Oakland as a whole into extending their lease at their decrepit ballpark when San Jose didn’t work out. This may have cost them their goodwill when the Howard Terminal idea was proposed later on but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Anyways, the owner I’m going to pick on is the current one John Fisher, this is the man who proposed the Howard Terminal project which would’ve given the A’s a beautiful new ballpark in downtown Jack London Square right by the waterfront. But as I mentioned there were a couple of roadblocks in that it would cost a lot of money and the politicians weren't willing to help. And given how poor of an economy the city already in addition to a litany of other problems the city still faces there was no realistic way the politicians would tax the citizens further just to placate the desire of a wealthy businessman.
How wealthy is John Fischer? His net worth is well over $2 billion. In other words, he paid for this ballpark out of his pocket if he wanted to keep the A’s in Oakland. The reason that the Bay Area has the Giants for many years to come is that Peter Magowan fought tooth and nail to not only keep the Giants in San Francisco, but he was willing to pay money out of his pocket to ensure that the Giants would get a much-improved ballpark near the China Basin after 40 years of playing in the notoriously cold and windy Candlestick Park.
“But Hank," you might ask, “What if he didn’t have the necessary funds to build it?” Let’s remember that the MLB has a revenue-sharing system so he probably could’ve gone to any of the other 30 owners and asked them to chip in. After all, there is a revenue-sharing system in place and the owners are essentially a Boys Club so it’s not exactly unrealistic. But in the wise words of Nick Morgasen, “IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!” And choosing to purchase the land in Vegas shows that Fisher cares more about making money than keeping his team in the Bay Area.
And given that he didn’t seem to care about putting a winning product on the field and was doing everything in his power to sandbag the fans too by raising ticket prices, charging more for parking and cutting out Season Ticket Holder perks to make the product as unattractive as possible.
So there you have it. You can’t blame the politicians for wanting to help the greater good and you certainly can’t blame the lifelong fans who’ve been shafted and hadn’t seen true glory since the Bash Boys (who may or may not have juiced). If this was a trial then John Fisher would be guilty with Team President Dave Kaval being convicted of aiding and abetting or taking away 50+ years of Bay Area history and a team with great fans