Greed Strikes Again
For the second time in 2024, a Big 4 sports team played their final game in their home city before packing up and heading for proverbial greener pastures (or greener turf and colder ice, as it were). The Oakland A’s, after 57 seasons and 4 World Series titles, are dropping the Oakland and playing 2025 as simply “The A’s” in Sacramento. In April, the Arizona Coyotes, after 27 seasons and… a couple playoff wins, are now in Salt Lake City with the inspiring new team name: Utah Hockey Club. Both moves put an end to well over a decade of deadbeat ownership, insufferable local government politicking and questionable roster decisions.
It’s yet another story of a billionaire throwing a tantrum when they don’t get their way. For a segment of the population that should have nothing to complain about, it seems to be all they ever do. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with them. They’ve stolen the game from us. Did anyone ask John Fisher to buy the team? No, but there are many, many who are demanding he sell. Did Arizona want Alex Meruelo in charge of the Coyotes? You think Chicago wouldn’t vote to recall Jerry Reinsdorf?
John Fisher has owned the team since 2005. Since then, Oakland has had 5 mayors and dozens of different city council members. MLB has had 2 commissioners. The economy has gone through booms and busts in those 19 years. The team rostered hundreds of players in the pursuit of small-market payrolls. Time and time again, stadium proposals were teased. It felt like every other year, you could pick up a Bay Area newspaper with renderings of a stadium in Fremont, San Jose, Oakland, or Alcatraz (maybe). But nothing got close. If the only constant in this failed pursuit of a new stadium is the owner, then the owner is to blame.
Fans just want a place to watch their home team play baseball. It doesn’t have to be the fanciest place in the world. Oakland fans are happy to fill this ancient concrete behemoth when times are good. But instead of doing some incremental basic upgrades for player and fan comfort, he struck out over and over in the pursuit of a shiny new stadium packed with luxury suites looking to maximize profit and hand the city of Oakland the bill. He’s only loyal to the green, no matter the damage done to those loyal to the green and gold.
Corporate America is infecting our entire lives with their profit-over-people culture, focus-grouped marketing campaigns and C-suite circle jerks to think up new buzz words that trick consumers into buying new shit they don’t need. And it’s rapidly changing sports from our American pastime to just another bland, homogenous product. Teams used to be uniquely run entities that had their own character and flair. Now even the minor leagues are getting swallowed up by Diamond Holdings, LLC. Any entity that ends in “Holdings” does not belong near the ownership structure of a sports team.
We need to take baseball back. It’s our game, not theirs. Baseball stadiums large and small draw crowds every summer in every state in the country, from Yankee Stadium in New York City to independent ball at Franklin Field in Wisconsin. Double-A baseball in the Southern League has decades of history and charm that the NBA’s G-League does not. Well, until it becomes the Walmart League where all tickets are lawn seats unless you subscribe to Walmart Plus. Baseball will always have a place in the lives of Americans. It’s one of the few things we pass from generation to generation, that we can bond over from coast-to-coast and fall and stay in love with from childhood to the retirement home. Terrence Mann’s speech in “Field of Dreams” will be played for decades to come because it’s 100% accurate (RIP James Earl Jones):
As so many people I’ve interviewed have pointed out over and over, baseball is fun. MLB and its owners seem to take that for granted. In baseball, the best players become legends. Those who underperform get released. But MLB owners don’t get the same treatment.
You want to leave your team stuck in the 1980’s with outdated or non-existent analytics departments and hire yes-men in the front office? And then lose over 120 games? Sure, keep your team, here’s your cut of the profits Mr. Reinsdorf, of which the White Sox provided almost no value. Want to save $200,000 by cutting a player from the Pirates just four at bats shy of his bonus with 2 weeks to go? No problem, Mr. Nutting, we here at the MLB offices encourage that. They’re just playing for a piece of metal anyway, we’ll keep the cash.
You want to take a loyal fan base that spans generations, gut the roster over and over again, and raise season ticket prices to watch a triple-A roster while avoiding possum bites (oh and also try to avoid paying your minor league players during a pandemic)? Great idea, Mr. Fisher, we’ll let you do that and then cram your team into a triple-A park while you work on your plan for striking it rich in Las Vegas. Or maybe just the concept of a plan.
Something needs to change. Twenty years ago it was Montreal. Fifteen years ago, Seattle lost the Supersonics. Five years ago San Diego and St. Louis lost the NFL. Yesterday it was Phoenix. Today it was Oakland. And if you think your team isn’t at risk, you’re being naive. It’s not the cities that are pushing their teams out. It’s these thin-skinned, cowardly, incompetent owners who are so insulated from the consequences of their actions that nothing is deemed too out-of-bounds in the pursuit of another dollar.
For more interviews I did with people who actually love Oakland baseball, here are a couple links:
Great post. I had a similar post this morning. Pro teams' customers are no longer the fans, but the media companies. We are just cogs in the system.
https://vincewetzel.substack.com/p/there-are-no-winners-here
Watched the game yesterday and then popped in Moneyball last night. Watched the stadium more than the game. Lots of memories never to be relived again.