NOTE: This article was first published online at The Sports Column on Thursday, September 26, 2024.
With the baseball season coming to an end this weekend, the Oakland A’s will also be bidding farewell to the city and Oakland Coliseum they called home for fifty seven years.
The A’s departure for Las Vegas is also leaving many fans saddened by the fact that there will be no major professional sports teams representing the city of Oakland, as the Raiders (NFL) and Warriors (NBA) also departed the city for Las Vegas and San Francisco respectively.
“The A’s are part of the fabric of Oakland and the East Bay and the entire Bay Area,” A’s team owner John Fisher wrote to fans in an open letter. “I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness. … I can tell you this from my heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal. It was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.”
Many fans feel betrayed that enough wasn’t done to keep the team in Oakland, between an owner not doing enough to politics getting in the way to approving a new stadium. After failed approval from the city, MLB team owners on November 16, 2023 unanimously approved the A’s proposed move to Las Vegas and construction of a 33,000 seat new stadium which will be built on the former site of the Las Vegas Tropicana hotel and casino. While the new stadium is being constructed, the A’s will play in Sutter Health Park (home of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats) in West Sacramento, California from 2025 to 2028.
To show their disapproval of the move to Las Vegas, many fans this season wore green t-shirts that had the word “SELL” printed on it and made chants towards fisher to “sell the team.” They also held up signs that read: “Sell The Team…Not Our Memories,” and “The A’s Belong in Oakland.” Also to commemorate the stadium, 25,000 mini coliseums will be given away, but after the seventh inning when fans are exiting due to the concern they may throw them on the field during the game.
The A’s have a winning history in Oakland from winning the World Series in 1972, 1973 and 1974 and then again in 1989. They also had success under manager Bob Melvin, who led the team from 2010 to 2021 before leaving to manage the San Diego Padres in 2022. He amassed 853 wins managing the A’s, leading the team to seven post season appearances and four division titles.
The A’s also became famous by the movie Moneyball, which chronicled Billy Beane’s use of sabremetrics and the financial constraints he had to put a winning team on the field in 2002. With a budget of only $41 million, Beane relied heavily on statistics and signing undervalued players to amass a team that went on to win the American League West title. Beane also expressed his feelings to San Francisco Chronicle Baseball Columnist Susan Slusser on the A’s leaving Oakland.
He said: “I think it’s starting to hit me, that finality of the last game at the Coliseum. As we creep towards that day, I am becoming more nostalgic, something I never thought I was. There were some really good teams and a lot of really good guys who I got to know not just professionally but personally.”
Fisher final comments to fans in his letter read: “Looking ahead, I hope you will join our beloved A’s as we move forward on this amazing journey. I hope I will see you again sporting the Green and Gold. And I hope we will make you proud.”
That’s what A’s fans hoped during negotiations to keep the team in Oakland.
NOTE: John Fisher’s full letter to Oakland A’s fans can be found here.
— Joe Boesch