The Prologue
As I write today, please know that I am profoundly impacted by the A’s departure from the Oakland Coliseum and from Oakland for the foreseeable future. The Coliseum was essentially my “second home” as a young man, peaking with a season in which I attended 60 home games in the left field bleachers (back when they were even actually bleachers) followed by 48 the next season.
The A’s move in 2025 from Oakland to Sacramento will have a direct impact on those living in the east bay, and I am one of those fans whose team will suddenly not be just a short drive away.
I also want to recognize, with respect, the incredibly justified anger, angst, grief and loss which comes with this final Coliseum homestand and last Oakland season. Those of you vowing to abandon the A’s, flip a final finger to Fisher and Kaval, maybe even bid adieu to MLB altogether — we all have those feelings to a degree and we should. We have been unnecessarily and utterly betrayed.
The Plea
The plea is that despite all the fair reasons to be disgusted to the point of abandoning ship, I hope you will stay an A’s fan in your way and I hope you will stay on Athletics Nation as the season turns to the off-season and then to a strange new chapter in 2025.
Let me be abundantly clear: I don’t care a whit about “site traffic” or anything that Vox may focus on. I want you stay because the A’s — the baseball team — and baseball — the game, not the business, are bigger than the clowns trying to ruin it. And also because this community offers friendship, camaraderie, humor and analysis that I can’t just easily find elsewhere.
Obviously everyone will make their choices for their good reasons, but let me offer at least the “hard sell” to stay that I wish had worked for the A’s and Oakland.
The “Hard Sell”
1. This community is special and when you are on AN following the A’s, be it on or off the field, the team or the location drama, you are with fellow brethren who bleed green blood and cry gold tears too and you are immersed in a world in which the A’s are properly loved and cherished.
What I have learned over the years is that whether in person or online, good communities are hard to find, difficult to replace, impossible to replicate. I hope this one stays strong because I genuinely love it.
2. The A’s aren’t going to stop being interesting and rewarding to follow anytime soon. Of course the personnel will change over time, and with the A’s sometimes it happens more than you’d like, but at least as of now they have held onto two exciting players in Brent Rooker and Mason Miller, Lawrence Butler is electric and we are starting to see more legitimate talent in young players like Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom.
Meanwhile, if you’ve been a passionate A’s fan you are well aware of the talent coming up soon, from Mason Barnett and Jack Perkins to Colby Thomas, Max Muncy, Denzel Clarke, Henry Bolte and of course Nick Kurtz.
No they won’t all make it and be stars, but the upside is legit and I would hope you want to be there to see how it all plays out because the ones who do make it have to chance to be special.
If you have loved the A’s before, there is plenty to love ahead and I truly believe that if it happens without you it will be their loss — but also yours.
3. Evil too often triumphs but it should never win. John Fisher, Dave Kaval, Rob Manfred, these are wealthy people who usually get their way in a society that caters to means over rights. But these are small, pointless men who maybe should not get our hard earned money but who also should not get to deprive us of the game, or the team, we love.
Our revenge comes in living well: enjoying the best aspects of A’s baseball and that is, well, A’s baseball itself. The players, the story lines, tomorrow’s stars and today’s game. From Sacramento there will still be a game on the field, a game on TV, a game on the radio, and with it 2.5 hours of escape into a world that is better than any “real” world I know.
In Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong: pain requires coping and sometimes coping requires leaving. I respect the choice each and every one of you makes as the 2024 season winds down and the next chapter begins.
I just hope you’ll stay.