SI:AM | Rob Manfred Kicks Oakland Fans While They’re Down
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I think Rob Manfred is quickly becoming the most hated commissioner in sports.
In today’s SI:AM:
👨👦 A Father’s Day ode to sports
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The A’s have one foot out the door
If he wasn’t already before Thursday, Rob Manfred must be the most hated man in Oakland now.
The A’s are getting closer and closer to moving to Las Vegas after the Nevada state legislature passed a bill during a special session this week to provide $380 million in public funding for a $1.5 billion stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. Republican Governor Joe Lombardo signed the bill into law yesterday.
MLB owners still need to vote to approve the franchise’s move to the desert, but judging by commissioner Rob Manfred’s comments yesterday, the league can’t wait to uproot the A’s.
“I feel sorry for the fans in Oakland. I do not like this outcome. I understand why they feel the way they do,” Manfred told reporters. “I think that the real question is, what is it that Oakland was prepared to do? There is no Oakland offer. They never got to the point where they had a plan to build a stadium at any site.”
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, a Democrat, said, though, that the city does have a ballpark proposal.
“There was a very concrete proposal under discussion and Oakland had gone above and beyond to clear hurdles, including securing funding for infrastructure, providing an environmental review and working with other agencies to finalize approvals,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “The reality is the A’s ownership had insisted on a multibillion dollar, 55-acre project that included a ballpark, residential, commercial and retail space. In Las Vegas, for whatever reason, they seem satisfied with a 9-acre leased ballpark on leased land. If they had proposed a similar project in Oakland, we feel confident a new ballpark would already be under construction.”
The most galling part of Manfred’s press conference, though, was his sarcastic response to A’s fans’ “reverse boycott” this week that saw nearly 28,000 fans (seven times Oakland’s average Tuesday night crowd this season) pack the Coliseum to voice their displeasure with owner John Fisher and the proposed move to Las Vegas.
“It was great,” Manfred said. “It’s great to see what is this year almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night. That’s a great thing.”
I can’t imagine how it must have felt for A’s fans to hear Manfred dismiss their passionate protest like that. The reason fans haven’t shown up to the ballpark this season (or the two before it) is because Fisher has sabotaged the team to slash costs. Oakland has the lowest payroll in baseball and is fielding a team that is not even close to competitive on most nights. Purposefully producing a product so atrocious that it repels fans is a good way to create the impression that leaving town is the only solution. But Oakland has produced winners before and attracted respectable crowds despite playing in MLB’s most unappealing stadium. The problem isn’t that residents of the East Bay don’t want to support their baseball team. It’s that Fisher hasn’t given them anything worth supporting.
So now the A’s appear destined to leave town, headed to a 30,000-seat stadium in a city flush with other entertainment options. In the meantime, there’s still baseball to be played in Oakland, under a cloud of what Emma Baccellieri calls “miserable tension.”
The best of Sports Illustrated
Courtesy of the Plimpton Family
- For today’s Daily Cover, Taylor Plimpton wrote about the bonds he’s formed with his son through sports—much like how his own father, the former Sports Illustrated writer George Plimpton, did with him.
- Rickie Fowler stunned the golf world and shot a U.S. Open–record 62 in the first round. It could be a turning point for a guy who hasn’t won a PGA Tour event in four years, Alex Miceli writes.
- Fowler’s record didn’t stand alone for long. Xander Schauffele shot a 62 right after him.
- Scott Van Pelt told Jimmy Traina that he doesn’t plan on hosting Sportscenter for much longer.
- Victor Wembanyama’s career in France is over. His team was swept by Monaco in the French league finals.
- Gregg Berhalter will reportedly be rehired as coach of the U.S. men’s national team.
- The Yankees begin their three-game series against the Red Sox on Friday, with tickets to Fenway Park topping out at $1,000, per SI Tickets.
The top five...
… shots at the U.S. Open yesterday:
5. Rory McIlroy’s long iron to within three feet on the 284-yard par-3 seventh.
4. Viktor Hovland’s 165-yard hole-out for eagle on No. 2.
3. Matthieu Pavon’s hole-in-one on No. 15.
2. Sam Burns’s ace on the same hole.
1. Amateur Michael Brennan’s flop shot from the rough.
SIQ
On this day in 1991, Otis Nixon became the first player in 89 years to steal six bases in an MLB game. Who is the most recent player to tie Nixon’s record?
- Rickey Henderson
- Kenny Lofton
- Rajai Davis
- Carl Crawford
Yesterday’s SIQ: On this day in 1976, a game at the Houston Astrodome was postponed for what unusual reason?
- Rain
- Power failure
- Unruly fans
- Fire
Answer: Rain. Yes, a rainout at the Astrodome. Well, sort of.
Although the weatherproof indoor stadium kept the field dry, biblical rain in Houston prevented fans, stadium employees and—most crucially—umpires from getting to the dome for the game.
The rain that day was some of the worst Houston had ever seen. It began around 12 p.m., and, by the time it subsided seven hours later, 7.48 inches of rain were recorded downtown, while near the shipping channel on the east side of the city, 13.06 inches had fallen. The heavy rainfall flooded streets all around the area. The Pirates’ bus ride to the stadium, which should have taken 10 minutes, took three times as long. Astros players arrived in their own cars to get ready for the game, but it soon became clear that the weather would prevent it from being played. The four-man umpire crew called at around 4 p.m. to say their car had stalled out in the floodwaters and they’d be unable to get to the game.
The game was postponed not long after that, but that didn’t mean the players could go home. Conditions outside the stadium had continued to deteriorate, with many roads still impassable. But the players made the most of it, with stadium workers setting up tables behind second base for members of both teams to have dinner together. Some Astros players, after postmeal drinks in the press club, decided to explore the stadium’s catwalk.
“After half an hour or so, [fellow Houston pitcher] Tom Griffin and I decided to explore the catwalk that went from the sky boxes to the gondola at the top of the building,” Astros pitcher Larry Dierker told Texas Monthly last year. “It wasn’t scary because it was encaged. We had to crawl the last fifty feet or so. I suppose we are the only players who ever went up there.”
Once the rain stopped and the floodwaters subsided, players slowly started to trickle home. But not all of them. Second baseman Rob Andrews and pitcher Mike Cosgrove spent the night sleeping in a luxury suite.
