MLBPA's Tony Clark Provides Whiff of Hope for Oakland A's Fans
With the baseball season right around the corner, fans in Oakland are either reluctantly gearing up for another A's season, or trying to ignore the franchise completely. The day-to-day wins and losses won't matter as much to a large swath of the former fan base, but chances to point and laugh at ownership will always be welcome.
In a recent report from Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, she spoke with Tony Clark, the head of the MLB Players Association, about an array of topics concerning the A's and Giants.
But what stuck out most to a number of A's fans on social media was at the very end of the article, when Clark was asked about the Bay Area ever becoming a two-team market again.
"Never say never" was the reply. He also mentioned that the union doesn't have any say in where teams are located.
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This could mean a number of things. Could it be that he doesn't see Las Vegas happening, and that MLB isn't going to allow the A's to stay in Sacramento on an indefinite basis? If A's owner John Fisher could line up the valuation for his club to sell a part of it to investors, it would seem as though the ballpark in Vegas would happen, though it's been nearly two years and he's still looking.
With shovels supposedly expected in the ground in June for that proposed park, we'll know sooner rather than later if Vegas is ultimately viable.
Another option Clark could be alluding to could be expansion. The way that Oakland fans have responded to the entire relocation has created thousands of headlines across the nation, and really changed the narrative about the fan base. But would MLB actually reward The Town for this, or would they prefer to continue avoiding Oakland?
Perhaps Rob Manfred thinks Oakland is a good market for the league to be in, but he couldn't go against Fisher publicly, and he certainly wasn't going to tell him what he could and couldn't do with his franchise.
The real question at the heart of Clark's response is whether or not the Bay Area being a two-team market meant specifically Oakland, or if that could also extend down to San Jose, or perhaps even up as far as Sacramento. The hard borders of the Bay Area are frequently debated, but rarely do they include the state's capital.
With MLB looking to expand some time in the next few years--as soon as the A's and Tampa Bay Rays have their ballparks sorted out--there hasn't necessarily been a frontrunner out west for a new franchise.
Nashville, Tennessee appears to be ahead as the team in the east, while Portland, Oregon and Salt Lake City, Utah are the western cities in the mix outside of Oakland and perhaps San José.
There would be some former A's fans that could be lured back to baseball with a team in the general area (not San Francisco), but there is also a group of fans that believe it's Oakland baseball or no baseball for them.
Before expansion talk can begin in earnest, the ballpark situations need to be figured out, and even before those parks open, there is already contention between the owners and the players, and recent reports have come out that the MLBPA is expecting another lockout following the 2026 campaign.
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Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.