The A's Will Never be the Same
The A's are headed to Sacramento for a quick layover before their planned move to Las Vegas, effectively killing any chance that the team could ever stay in Oakland. If Las Vegas falls apart due to funding or a number of other problems with the plan, then possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Sacramento, a city that nearly had their NBA team ripped away a decade ago, just undercut Oakland in their negotiations with the A's when John Fisher's back was against the wall. He needed a place to play games starting next year, and he didn't have many options.
Thursday was a sad day, but an expected one. I spent the afternoon with my family in downtown Oakland, looking around at all of the trees and the beauty the city has to offer. The beauty that news cameras never seem to catch. It was peaceful. Cold, but peaceful.
Thursday was an emotional day. Not only have I grown up rooting for the A's, but I have also worked numerous jobs at a time over the past decade plus in order to cover this team. My dream job has been to write about this team because of the innumerable memories I have with family and friends at the Coliseum. Now that team's legacy is slowly dying right before my eyes.
A's owner John Fisher thinks of himself as a steward of the franchise, but his actions have never shown that he gives a single damn about the team. At a press conference on Thursday to announce the move to Sacramento, he didn't name a single one of his own players that would be hitting home runs at Sutter Health Park, but instead floated Aaron Judge. Maybe he forgot that in order for Judge to hit this home run, it would be off one of the guys on his payroll.
He has no plan. He has no vision. At least one that's attainable. He went from a 55-acre waterfront ballpark in Oakland with development surrounding it, to a nine-acre armadillo in the middle of the desert, and secured public funding through lofty, unattainable projections.
It makes you wonder if he would have received the funding he was after if the Nevada legislature was voting during F1 (a train wreck) instead of the Stanley Cup Finals.
On top of losing this team, and this connection to generations of family members that are no longer with us, the public discourse has just been gross. Strangers online and family members have let me know how excited they are about this move because of how it benefits them in some small way. They didn't like the Coliseum, but they are stoked about Sutter Health Park. A's fans have said for years that the Coliseum isn't great, but it's home. It's where our cherished memories reside. You can look out to any number of locations on the field and recall a special moment that you've witnessed at a game.
No matter who you blame for how we got to this point there are only a couple of groups that are losing here, and it's the fans and the employees. For those that Fisher employs, they will be left to wonder if they made the cut to have a job with the team when they move up north.
For the fans, they'll be left without a big piece of themselves. A's baseball wasn't just about rooting for a sports team. It was a community of like-minded individuals coming together to root for the green and gold. Sure, the Giants have a nice, shiny ballpark across the bay, but A's fans are not Giants fans. They chose their team, and they've stayed loyal for all of these years.
Baseball is a game of hope. Each year the hope for most fan bases is that your team can make the postseason and go on a run deep into October. For A's fans, there was just hope for better days ahead with a new owner. That's why the fans stayed loyal for so long.
Now, that hope is extinguished thanks to Sacramento. Those dreams of better days ahead aren't going to come true.
The A's teams that fans across the country have fallen in love with due to their swagger, their realness, and their resilience--those are all Oakland traits. Fisher can keep the colors, the name, and the history, but he'll never be able to relocate the team's spirit. That's staying in Oakland.