“It would be the intent of our group to move the A’s to the level that they had in their glory years of 1987 through 1992. . .You have to give the fans a team that they believe has a chance to compete for the championship.”[1]
Andy Dolich, October 27, 1998
Though John Fisher is a legitimate heir to his family’s fortune, he is not the rightful successor to the Haas family’s legacy of civic-minded ownership of the A’s. In 1999, an ownership group that was bullish on Oakland tried to buy the A’s with legal tender. Though they offered asking price, Commissioner Bud Selig—who six years later endorsed the sale of the A’s to his fraternity brother Lew Wolff and Fisher—quashed this unwarranted free market activity.[2]
It probably comes as no surprise that this woe-is-not-me ownership group was composed mostly of principals aligned with the East Bay: Andy Dolich – former A’s executive and marketing guru during the Haas ownership; Robert Piccinini – owner of the Save Mart supermarket chain based in Modesto; George Zimmer – founder and CEO of the Men’s Wearhouse; Joe Morgan – Hall of Fame second baseman and baseball broadcaster who grew up in Oakland; the Oakland Tribune; and Jeff Goodby – San Francisco advertising executive who worked on the A’s award-winning Billy Ball (Billy Martin) marketing campaign in 1981.[3] (Joe Morgan eventually dropped out of the group.) With Dolich leading the way, here was a group that was poised to do the unthinkable—market the Oakland A’s and not whine about it. Nay, they were actually enthusiastic about it. These loose cannons clearly had no business being part of the old boys club.
They weren’t alone. After Selig’s rejection of the Dolich group, Reggie Jackson tried to buy the A’s before they were sold to Wolff and Fisher in 2005.[4] With Microsoft in his corner, Jackson clearly had the resources to buy the team. But being the highest bidder wasn’t enough to win a seat at the table. Though Jackson had dollars aplenty, they never gained currency with Selig. Jackson wasn’t part of the old boys club. And, in hindsight, it’s a safe bet he never stood a chance of joining it.
[1] Andy Dolich, as quoted in Michael Dougan, “Big-name investors seek to buy A’s,” sfgate.com, 27 October 1998, Big-name investors seek to buy A’s (sfgate.com).
[2] Brian Murphy, “Owners balk at sale of A’s,” sfgate.com, 16 September 1999, Owners balk at sale of A’s (sfgate.com).
[3] Larry D. Hatfield and Zachary Coile, “Oakland Council backs local A’s buyers,” sfgate.com, 10 May 1999, Oakland Council backs local A’s buyers (sfgate.com); Dale Tafoya, Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s (Guilford: Lyons Press, 2020), 156.
[4] Nicholas McEntyre, “Reggie Jackson claims Bud Selig blocked him from purchasing Oakland A’s,” nypost.com, 24 March 2023, Reggie Jackson claims Bud Selig blocked him from purchasing Oakland A’s (nypost.com).