A few final words for Rob Manfred before we retire to our hovels:
Dear Mr. Manfred,
The proposed relocation of the A’s to Las Vegas looks grotesque no matter the lighting or angle. If it comes to pass, the community of Oakland, baseball fans at large, Las Vegas taxpayers, and the owners writing larger-than-ever revenue-sharing checks to the A’s will come to regret the decision. Even Las Vegas fans will be dissatisfied with their cut-rate baseball experience. All of this for the sake of John Fisher, the guy who had no business owning the A’s in the first place. You may very well be retired before the full fallout hits the Oakland and Las Vegas communities, but do you really want this to be your legacy? Destroying the Oakland A’s for the sake of a billionaire’s pipe dream hundreds of miles from his San Francisco home?
With the A’s releasing their “spherical armadillo” design in March—and the Tampa Bay Rays having proposed an indoor stadium last September—MLB is hastily laying the groundwork for expansion via a body of work featuring two antiseptic grassless shelters and the annihilation of the Oakland A’s.[1] Think about that for a second. Are you trying to cement your place as the most uncultured commissioner in the history of the game? Or do you hold out hope of someday being more sophisticated than the guy who called the World Series trophy a “piece of metal?”[2]
You hope Oaklanders “stay baseball fans…whatever team they decide to affiliate with.”[3] How could we stay fans? There’s no other franchise like the Oakland A’s in baseball. Oakland may not be the vanilla city MLB prefers, but it has as strong a claim as any to being the all-American city. The Oakland A’s are the franchise that free spirits across the country have been drawn to for 57 years. It doesn’t get more American than that.
We don’t pretend to know what’s in your heart—we can base our judgments only on your actions. Your actions are horrendous. But we believe in redemption. And we applaud the brave people in history who have humbly changed course for the sake of what’s right. Some actions are redeemable—and a franchise relocation that has yet to occur certainly is. In your best moment, you didn’t view Oakland the way you do today. You saw it for what it was and still is—a major league market to be embraced, not abandoned. We’re not asking you to be an entirely new person. We’re just asking you to embrace your better half—the 2016 version. Have the courage of your convictions, not John Fisher’s convictions. In other words, act like the commissioner of baseball.
There’s a happy ending here for everyone. Leave Fisher with the options of retaining the A’s in the lucrative Oakland-East Bay market or selling the team. No revenue sharing for the Oakland A’s. If MLB wants to be in Las Vegas, that’s great, but don’t do it on the backs of Oakland fans and Nevada taxpayers. Do it in the name of what’s good for the game and the communities of Oakland and Las Vegas. That’s hardly an outlandish proposition if we keep in mind Jackie Robinson’s advice.
—E. A. Presley
Oakland, California
September 30, 2024
[1] Scott Ostler, “A’s new Las Vegas ballpark renderings lack key details, take on Mother Nature,”sfchronicle.com, 05 March 2024, A’s Las Vegas ballpark renderings lack details, take on Mother Nature (sfchronicle.com); Adam Berry, “Rays announce deal for St. Petersburg ballpark,” mlb.com, 19 September 2023, Rays announce new ballpark agreement (mlb.com).
[2] Rob Manfred, as quoted in Andy Nesbitt, “MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spit in the face of all baseball fans on Sunday,” ftw.usatoday.com, 17 February 2020, MLB: Rob Manfred calls World Series trophy just a ‘piece of metal’ (usatoday.com).
[3] Rob Manfred, as quoted in Joon Lee, “MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred feels ‘sorry’ for A’s fans in Oakland,” espn.com, 15 June 2023, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred feels ‘sorry’ for A’s fans in Oakland – ESPN.