Oakland No More

During the final season-plus of the Oakland Athletics, the few fans who did show up at games often brought signs to show their dissatisfaction with the team's ownership.  Many of those signs simply said "Sell."  OK, fair enough.  There was one particular sign that I saw often, but really took issue with: "The A's belong to Oakland."  My reaction was: Do they?

I get the sentiment that fan was trying to express.  The A's have played in Oakland since 1968, so there are generations of fans who only know them as representing Oakland.  And the 57 years on the East Bay do represent the franchise's longest tenure in any location.  But do they belong to Oakland?  Hardly.  Oakland was their third home...and the third city they've left!  So, they "belong" to Oakland just as much as they belonged to Philadelphia and Kansas City.

In fact, they're indirectly responsible for the existence of three other teams because of their move from Kansas City to Oakland.  Kansas City didn't want to wait for baseball to return, so the AL added the Royals as an expansion team in 1969.  They needed another team, though, and that led to the creation of the Seattle Pilots, who are now the Milwaukee Brewers.  Seattle eventually got its replacement team in 1977, when the Mariners joined the American League.  Would some of that still happened?  Maybe.  But the A's moving to Oakland was the first domino to fall, setting that sequence of events in motion.

Oakland's frustration about the A's leaving is understandable.  Especially since they were the last professional team to call the city home.  It wasn't too long ago that Oakland boasted three professional teams, but the Warriors moved across the Bay to San Francisco (which I don't consider truly "moving" to the degree of, for example, the Arizona Coyotes relocating to Utah) and the Raiders skipped town for a second time, going to Las Vegas...where they'll once again be joined by the A's in 2028.

So, no, the A's don't "belong" to Oakland.  And, while the team definitely shoulders a good deal of the blame for the way everything went down in Oakland, they aren't the only ones.  The city and fans bear plenty of responsibility, as well.  If they'd given the A's a reason to stay, they would've.  Instead, they made the decision to leave for Las Vegas an easy one.

Those fans had every reason to be frustrated.  The team was lousy and the owner made no investment in them getting any better.  Oakland acted like a small-market club when it really didn't need to.  Not when San Francisco's right across the Bay and part of the same media market.  Not when the A's have had a high payroll plenty of times in their history (just look at their roster when they went to three straight World Series from 1988-90).  So, the decision not to spend any money was definitely a choice.

And it's easy to become disillusioned when a team is out there actively not trying to win.  (Actually, that's unfair...they weren't pulling a Philadelphia 76ers.  Maybe it's more accurate to say they didn't care as much about the results.)  However, it's not exactly like the money was pouring in and he was just pocketing it.  Fans didn't want to watch a bad team play in a terrible stadium that badly needed to be replaced, thus limiting the revenue coming in.  It's a vicious cycle really.

The ballpark was the biggest issue.  It was bad.  Players hated it.  Fans hated it.  While it was state-of-the-art when it was brand new in 1968, the Oakland Coliseum aged badly.  Not only that, they made it worse when they constructed "Mount Davis" to lure the Raiders back.  It worked for a while.  But the stadium was bad for football, too, and was the primary reason why the Raiders skipped town a second time.

Everyone knew the A's needed a new ballpark.  And they tried, time and again, to get one built in Oakland (or somewhere nearby).  All of their efforts failed.  As a result, they felt they were left with no choice.

While it might seem like I'm oversimplifying it, it really is that simple.  The degree to which the A's actually wanted to stay in Oakland is questionable, but the outrage over their leaving seems to be at least somewhat misplaced when they tried to stay.  How hard they tried is also up for debate.  Even if it was just lip service, though, the city had to know they weren't bluffing.  And you would think a city that was down to one professional team would do everything it could to keep it!

That's why I can't feel too bad for Oakland.  There were definitely fans who cared, and for them I do have some sympathy.  There weren't enough of them, though.  And I get why everyone else didn't want to watch a crappy team in a crappy ballpark.  But, had they actually shown up, then the team would've brought in more money, which they could've invested in the team and ballpark improvements.  Which not only would've improved the fan experience, it would've made it more clear that there actually was a fan base there supporting the team.  That wasn't always apparent.

Really, though, this falls on the city.  Oakland acted like it was entitled to "its" baseball team.  Yet, every time the team presented its proposal for a new ballpark site, it was rejected.  Meanwhile, this is a city that's not unfamiliar with teams relocating.  That's how they got the A's in the first place.  That's how they lost the Raiders twice.  They tried to call the A's bluff.  Only the team wasn't bluffing.  They were getting a new ballpark or they were leaving.

It was only after the A's announced that they were moving to Las Vegas that all of this faux outrage took hold.  Meanwhile, had they been this passionate about the A's in the first place, the team staying in Oakland would've been a done deal.  And those fans could show up when they wanted to.  Just look at that sellout crowd for their final game at the Coliseum!  So, no, it's not entirely on the team.  It's on the city and the fans, too.

Will those fans follow the A's to Sacramento and Las Vegas?  It's hard to say.  Although, it's probably a safe bet to say they won't suddenly become Giants or Angels fans, either.  Regardless, the A's have moved before.  Three times, in fact.  First from Philadelphia to Kansas City, then from Kansas City to Oakland, now from Oakland to Las Vegas via Sacramento.

At some point in the probably not-too-distant future, fans will become nostalgic for the Oakland A's.  Just look at the affection people have for the Montreal Expos now, two decades after they became the Nationals.  And I'm sure there will be plenty who have fond memories of the Oakland Coliseum, even if the sentimentality doesn't match the reality of what their experience actually was.

Things ended badly in Oakland and they really didn't need to.  And for some, that bitterness will likely never go away.  For others, they'll watch the Sacramento/Las Vegas Athletics and happily remember when they played in Oakland, while at the same time wondering how different things would've been had things gone down differently.  The A's will get the beautiful new ballpark they wanted.  In Las Vegas.  Not Oakland.