Tuesday night in the Oakland Coliseum felt like a celebration of life; it was the raucous wake for someone who put in their will that they wanted a party in their honor, not mourning.
More than anything, it was an explicit message — uttered countless times — to notorious, penny-pinching billionaire owner, John Fisher, to “sell the team.”
On a night which would typically have fewer than 5,000 fans in attendance, a whopping 27,759 filed in as part of a reverse boycott to the team’s potential move to Las Vegas.
Their previous Tuesday high this season came against the Chicago Cubs — a fanbase which travels very well on the road — with an attendance figure of 5,196.
Earlier in the day, the likelihood of that move to the desert skyrocketed. The Nevada State Senate voted 13-8 in favor of Senate Bill 1, a measure to approve up to $380 million in public money for an MLB stadium on the Vegas Strip. Next, the bill heads to the Nevada Assembly.
Should the vote go through, as is the tentative expectation, it will then land on the desk of Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, who will sign it. From there, final approval for relocation would go to MLB.
The move, at that point, would seem imminent. The A’s relocation fee — reportedly around $300 million — to Las Vegas will reportedly be waived, on condition of that public funding being approved.
The (un)likelihood of Fisher selling or the A’s remaining in The Town were, in some respects, beside the point. Fans wanted to make sure the world knew that the team’s departure was not on their shoulders; that even on a random Tuesday night, for the worst team in baseball, they could and would show up.
A’s fan Stu Clary proposed the reverse boycott — filling up the stadium, rather than emptying it, as has been the case for most of the last couple seasons — back in April, but the idea quickly gained traction over the last few days.
The Oakland 68s, the A’s largest fan group, set up a substantial pregame tailgate in the lot outside the Coliseum, with chants, music, dancing, signs, and a tangible communal feel married with antagonism towards the team’s owner.
Chants were organized at the start of innings, most notably in the top of the fifth, when the stadium went fairly close to silent to honor the 55 years the team has been in Oakland. Whistling and some pointed words for Fisher poked through until a Jose Siri double for the Rays broke the silence.
After Siri reached second, the stadium erupted in a cacophonous, “Sell The Team!” chant:
The selection of this game felt even more fitting given the chasmic gap between the A’s and the visiting, MLB-best Tampa Bay Rays (48-21). Even after six-straight wins, the A’s, with a gutted roster, entered with the league’s worst record at 18-50.
Fans wanted to make it clear they would show up against any team, any time.
Oakland 68s chairman Anson Cansanares, who led many of the chants in the 68s’ right field bleachers — where he’s been sitting since 2006 — said he has hope the team will remain because of how many failed projects that have come and gone.
“There’s so much hope that I have because this front office is so incompetent,” Cansanares told KNBR. “They don’t know what they’re doing. Obviously they want to leave, but they’ve been failing left and right. Until I see a shovel in the ground, I won’t believe anything.”
If the vote in Nevada does go through, the A’s have one last legislative hope, courtesy of Oakland’s own, Representative Barbara Lee (CA-12).
Lee introduced the “Moneyball Act” on June 9, which would “require a professional baseball club to compensate its home community if such club relocates its home field more than 25 miles from its previous location.”
Compensation would be, “not less than the State, local and or Tribal tax revenue levied in the ten years prior to the date of relocation; and paid respectively to each State, local and or Tribal government which levied taxes on the club in ten years prior to the date of relocation.”
The other provision of the bill would be holding Fisher — or, the “officers of the club” — personally accountable for those costs if the team were to try and avoid paying that compensation.
Whether the bill is likely to stand up or not is yet to be determined.
The A’s future in Oakland is murky, if not leaning likely towards departure.
But on Tuesday, fans excoriated their owner and were rewarded with a 2-1 win over the best team in baseball, their their MLB-best seventh straight.
They celebrated that win with a postgame round of “Sell The Team” chants and a barrage of trash, launched on the field as if it was being thrown at Fisher himself. On this one, random weekday, A’s fans made sure they did not go quietly into the night.
