Oakland no more, the Athletics will never find another home like the one they had

Earlier this year, (then-Oakland) Athletics owner John Fisher—the most hated man in baseball—announced the team would be moving to a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento while their future home stadium in Las Vegas is being built. At the time of the announcement, the A's led all of Major League Baseball with 221 losses since the start of the 2022 season.

Now, the team has officially stripped Oakland from both its name and its identity, as per a press release earlier this week.

Let’s get one thing straight: what is happening to the Athletics and their fanbase is a tragedy. It’s an abject failure on the part of Major League Baseball, and a disgusting display of greed from a billionaire who long ago forgot what it means to own a sports team that is beloved by millions.

If you're a fan of a big-market team, there’s no use in pretending that we can relate to our favorite franchise getting abruptly displaced because of the actions of an avaricious, self-serving owner (the Cubs, for example, are never leaving Chicago, no matter what stunt the Ricketts family tries to pull). All we can do is sympathize with another passionate fanbase, who must now accept that their team is relocating after putting them through one of the most blatant, disrespectful tank jobs in history.

The city of Oakland has had a rough go of it in recent years. The Raiders departed back in 2020, also for Las Vegas, citing the conditions of the Oakland Coliseum. One summer before that, the Golden State Warriors moved across the Bay and returned to their roots in San Francisco, officially leaving Oakland with just one major sports team. Now, with the Athletics calling Sacramento home as they wait for their Vegas mansion to be erected, a proud city with a rich sporting history is without a team for which to root. 

John Fisher is the sport's worst owner

The villain in all of this is, of course, John Fisher. Despite accumulating a net worth of roughly $3 billion, per Forbes, the A’s owner has supported a payroll that ranks dead last over the last three seasons. This year was especially egregious, as the team’s Opening Day payroll of $60.5 million was more than $25 million shy of the 29th-place Pittsburgh Pirates ($85.76 million). The league-leader in that category (the New York Mets) had an Opening Day payroll that was 505% larger than that of the A's.

By moving the team to Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California, the Athletics will go from playing in a run-down major-league stadium to a literal minor-league ballpark. There’s almost never a good solution when a team is between homes, but playing in a stadium that cost less than half the price of their Triple-A affiliate’s home is a joke. 

When making the initial announcement, Fisher called Sutter Health Park the “most intimate park in Major League Baseball”. It doesn't take a genius to read between the lines there. Fisher knows his interim home doesn’t hold a candle to even the worst stadiums across the league, which is perhaps fitting for an owner who has pushed away a fiercely loyal fanbase. In one particularly appalling moment during his press conference, Fisher couldn’t come up with a single Athletics player, instead citing his excitement to watch MLB’s top stars, like Aaron Judge, hit home runs (off his own pitchers) at SHP.

There’s no real way to wrap this up with a bow. Major League Baseball also deserves plenty of blame for what’s happening to Oakland, though Rob Manfred hasn’t exactly earned a sterling reputation as commissioner up to this point, anyway. The MLBPA has made formal complaints about the A's and other low-spending teams, but only in the context of that lack of payroll expenditure. 

Whether they choose to be called the "Sacramento A's", the "Las Vegas ATH", or just the plain old "Athletics" is irrelevant at this point. This team lost sight of the bigger picture long ago.

Our hearts go out to you, Oakland fans. You deserve so much better than this.

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