MLB Takes a Blowtorch to Oakland

Last week, the Oakland A’s announced that this will be their final season in the Bay Area. The team will play for three years in Sacramento (in a Minor League park, no less) until their new stadium is ready in Las Vegas starting with the 2028 season. Thus ends an era in Major League Baseball equally defined in excellence and incompetence. The result of the move out of Oakland and into Las Vegas represents an enormous failure, and perhaps even bigger, an utter contempt for a fanbase.

Let’s get one undeniable truth out of the way. If it was New York or Boston or Los Angeles or St. Louis, there is no way this happens. Those cities are considered baseball royalty with legacies of winning and rabid fan bases. Major League Baseball would not abandon those areas at any cost. They would have insisted that ownership work out a deal with their respective municipalities to keep those franchises where they belong. Oakland? It’s a more of a working class area whose perception (wrongly) is that of the “second” team in the Bay Area. It doesn’t have the celebrity following that the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Red Sox possess. And we know how important celebrities are to the folks that occupy the Commissioner’s Office. Going to Las Vegas raises the “cool” factor of baseball, with the A’s going from the “dreary” Oakland Coliseum to the bright lights of the Strip.

You know what the A’s DO have a history of: winning.

Since the franchise relocated from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968, the A’s have a nearly unmatched record in capturing World Series championships. Their four titles are only exceeded by the Yankees and equal to the amount of the Red Sox. No other club has more than three. Speaking of three, the Oakland A’s are the only team not named the Yankees to have captured three consecutive World Series titles in the over 100 year existence of the Fall Classic. They have appeared in a total of six World Series since the move to Oakland. In 1972, when playing the famed Big Red Machine from Cincinnati, the A’s won the championship without their best player, Reggie Jackson. Think about that. Oakland won a title against a legendary team without their Hall of Famer for any of the seven games. Find another instance of a franchise becoming a champion without their best player.

As for those players? MLB Network thought enough of the greatness of the teams from the 1970’s to make a documentary, but they also produced specials on three players with significant Oakland connections: Jackson, Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley. Jackson was one of the great sluggers of all time, Henderson was the most dynamic player of his generation and Eckersley was virtually unhittable as a closer. Other Hall of Famers that called Oakland home include Rollie Fingers and Jim “Catfish” Hunter. Though not in Cooperstown, Dave Stewart accomplished something that may not happen again: winning at least 20 games in four consecutive seasons. From Joe Rudi and Vida Blue to Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder to Matt Olson and Marcus Semien, the A’s have enjoyed rosters full of superstars that somehow go almost unnoticed by much of the baseball media. If this franchise stayed in Philadelphia all those years ago or moved to Los Angeles before the Dodgers, they would be recognized as baseball royalty.

How about this? The name “Athletics” or “A’s” needs to stay in Oakland. Current ownership does not deserve to take any bit of this all time franchise east to Las Vegas. Let him make his own history somewhere else. The A’s belong in Oakland and maybe, just maybe, the next commissioner will recognize that it is a tremendous baseball town with a rich history.