Willie Mays A's?

The initial premise of the baseball movie 'Major League' is that the fictional owner of the then Cleveland Indians, Rachel Phelps, wants to field a team so bad that attendance will fall below a magic threshold that will allow her to move the team to Miami.

Thus, the team brings in a broken down catcher from the Mexican league, a fireballer that (literally) can't see the plate, and a speedster named Willie Mays Hayes who can't hit.

Of course, in the end, everybody, including the owner and the long suffering fans, wins.

That does not look it will be the case for the real life fans of the current version of the Oakland Athletics 

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One-And-A-Half-Fans

PerUsherVille

The current version of the real life Oakland Athletics are still being run by Dr. Moneyball, Billy Beane.

Which means that while they routinely sell off high-priced stars to stock the shelves with cheaper  talent with quality 'metrics', the A's on-field product is almost always competitive.

What's going on in the A's front office, driven by team president Dave Kaval and owner John Fisher, however, is a completely different story:

...The attendance (for a recent home game with the Baltimore Orioles) was just 3,748, the lowest crowd count at the alternately dreary and cheery Coliseum since 1980. It's also the smallest crowd at a major league game minus pandemic restrictions since an announced 5,297 fans attended an August 2019 Miami Marlins game.

The reasons why are both well-worn and also infuriating...

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...Since the Raiders left and the pandemic landed, the A's have held all the cards and their actions suggest as much.

(The fan-friendly) A's Access (ticket program) was discontinued. Parking was jacked up to $30, even as COVID-19 restrictions left mass-transit options emaciated. Single-game tickets were raised – $25 for a third-deck seat in a decrepit football stadium, anyone? – and in the grimmest turn yet, many season-ticket packages were significantly raised before this season.

How much? A bleacher seat went from $456 in 2019 to $840 in 2022, according to the San Jose Mercury News, with more expensive options also doubling or nearly doubling.

Meanwhile, as the A's continued jumping through ever-growing hoops for their desired waterfront home at Howard Terminal, Kaval and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred teamed up on a not-so-subtle bit of dark messaging: Your current home sucks...

What are Mr. Kaval and his commissioner lackey Mr. Manfred up to here?

Well, if you pay any attention to professional sports whatsoever, it's essentially a most egregious version of a story you've likely heard before - essentially team owner Fisher is holding A's fans hostage while he attempts to force the city of Oakland into coughing up a half a billion dollars for a new ballpark that will make him and real estate developers billions.

And if that doesn't work, the Mess'rs Kaval and Fisher are threatening to move the baseball team, like the football team before it, to the Nevada desert.

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TheViewFromTheThird

DeckVille

When we lived in the Bay Area, back in the time of La Russa, it was a great time to be an Oakland A's fan.

We could walk to the North Berkeley Station, take the train down to the ballpark, and stroll right into the outfield bleachers. One afternoon I even went alone, with a then four month old Tiny E. in the backpack, so that we could wander around the concourse above the bleachers the entire game. I ate more than my share of hotdogs that day.

It was heaven out there in the bleachers. And it was cheap. And then Al Davis wrecked everything with his stupid mountain of seats and skyboxes that destroyed the up close and personal view of the field in front of you* and the panoramic view of the East Bay hills behind you.

Since then we've been back more than once - including the the spring day we went to see Vlady Senior after he abandoned Les Expos and went on to ply his trade for the pre-Troutian California Angels. At that time the former Tiny E. was getting bigger and the Oakland Coliseum was much fuller than it is now. 

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One time we were sitting near a bleacher denizen who bellowed... 'Hey, Rickey. They traded the wrong Henderson!'....The guy was referring to recently dispatched bleacher favourite Dave Henderson....Rickey just went into his crouch in left, put his right hand on his rear end out of view of all the other players on the field and gave the guy the finger...The fans all around us went bonkers...

Hey, just so you know...All is not lost with today's game because it turns out that sometimes there is crying in baseball...

And, on that note....Apparently there is a TV version of 'A League Of Their Own' coming...

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