The good ol’ vibes were back at the Coliseum. For Oakland. For A’s fans. For a monumental evening denouncing franchise steward John Fisher.
This night was about community. This night was about representing. This night was about the love of the Athletics. There was a party going on right here, so when Kool and the Gang blared at the conclusion of the A’s 2-1 win over the Rays, it was especially joyous. The words to “Celebration” captured the spirit of the occasion.
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So bring your good times, and your laughter, too
We’re gon’ celebrate our party with you.
Come on now.
(Sing along.)
Seeeeeelllll the A’s, John.
“I feel like this owner is not a fan of baseball,” Pleasant Hill resident Brooke Converse said. “He doesn’t care about baseball. He cares about money. Him and Lew Wolff bought the team before the 2005 season. By 2006, they were already talking about Fremont. So from Day 1, they were trying to take this team away from us. And it’s never been different since then.”
It was a ridiculous notion that prompted the fan-orchestrated “reverse boycott” in the first place. A’s diehards took over the Coliseum on this random Tuesday night in June — drawing an announced attendance of 27,759, the largest crowd since the finale of the Yankees’ series last August — because some lies must be called out. The mischaracterization being promulgated, by the A’s and Major League Baseball and now Las Vegas, really has people thinking the A’s fan base doesn’t exist. It’s a fib conceived by agenda, one void of regard for precedence, blatant propaganda to scapegoat the consumers.
Converse was one of many hurting A’s fans sick of being victim-blamed, one of the many who showed up at the Coliseum seeking to make it clear what the A’s and baseball are walking away from so they can panhandle from municipalities. She’s an Oakland native who started attending A’s games at 4 years old with her dad. She might’ve been there when Crazy George invented “The Wave.” Who knows? Shooty Babitt was her favorite player because she was tickled by his name. When she was a student at Skyline High, she’d kick it in the bleachers and make noise stomping on the benches.
“It’s nuts,” Converse said regarding the lack-of-support narrative. “There’s recent proof to say that’s not true. As recently as 2019, (just shy of) 54,000 people filled the stadium. In 2014, we had more than two million fans because in 2014 we sent seven players to the All-Star Game. It’s a bunch of B.S. I’m sorry.”
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The message of the reverse boycott was profound: A’s ownership and spokespeople don’t get to define the people here. The shameless spin campaign of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to disparage a historic and significant segment of baseball’s fan base couldn’t go without rebuttal. So watch your mouth when talking about A’s fans.
The baseball fans of Oakland, of the greater East Bay, of Northern California, have a proud resume. These parts have been defamed in the name of corporate greed, politics and social media punchlines for years. All for being smart enough to understand that blind loyalty leads to deep ditches. All for having the good sense to recognize a hustle and not throw wallets at it.
The fans are here. They have ALWAYS been here to support this team.
It's up to the ownership of a franchise to give the fans a reason to come out every night, NOT for fans to blindly spend all their money while being treated like shit by said owners.The A's belong in OAKLAND pic.twitter.com/BAVTLQv6sj
— Matthew Peirson (@matthew_peirson) June 14, 2023
Sports fans are often measured by the suffering they pridefully endure. The highest grade of loyalty is to embrace perennial disappointment with shirtless fervor, to take it like a fan.
Yeah, alright. Better peep the reputation of the people here. It is one of resistance against such exploitive ideology. That’s why it’s fine if Oakland is the one to stand up to the scam of professional sports. Outsiders love to see Oakland losing its teams as a blight on the city. But this is just the latest example of how the East Bay doesn’t just fall in line. This should be one of those places where billionaire franchises and their leagues simply pay to play. With no exceptions. Making billions and being associated with these historically rabid fan bases is well worth the investment required.
Tuesday was a glimpse of the massiveness lying dormant in the East Bay. The reverse boycott was a moment of solidarity from the green-and-gold-hearted who’ve been dispersed into other forms of entertainment by the ineptitude of baseball executives. A clap back for those who think the A’s woeful attendance issues are somehow the fault of the faithful — not the franchise that hasn’t won a championship since Taylor Swift was born and routinely trades players who become beloved by the fans.
A’s fans have been boycotting. This season is shaping up to be their third straight averaging fewer than 10,000 in attendance per game. But for one bright evening the trend was reversed, a flex orchestrated by the group of organized diehards called the Oakland 68s. It was the fans’ version of going to a party looking good knowing that the ex would be there.
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The Kelly green “SELL” t-shirts popped in the sea of A’s gear and anti-Fisher signage. Angela Tsay, CEO of Oaklandish, which produced the shirts, expected to make just a few hundred. Oakland 68s planned to raise money so the t-shirts could be given out for free. Tsay, who’s seen A’s merch sales at her popular Oakland-centric store dry up over the years, was already prepared to donate the shirts if enough money wasn’t raised.
But Oaklandish ended up printing 7,000 after $30,000 was collected.
“When we first heard about the reverse boycott many weeks ago, we didn’t think it was a great idea,” Tsay said. “We’ve been of the opinion for a few years that the less money that goes to the regime, the better, so why spend money on tickets? We felt … that we were done. Bye. But with everything that’s happened in Vegas recently, we started seeing the reverse boycott as one last stand for Oakland fans, a chance to show the world what an amazing sports town Oakland is, and how special the fan base is here for baseball.”
Numbers don’t, and never will, do A’s fans justice. It’s difficult to comprehend their magnetism without experiencing it (so, of course, Fisher, the reclusive custodian of the A’s, wouldn’t get it). It’s a diverse fan base that somehow manages to embrace a plethora of cultures while forming one all its own.
The pageantry of A’s fans was on display Tuesday. The range of ages. The variety of ethnicities. The intermingling of urban and suburban, of wealthy and working. The variety was unmistakable when making rounds in the bustling parking lots. The music blasting from speakers all over was like flipping through a Bay Area channel on Sirius XM. The smells of food inspired specific cravings. Even competing aromas of weed wafted with the breeze.
But it was all love, for everyone but Fisher. It’s stunning a franchise wouldn’t want this kind of unique and fulfilling warmth — that comes with a premier market size and more than half a century of history. Many teams would love to have a fraction of the intensity on display.
Las Vegas might end up voting to open its coffers to Fisher. Oakland might lose the A’s. But as long as Fisher owns the team and maintains his profiteering ways, A’s fans aren’t the ones most harmed by the team’s departure. The A’s, without these fans, would take the greater loss. So would MLB. So would the soul of the sport in this corner of the globe. Because Major League Baseball abetting this injustice on its own fans by helping one of its owners tarnish a legacy franchise is the type of sin that curses.
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But since Fisher is adamant about getting stadium welfare, the A’s are willing to settle for something likely inferior — and with the support of MLB, most egregiously in the form of a waived relocation fee. They’ll get what they deserve.
A’s fans are worth investing in, even if it means paying all of the costs up front. The reverse boycott was successful in combatting the narrative of this being a dead baseball town. Far from it. This would be a shame to waste for the sake of lower overhead.
What can be done in Oakland if the owner were fully committed exceeds what can be done in Las Vegas, especially what is being proposed on the site of the Tropicana Hotel. What A’s fans can bring, what was on display at the reverse boycott, simply cannot be duplicated in this nation. The number of A’s fans might be matched or even exceeded somewhere else. The headaches might be smaller, fewer in number, than other places. But the spirit here, the je ne sais quoi, can’t be bought with tax dollars.
A’s fans don’t need a fancy stadium and manicured landscapes to turn up. They are the ambiance. This gang is fa sho cool.
No doubt, everyone wants new digs. But it’s what’s inside that makes it feel like a home. And inside the decrepit stadium on Tuesday, in a part of the town wanna-be-boujee franchises can’t stand, A’s fans showed why Oakland is the rightful home of the Athletics. For one of the last times, perhaps, they painted the Coliseum with their own coat of beauty. Their energy filled the stadium, their passion moved the players, their unison declared worthiness. A jolt of nostalgia for those who must’ve forgotten.
“The energy and the atmosphere,” A’s skipper Mark Kotsay said, “was everything this stadium could be.”
Now just imagine how they’d turn out in a new stadium in Oakland, if the owner just decided to pay up and not insist on stadium welfare. Imagine what the atmosphere would be like if the franchise committed to this community and to winning. Imagine if Major League Baseball had the foresight to see how it was selling out and compel the billionaire it forced onto A’s fans to give up the treasure he’s taken for granted.
Someone else would buy the A’s. Someone else would root them in Oakland. And Tuesday night would again become the norm.
If not? Tsay put it best: “At least we got one last chance to all be together again.”
GO DEEPER
A's fans come together in community protest: 'It means so much to so many people'
(Top photo: Jed Jacobsohn / AP)
