Major League Baseball wants you to believe in that fairy tale. At Tuesday’s All-Star Game, he wants players to be oblivious and mesmerized by the talents of Shohei Ohtani, Beau Bichette and Ronald Acuna Jr.
Among the many talents to appear in the parade, the one selected for the first time is Oakland Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker, the sole representative of the team. Perhaps during an at-bat or game break, the announcer will mention that the Athletics’ future move to Las Vegas is all but decided, and then return to wishful thinking and the game’s competitive fireworks.
None of that obscures the pain the club’s upcoming move is causing to baseball, it’s pox for baseball, and the convenience of a mid-season celebration of the best players. should not be ignored because of
It’s fitting that Seattle is hosting an All-Star festival this week. After a fierce battle for a new arena was used as an excuse to move the NBA’s SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in 2008, many of the citizens of this tech-powered port city still feel the sting of betrayal. .
The A-Team follows a similar blueprint. Team skinflint owner John Fisher, heir to the Gap clothing empire and estimated net worth of more than $2 billion, says the Athletics are serious about building a new stadium to replace the monolith they’ve played in since 1968. bottom.
In 2018, Fischer set his sights on the expansive waterfront beside a busy harbor. He added plans to build housing complexes and entertainment facilities next to the stadium. The development will be the largest in California history.
Negotiations with the City of Oakland were as difficult as might be expected for such a complex project, but Fisher pressured the struggling city to come up with at least $320 million in public subsidies. I kept calling A deal seemed to be on the horizon, but suddenly it didn’t. In April, the Athletics called off talks and announced they had agreed to build a new stadium in Las Vegas that could be completed by 2027.
No wonder there are fans of A. I’m caught That’s a soliloquy from Rebecca Welton, owner of AFC Richmond, the intrepid fictional English football team that is the central character in the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso.
“No more! I mean, how much more do you really need?” Welton yelled at team owners thinking of leaving the traditional league and moving to a fancy new football association.
“Just because we own these teams doesn’t mean they belong to us,” she continued.
Fans can claim equal rights to their beloved franchises as team owners in the fantastical, almost mystical way sports unites teams and communities.
Thus, the A’s are Fisher’s team as well as Auckland’s team.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred slanderedSome 30,000 A’s fans who gathered at the Coliseum for a recent game protested the move, prompting Fischer to sell it.
“It’s great to see a near-average Major League Baseball crowd at the facility overnight this year,” Manfred said.
In a passive-aggressive fashion, the commissioner has in recent years accused Oakland fans of turning the once-tumultuous Coliseum into a nearly empty morgue in response to Fisher’s selling out stars for spare parts. rice field.
Did the commissioner forget that for decades Oakland fans were considered baseball’s best fans? Somehow he doesn’t remember that the team’s rabid supporters raved about the franchise every time ownership put a viable team on the field through every iteration?
Although successes were less frequent in the 2000s, the Athletics made the playoffs 11 times this century. In the longer term, going back to 1970, Oakland won the World Series in which he made six appearances and won four. That’s more than the World Series title won by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the same span. than the Chicago Cubs. Over Atlanta. About the same as the Boston Red Sox.
If any of these teams had announced a departure to Las Vegas weeks before the All-Star Game, the infamous midsummer classic would be held under Seattle’s darkest clouds.
The former A team stood at the vanguard of the game. Remember the teams of the 1970’s? Reggie Jackson, Laurie Fingers, Catfish Hunter, Sal Bando, Vida Blue. Their white pants, white shoes, and mustachioed cockiness brought a new twist to the steady game. The story of how they decided to challenge team owner Charlie O. Finley was a catalyst for the empowerment of the players.
Think of the equally confident teams of the 1980s and early 90s and how they perfectly captured baseball at the time. Jose Canseco and Mark McGuire ushered in the slugging home run era. On the other hand, let’s not forget the reliance on the steroid wands that inflated the game at the time.
Remember the early 2000s? Moneyball. Barry Zito. Tim Hudson. Jason Giambi. Willingness to quantify every part of the game. Winning through analytics (cheap in the A-League) is now employed by teams in nearly every professional sport.
All of these teams have left a permanent mark. All of them performed in front of the crowd, turning the old Colosseum into a carnival of crazy fun.
Now many longtime fans of the city and the team feel betrayed. And rightly so. The billionaire owner angrily announced that the team would be leaving Oakland for casino life and the hustle and bustle of Nevada. The baseball commissioner so wholeheartedly supported the move that he denigrated A’s fans and said he would waive the league’s relocation costs.
Please watch the All-Star Game. Have fun. Just don’t get too caught up in fairy tales and forget what baseball has done to you.
