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The World Series starts Friday night, a dream matchup for Major League Baseball between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
These two teams have a remarkable history in the fall classic — 11 previous meetings, including those much more personal when they shared a city before the Dodgers moved west from Brooklyn in 1958.
I may flip the channel over to Fox here and there, but I won’t be among the sports fans religiously following this series. I just don’t have the taste for baseball much anymore.
The Athletics (the team of my childhood, young adulthood and early fatherhood) bid adieu to Oakland at the end of this regular season, poised to spend the next three years in a makeshift home in West Sacramento at the minor-league River Cats’ Sutter Health Park before a planned long-term relocation to Las Vegas. A project that has not reached designs-approved, shovels-in-the-ground level yet, mind you.
I’ve been at the acceptance phase for a while … and probably more of a “thanks for the memories, but it’s time to say goodbye.”
Maybe it’s because the A’s breakup with the East Bay was so messy, especially with the product on the field being non-competitive by design the past three seasons. Maybe it’s because I crossed this bridge not that long ago with my once-beloved (Oakland) Raiders. Maybe it’s because I’m a child of divorce.
Loyalty is a two-way street, but this has been a one-sided relationship for far too long. Time for me to get off this A’s wagon — and frankly, the whole MLB train altogether.
Don’t get me wrong: I had some fun times with the Green and Gold that I’ll remember fondly.
Around the team on the field, including memorable playoff wins (but of course tough losses too), perfect game and no-hitter highlights, and the 20-game win streak, to name a few. I count the 1989 World Series too, even though I was only 1 year old. Oh, and that little bestselling book turned Oscar-nominated movie “Moneyball”.
Around my life too, going to games at the Coliseum in summers during high school and college with friends (some I’m still very close to … some I seldom see anymore), taking the Greyhound to cheer them on against the Baltimore Orioles while at American University, flying to Japan for a game against the Seattle Mariners in the Tokyo Dome, having partial season tickets with my wife, enjoying postgame fireworks shows from the field with her and my younger brother or anxiously watching on TV from my couch or at a bar.
We also took our son to one A’s game, when he was about 6 months old in 2022. I hate that we won’t get to go to any others together in Oakland.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but I put the lion’s share with majority owner John Fisher — who burned every bridge with fans, blowtorch in hand, while refusing to invest money into free agency and stay on a cheap lease in the decrepit Coliseum despite being in one of the MLB’s richest markets.
Some say he’s a “billionaire on paper” type of owner who lacked the capital to actually get a new stadium done in Oakland, but I’ll stay out of the name-calling business here. All the luck to anyone who bets on Fisher’s ability to close the deal in Vegas though.
The A’s departure does hurt the city of Oakland, which loses its third team in the last decade, and it’s forever a part of Sheng Thao’s legacy as mayor. I’m glad they didn’t commit globs of public cash to the team’s Howard Terminal concept. Could Oakland have sweetened the pot more in other ways to keep them? Maybe. But Fisher was never going to pony up.
I’m trying not to sound like a case of sour grapes because I really don’t feel that way. It was fun while it lasted … but it’s over.
Sports fandom is a transactional relationship, one in which the emotional investment is not reciprocal. I enjoy experiencing the range of feelings, but it’s also healthy to recognize I’m primarily a consumer target for these teams and leagues. Especially so when your team, by its own track record, is a transient franchise (Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland before this move).
I have no personal attachment to professional baseball anymore — and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, through his words, tone and actions, has made it very clear he does not value this Oakland fan. So I’ll take my business elsewhere.
Except, I’ll be an open-minded parent.
We’re planning to sign him up for sports soon; if he takes to baseball, I’ll be right there. And if he wants to root for the (Las Vegas, or West Sac, or Utah, or wherever) Athletics … or heaven forbid the Giants … I’ll sit next to him all smiles as he cheers. But that fandom will be his, not mine.
So as Fisher’s Athletics and Manfred’s MLB leave the East Bay, let me encourage them to shuffle out quickly as I swing the door shut behind them and turn the lock.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
