How are things going in Oakland with the A’s, you ask, after the team’s owners traded all their good players and blamed it on not having a new stadium? Pretty much like you would expect:
First pitch at Coliseum pic.twitter.com/6aNyw4WMcg
— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) April 20, 2022
USA Today columnist Gabe Lacques elaborates:
The attendance – “announced” attendance, at that – 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….
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….
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.
Yes, it turns out that getting rid of anyone recognizable while raising prices and threatening to move the team every five minutes is not the best way of selling tickets, something that was firmly established back in 1989. Only there the twist was that the team started winning ballgames anyway, which, oh hey, lookit the American League leaders in best run differential:
Whether or not the slapdash A’s roster go on to win the pennant in a heartwarming romp, one would think the utter lack of humans in the stands at the Oakland Coliseum — which is also overrun by stray cats, not that that’s stopped any stadiums before — will make it hard on A’s owner John Fisher and his loyal henchman Dave Kaval if they need an angry mob of A’s fans to lobby Oakland officials for final approval of their billion dollars in city infrastructure spending instead of putting it up for a public vote, as Oakland voters unsurprisingly would prefer. It makes a little more sense if this is a secret plan to burn bridges in Oakland and allow a move to Las Vegas, though Nevada officials have so far offered zero money for a stadium there, so … anybody got a copy of the script for “Major League 4” who can skip ahead to the end to see how this all turns out?
LOL! This is pretty much what would happen at a hypothetical HT ballpark if it ever came to fruition… after A’s fans experience how AWFUL it is to get to/get out of!! Especially those who reside in places like Fremont, Dublin, Livermore, Hayward…heck! $an Jo$e (sigh); you know, where the vast majority of A’s fans reside.
Funny, as a former fan in $J, it would be easier to see the A’s play in Vegas than it would be at HT/Oak; quick 1-hour SW flight and Uber/Lyft to Strip ballpark, vs fighting traffic up 880 and getting bottled up in Jack London Square, or taking BART to downtown Oak and walking over a mile through a homeless, crime-infested urban wasteland..
Pretty sure urban wastelands can’t be homeless. (Also downtown Oakland wasn’t an urban wasteland last time I was there a couple of years back, though the Thai food was overpriced.)
You obviously didn’t walk over a mile from downtown Oak proper to JLS Neil; under 880 and across the busy UPRR/Capitol Corridor rail line. BTW, wasn’t The South Bronx considered an “urban wasteland” in the 1970’s with folks living there?
I didn’t walk to JLS, no, because nobody in their right mind would try to cross all those highways/train tracks. But that has nothing to do with crime.
The South Bronx was mostly considered a wasteland in the 1970s because landlords kept setting fire to their properties for insurance purposes. My family’s veterinarian was there, so I actually walked around it a fair bit (though not to go to Yankee games, as I was a Met fan).
Thanks for the history Neil re The South Bronx. In terms of that 1+ mile hypothetical walk in downtown Oak/JLS; let’s just say I wouldn’t do it after a night frame, especially with a family in tow.
You should still blame the Blue Ribbon committee and The Giants for your San Jose A’s being dashed.
Funny my 2022 self (or sad). The BRC never released their findings from their early 2010’s study. I’ve been told by a trusted source that we will never know what the BRC ruled/found re Bay Area baseball unless said findings were “leaked.” I wonder why? This $J guy wouldn’t mind some closure after all these years. ?
In addition to there being no public announcement of what the public financing would be in LV, there has been very scant public boosterism in LV. Which is interesting since public financing has gone into turbo drive the past year.
Yeah. For a team that I have already designated as being more or less portable, there isn’t much of a line up of host cities willing to throw money at it.
Sometimes I don’t understand people at all.
Except for a few places in California, there seems to be an unlimited supply of taxpayer money for stadiums. I’d say the A’s optimism for a solution based on somebody else’s money is pretty well-founded.
It’s less a money supply issue in California than differences in who controls it. If New York state residents had been allowed to hold a referendum on the Bills stadium money, it would almost certainly have gone down in flames.
I think I have an interesting Homework Assignment. If the A’s decided to move to Sacramento and held a public referendum on public financing on at least the same amount the Padres got, would it pass? Oakland NO, San Fran NO, LA No, SD maybe not today, Sacramento … Hmm?
Sacramento is a NO also. A lot of citizens still think that Golden 1 Center will bankrupt them. I don’t see them voting for another facility.
Somehow I don’t see Mark Kotsay tearing pieces of clothing off a life sized cardboard cutout of John Fisher in the A’s clubhouse after victories as being much of a motivational tool.