When I first started watching Oakland play, they had good attendance, great players (some of them were needle spiking juicers, I know) and were in the running for a world series just about every year. They went through many years playing a terrible brand of baseball and many of the casual fans took a hike. In the late nineties and at the turn of the century, they had a resurgence. The general manager, Billy Beane (Moneyball guy) stocked the farm system with young players who turned into stars and they made a decent run to October for a good six or seven years. They never won a world series but they made great progress and had some amazing seasons that made the fans proud The fans were going crazy for Oakland A's baseball, it was a huge party out at that dump they share with The Raidas and it was really baseball fandom at it's finest. That dream came to a terrible end when Beane and the ownership group got really cheap and decided signing young superstars to long term deals and keeping them in Oakland long term was not a good idea. Those players walked and went on to do great things with other teams. Some of them flopped (See Mark Mulder and Barry Zito) and I give them credit for recognizing that some of the players peaked while in Oakland and were not worthy of long term contracts. The one guy they gave big jack to, Eric Chavez, has been a complete disaster. He signed a 6 year $ 66 million contract in 2004 and he was hurt roughly everyday since then and is now on his way out of baseball all together. I could go into great detail with an anger fueled rant about all the players I mentioned in the previous few sentences, but I've convinced myself that I have moved on. Maybe another day.
The issue at hand is actually fairly simple when you look at it from a fan of any other team. Team wins games, fans show up; they lose and get rid of players the fans jump ship. Well, it's not that simple. The lack of success in Oakland and the revolving door of young players coming up from the farm system and leaving for greener pastures is quite remarkable for a successful franchise. If it were say, Kansas City, Arizona or Milwaukee, I don't think anybody would be shocked or spend much time wondering what the hell happened. But this is Oakland. The third most successful baseball franchise, based on world series trophies, in the history of major league baseball. Yeah, the franchise started in Philly and was in Kansas City and then came West, but The Athletics are the Athletics and I can't change that. It is what it is.
I am sure there are a few CEO's and CFO's in the business world who could explain all of this to me using really big words and a bunch of business school terms that I only care about when I sit down to watch the movie Wall Street, but honestly, that's not what I care about. I care about baseball. I care about the die hard fans who show up for the team regardless of how frequently the owner sticks it to them. I care about the franchise as a whole and it's success for generations to come. That brings me to my purpose for writing this column/article/blog entry. I've been to plenty of A's games over the years and most recently, I went to a game in 2009 and was one of about 8,421 fans. The team sucked, the stadium is a dump and overall it was a terrible fan experience. I drove away from that game bitching at my poor girlfriend at the time, who is from New York and grew up a Yankee fan, and she had no clue what I was talking about or why I was forcing her to listen. I told her "I'm not going to another game until these owners do something about the stadium, start spending real money on player development and figure out what their plan is. Until that happens, my ass is on strike!" She lit her cigarette and asked where were going for drinks.
I am proud to say that I went on strike that day and have not been to a game since. Clearly I am not alone because despite a semi mediocre product and a moderate level of success in the 2010 season, fans don't show their face in the Biggity Biggity O anymore and I am glad they don't. When a team gives up on their fans, they don't have anything else. Who do you sell your product to if the fans have given up? Who's going to watch the team if the fans are on strike? At times, I have a bit of sadness in my heart when I think of the players on this team trying to make a name for themselves playing in front of 8,500 fans. But that's not my problem. All I can do is stand on my soap box (this is my literary soap box, a keyboard and space to bitch) and tell fans not to show up until the ownership group gives us something to believe in. I can't get them to reach deeper in their pockets to sign better players; I can't build a downtown ballpark that resembles the best ballpark in the country, AT&T Park, which is a short drive away from downtown Oakland. I want to love my team again. I want to buy seats close to the team dugout again. I want to fist pump and knock knuckles with strangers in the seats around me after the team scores a run or wins a game against division rival LA Angels of Orange County near Anaheim. I can't do that today. Not only because it's February and the season hasn't begun, but because the ownership group in Oakland won't allow me the privilege. Until you give me back the fan experience that I love so very much and prove to me that you are willing to spend the millions you get in luxury tax from the big spenders in MLB instead of shoving that cash in your wallet, you can't have my money, you can't get me to sport my A's gear and you definitely will not get me to spend a day at your shitty stadium pulling for a shitty team. Call me when you get your shit together and maybe we can have make up sex. Until then, this fans on strike.
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