The Oakland A's are playing some of the best baseball of any team in the bigs right now and I'm happy for the team, but I'm happier for the fans. Quick background for those who don't know my back story. When all my friends were growing up Giants fans, I was an A's fan. I've been through the highs and lows of this franchise and a few years back, I went on strike. I jumped ship in year 6 of a 3 year rebuilding plan. I haven't been to a game at O.Co since April of 2008, I haven't watched an entire game on TV since around the same time and my passion for this franchise, which was once strong enough to get me out to games 5 hours before first pitch, 25-30 times a season has faded completely.
I know how easy it would be to follow them now, to watch them while they are playing their best brand of baseball since they were murdered and swept by Detroit in the 2006 ALCS. It would be so easy to buy a ticket to the weekend series against the New York Yankees, head out on Sunday and just sit there. Not cheering, not yelling and not hating, just observing. I'm not going to do that because I am a stubborn sob, to put it lightly. When I jumped ship, it was a way of expressing my concerns about the greater good of this once proud franchise. A franchise with more world series trophies than all but 2 teams in baseball. Rumors of the team moving to Las Vegas, Portland and other cities have circulated for years now. The fantasy of a downtown ballpark have wet the appetite of many an A's fan. The possibility of the San Jose A's was once a nearly done deal and now has become an absolute disaster. The list of excuses made by ownership is so long and pathetic that even good ole Bud Selig won't do anything about it, despite the fact that he and Lou Wolff have been friends for the better part of 40 years.
I'm glad this team is playing a good brand of baseball because the fans deserve some excitement during the baseball season. However, this doesn't erase all the factors that lead me to run away from this team in the first place. When I made that decision, I told myself I wouldn't drift back just because the team played better, won some games and made progress. My issues with this team do not have short term resolutions, they are long term problems that will need to be addressed over a long period of time and until I see progress on a new stadium, an answer on territorial rights with San Francisco and the owners are not named Wolff and Fisher, I refuse to play ball. It's highly likely that my days of wearing green and gold, tailgating in the parking lot, screaming and yelling at Red Sox fans as they overflow the stadium, are in the rear view mirror. Those days are behind me now and as I look back on my experience as an A's fan, aside from the bitterness, resentment and anger, I am reminded of the love I had for my team. The passion I shared with so many great fans can never be forgotten or replaced and as I write this today, I am able to accept that somewhere in the Bay Area, there is a kid visiting the stadium for the first time. Watching his or her first baseball game and the love for the team is growing inside of them. I'm hopeful that the A's and their ownership group are thinking of them too, but based on my experience, it's unlikely and that's a shame.
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