Oakland Athletics: For One Week In 2023, The Baseball Gods Hated John Fisher

It was all going so well for Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher in April. His team was terrible, local government officials in Oakland were giving up on negotiations and progress on a new stadium in Las Vegas had never been smoother. He was always the antagonist to most — an ambitious owner slashing costs and tanking for greener pastures. But at least his plan was working.

On June 6, the A’s bounced back from a five-game losing streak to soundly defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-2. They took the series the next day to begin their third winning streak of the season. Yes, you read that correctly. It was the third time all season that Oakland had won two games in a row.

The following day, the Nevada State Senate adjourned without voting on the Athletics’ proposal to build a new stadium in Las Vegas. Even if the bill did pass on June 8, it only allocates $380 million worth of public funding for the new stadium, projected to cost $1.5 billion.

It’s a headache either way for Fisher, who dreamt of being welcomed by Nevada citizens (and taxpayers) with welcome arms, only to have to come up with more than $1 billion elsewhere or lose his chance to move. But the players weren’t concerned about any of that. They were on a bus to Wisconsin.

After taking two out of three from the highly touted Pirates, the Athletics traveled to Milwaukee and swept the Brewers, the other top team in the NL Central. Oakland had a five-game winning streak against legitimate competition and improved to 17-50 on the year. In the team’s return to the Oakland Coliseum, the 48-20 Rays awaited, along with the most highly anticipated event of the MLB season.

At most home games this season, protests about the team’s prospective departure from Oakland have been enthusiastic but relatively muted by paltry attendance numbers. Despite having the largest stadium in MLB, the Athletics rank dead last in attendance and have for several years, earning less than 10,000 fans per game since 2021. It was one of the justifications for Fisher to move in the first place. The reverse boycott was a direct response to that misplaced blame.

In an effort to demonstrate that ownership, not the fans, had abandoned baseball in Oakland, fans decided several months ago to schedule a reverse boycott on Tuesday, June 13. They chose to try and sell out the arena in an attempt to show Fisher that his decisions, from profit-motivated payroll cuts to ticket gouging and a general lack of effort in recent years, had driven away a diehard fanbase. As if in response to the fans’ vitriol, the Athletics defeated the Rays in the first game of their series to carry a six-game winning streak into Tuesday night.

Some labeled it a total farce beforehand, but no one could question the reverse boycott’s effectiveness as it was happening. More than 27,000 fans were raucous for nine straight innings, throwing garbage on the field and imploring Fisher to sell the team. A’s players responded to the energy again. Hogan Harris, who has a 4.84 ERA in 2023, threw seven innings of one-run ball against the best team in the league and carried Oakland into the eighth inning.

In the bottom of the 8th, the 18-50 Athletics took a lead against Tampa Bay in the most heroic fashion possible: a soft ground ball to third base off the bat of pinch hitter Carlos Perez. The crowd exploded and barely had time to recover before closer Trevor May struck out Jose Siri to end the game and extend Oakland’s winning streak to seven.

It was hard not to see a future for Oakland baseball after that game, even as that future diminishes with each passing day. The Athletics lost to the Rays the following day in front of 7,055 fans. They lost again Thursday to split the series and begin their 11th losing streak of the season.

On Tuesday night, the same night as the reverse boycott, the Nevada State Senate finally passed the bill for the new stadium proposal. The State Assembly passed it the following day. It is virtually ensured now that Fisher will get what he wants. It’s a heartbreaking epilogue to a hopelessly romantic tale, one in which the unstoppable gears of bureaucracy and profit-based decision-making slowed just enough to allow the Athletics players and their fans to take center stage in their own story, if only for a week.

What a week it was, though.

Article by Patrick Moquin