OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) 鈥� The Athletics had long ago carved out a Jekyll-and-Hyde legacy as one of Major League Baseball鈥檚 most successful 鈥� and sad-sack 鈥� franchises. Under their belts: nine World Series titles and 19 seasons of futility punctuated by 100 or more losses.
This, though, is different. Now, legions of A鈥檚 fans view the team as the sport鈥檚 most treacherous under the ownership of billionaire John Fisher, an heir of the family that founded The Gap in 1969 鈥� one year after the A鈥檚 moved to Oakland, California, from Kansas City, Missouri.
Just a few years after embracing 鈥淩ooted In Oakland鈥� as their motto, the A鈥檚 this week are coming to the end of their 57 see-sawing seasons in a city regularly overshadowed by the mystique of its storied neighbor, San Francisco.
鈥淚 know these times coming to the games are always going to be among the best years of my life,鈥� longtime A鈥檚 fan Will MacNeil, 40, rued as he contemplated the end of an era that鈥檚 crushing a community鈥檚 soul. 鈥淎nd for a billionaire owner to rip it away from me, it鈥檚 frustrating.鈥�
A baseball team that has moved twice moves again
The A鈥檚 exodus from Oakland will give the team the dubious distinction of being the first Major League Baseball franchise to have moved on four different occasions. After starting in Philadelphia in 1901, the A鈥檚 moved to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland in 1968, with California鈥檚 capital city of Sacramento and Las Vegas next in the peripatetic pipeline.
No place has been the A鈥檚 home for as long as Oakland, where they鈥檙e the last professional sports team in a two-county region known as the East Bay 鈥� home to 2.8 million people living across the water from San Francisco.
Through the years, the baseball team became an emblem of East Bay鈥檚 grit and flair. The A鈥檚 glory years have included the colorfully attired, mustachioed during the first half of the 1970s, the muscular and swaggering of the late 1980s, and the scrappy underdogs of the 2000s that yielded a real-life fairy tale based on the Michael Lewis book that ushered in the era of data-driven analysis.
Through those decades, the A鈥檚 stadium 鈥� the now-crumbling Oakland Coliseum 鈥� became an East Bay hub where people of all races, ages, incomes and backgrounds rallied around a common cause.
鈥淚t was really like the public square,鈥� lifelong A鈥檚 fan Jim Zelinski said earlier this year. His father brought him to the team鈥檚 first game at the Oakland Coliseum on April 17, 1968 鈥� a 4-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles before a crowd of 50,164.
Rooting for the A鈥檚 connected everyone from longshore workers at Oakland鈥檚 bustling port to the tech geeks of Silicon Valley to hippies from nearby Berkeley to technology to subversives forged in the cauldron of a city where Huey Newton started the Black Panthers and Sonny Barger led a notorious chapter of the Hells Angels.
鈥淭he A鈥檚 are such an indelible part of this community,鈥� Zelinski said. 鈥淓verybody was so proud of not only the teams, but there was also this sense of, 鈥楬ey, this is us! This is the East Bay!鈥欌��
The bond between fans and a community is strong
Other beloved sports teams have spurned their devoted fans by moving elsewhere through the decades, but none of them have been jilted in quite the same way as the East Bay.
The NFL鈥檚 Raiders already turned their back on Oakland twice. They did it first in 1982 when they moved to Los Angeles before coming back in 1995, only to leave for Las Vegas in 2020 鈥� the year after the National Basketball Association鈥檚 Warriors hopped over the bay to San Francisco.
鈥淚t鈥檚 taken so long for this move to evolve that it鈥檚 been like a slow death eating me up very single day,鈥� said A鈥檚 fan Mike Silva, 72, wiping away tears as he showed some of his old ticket stubs.
After the A鈥檚 decided to follow the Raiders to Las Vegas, Fisher poured more salt into Oakland fans鈥� wounds. Rather than stay in the Coliseum, Fisher choose to move the A鈥檚 85 miles northeast to a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento for at least the next three years while waiting for the new stadium in Nevada to be built.
"I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness," Fisher acknowledged in an open letter to fans released Monday. " I can tell you this from my heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal. It was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.鈥�
Some are coming out to the bitter end
Many devout A鈥檚 fans have been boycotting games in disgust this season. Those who still come, like Will MacNeil, regularly lead chants of 鈥淪ell the team!鈥欌�� before lobbing a profanity at Fisher.
MacNeil, known as 鈥淩ight-Field Will鈥� after being a fixture in the Coliseum鈥檚 bleachers for nearly 20 years, has accumulated about 200 A鈥檚 jerseys during his fandom. He estimates only 20 fit him now because of the weight he put on while drowning his sorrow about the team鈥檚 move in beers.
鈥淭his move really destroyed me,鈥� MacNeil said as he cheered the A鈥檚 on to a victory in May.
Zelinski, the fan who attended the A鈥檚 first game in 1968, spent nearly 30 years fighting to keep sports teams in Oakland. When the season started, he still didn鈥檛 want to believe it would all be to no avail.
鈥淚 had some of the greatest memories of my life at the Oakland Coliseum,鈥� Zelinski, 65, said in April. 鈥淭he A鈥檚 are such an irreplaceable part of the East Bay culture that I don鈥檛 think people can quite grasp what incredible sadness there is going to be like at that final game in September.鈥�
He will never find out. After a long battle with bladder cancer, Jim Zelinski died June 7 鈥� the same day that A鈥檚 outfielder JJ Bleday slugged a home run in the bottom of the ninth to catapult the team to a 2-1 victory.
Here in Oakland, as a quiet end approaches, that sets us up to leave you with that former Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once made about the sport. It hangs over Oakland this week like a misplaced curveball: 鈥淚t breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.鈥�
Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press
