Oakland A's Dragged Over 'Cheap' Retirement Gift for Miguel Cabrera

Stacey Ritzen
·4 min read
12

Miguel Cabrera has been getting a lot of love from the MLB in his final season with the Detroit Tigers before riding off into the sunset. But fans were left unimpressed with his retirement gift from the Oakland A's on Thursday night, after the team valued at over $1 billion gave the 40-year-old designated hitter a bottle of wine valued at around $80.

"The Oakland A’s present Miguel Cabrera with his going away gift in his final visit to the Bay Area," wrote Detroit sportscaster Johnny Kane on X, formerly Twitter, along with a short video clip of Cabrera graciously accepting the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Though the bottle had been signed by the whole team, it falls miles short of how other teams have honored the future Hall of Famer in his final season. For comparison, the Yankees presented Cabrera with a painting of his 2013 game-tying home run, along with a custom Yankee Stadium subway sign autographed by the team and a $10,000 check to his Miguel Cabrera Foundation nonprofit that helps young athletes.

Likewise, the Los Angeles Dodgers had a Hollywood star dedicated to Cabrera, while he received a custom surfboard from the Angels, a custom guitar from the Guardians, and cigars, a custom cigar box, and his favorite rum from the Marlins.

In other words, it's not difficult to see how the A's gift fell flat. It's not even a particularly expensive bottle of wine. "This is by far the worst gift I have ever seen," seethed one fan, while another asked if "the best we could do is a bottle of wine?" For that kind of money, you could get yourself a burger, fries, and whiskey on the rocks at the Newark Airport.

And that was just the start of the ire, as you can see from some of the other reactions, below.

One fan even predicted the subpar gift ahead of time.

Others pointed out that the gift was particularly tone deaf considering that Cabrera is in recovery from alcohol addiction, and spent three months in a treatment center in 2010.

To be fair, the A's weren't the only team to gift Miggy an alcoholic gift. In addition to the bottle of rum from the Marlins, the Houston Astros also gave Cabrera a bottle of wine from manager Dusty Baker's personal vineyard along with a cowboy hat. But if it's the thought that counts, fans definitely have a reason to be scratching their heads over this one.