‘Lying through his teeth’: Oakland A’s fans are heartbroken, angry over Sacramento move
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Members of the Oakland Athletics’ devoted fan base are livid after the team’s owners announced Thursday that the A’s would relocate to Sacramento starting next year, a move some said would forever stain Major League Baseball.
Ever since the team’s current owner John Fisher began considering a move in pursuit of a state-of-the-art stadium, a movement of heartbroken Oakland A’s fans have staged dozens of events and protests against him for what they say is a flagrant pursuit of profit.
“Despite what you heard at John Fisher’s press conference about how excited and how welcoming Sacramento is, the greater Sacramento fan base is not welcoming the A’s with open arms,” said Bryan Johansen, co-owner of the Last Dive Bar fan group.
“Sacramento A’s fans are not stupid. They don’t believe what a billionaire is sitting there trying to shove down their throats.”
Over years of boycotts and in-stadium protests, the die-hard fan group has been urging Fisher to sell the team. The group is affectionately named after the team’s Coliseum stadium, historically derided as dingy. The New York Times called it “affordable, gritty and fun.”
During his announcement, Fisher said it’s a dream to play in West Sacramento’s Triple-A Sutter Health Park stadium, now home to the River Cats.
“He’s lying through is teeth. Ain’t no dream to play in a Triple-A ballpark. This was a 3rd, 4th, 5th option at best,” said Johansen, a San Jose resident and decades-long A’s fan. He expects protests will only pick up steam.
“We’re going to make our presence known in Sacramento,” he said. “The fans are pissed off and they want to voice their frustration. We’re not going to sit back idly.”
Even more recent fans are expressing deep disappointment with the move. Hunter Dreidame said he and his wife, Laila, have been taking their 3 year-old son Elijah, who lives with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, to A’s games for the last couple years.
The parents are reluctant to break the news to their son, because of his love for the Coliseum and his team. Dreidame said Elijah wakes up chanting “Let’s go Oakland” and goes to sleep singing “Take me out to the ball game.” The other day he randomly started chanting “Sell the team.”
“It’s hard to use the word passion for a 3-year-old, but you know he’s passionate. He loves music, he loves dancing and he loves the A’s,” he said. “The people there are so kind too, all the security and the ushers. As a parent of a child with disabilities, you really cherish those places.”
Several fans, on social media and in conversations with The Sacramento Bee, called out Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé, who also owns the River Cats, for facilitating a move they deemed hypocritical.
In a press release Thursday, Ranadivé said he believed “saving” the Kings “would bring untold benefits” to Sacramento when no one else did. Now Sacramento is a Major League Baseball city, he said.
“It’s so frustrating that an owner such as Vivek who prides himself on saving the Sacramento Kings is sitting here being a complete scab by ripping our team away from Oakland,” Johansen said.
“What these people have shown is they don’t care what fans think or feel.”
Sacramento resident Carl London grew up going to A’s games in the 1970s as a kid with his dad and calls his fandom of the team “a love affair.” But out of frustration with the team’s ownership, he will not be attending the team’s future games in Sacramento.
“It has completely eroded my interest in Major League Baseball,” said London, 60.
“Watching what the community of A’s fans have gone through and seeing the parallels here, where we almost lost the Kings, it’s amazing that this Sacramento contingent was so willing to offer this guy a parachute.”
