Oakland Athletics' Frankie Montas pitches against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning of a baseball game in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, May 4, 2022.
A's — 'Being an A's fan was starting to feel like a bad Lifetime movie'
... “Being an A's fan was starting to feel like a bad Lifetime movie,” Willis of Concord, California, wrote — threats to leave followed by charming success; teardowns; a hope that sufficient love, loyalty (and money) will convince them to stay.”
The team’s lease at the Coliseum runs through only 2024 and extending it is essentially not an option given the state of the stadium.
“Oakland's in a critical situation,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in October. “We've had to open up the opportunity to explore other locations just because it's dragged on so long. Frankly, in some ways we're not sure we see a path to success in terms of getting something built in Oakland.”
That ominous allusion was accompanied by the franchise’s explicit exploration of following the once Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. More recently, the plan for a new park at the Howard Terminal site at the Port of Oakland — first discussed back in 2018 — has seemed to pick up steam. But the threat of leaving lingers over a season that they’ve started 14-19....
“It’s not like this is the first time the A’s have low attendance,” he wrote. “But it does feel like the first time that the team has completely alienated their fans.”
It’s early in the season, but the numbers are grim. The A’s are the only team with an average crowd less than 10,000. They’ve seen the most precipitous drop off in attendance of any team since 2019, and even diehards are losing interest.
“People have talked about the A's going here or there for so long I just have a general malaise about the whole situation,” wrote 35-year-old Andrew Patrick.
He lives just 20 minutes from the Coliseum, but hasn’t gone to any games this season. It’s not all the relocation talk, per se. The experience just isn’t worth it anymore.
The A’s emerged from MLB’s lockout ready to sell, and ended up trading three of their best players — Matt Olson, Matt Chapman and Chris Bassitt — to keep their payroll second lowest behind Pittsburgh and load up on prospects. The lack of competitiveness from the outset and the fact that amenities at the Coliseum seem worse even than before have eroded his commitment to the team....
“I don’t think there is anything an A’s fan can actually do, attendance related or otherwise, to influence events toward our desired goals as fans,” wrote Ricky Dunham, 41, of Murrieta, California. “Mr. Fisher has his own goals and he’s going to respond to events in whatever manner supports those goals. So if we don’t attend games, he gets to cite low attendance and talk relocation and we lose. If we do attend games, he makes more money, nothing changes, and we still lose.”
And, so, for the most part, they don’t attend games and photos of empty seats at A’s games will circulate on Twitter — because the product is bad, the future uncertain and the prices are disproportionate with the experience. Or because some fans still have faith that a soft boycott might make a difference. But not because the A’s don’t have fans to begin with.
“The Coliseum is my happy place. It's basically a second home. I've gone to games there my whole life. It would kill me to have to go less because of the price hikes and it kills me even more to not go at all in protest. But I've been taken for granted and taken advantage of by John Fisher and his ownership group for far too long, enough is enough,” wrote Willis, whose ardent email was at the start of this story.
“All those A's games with announced attendance less than 10% of capacity? That's not because the East Bay doesn't love baseball, because we do.”
Plenty of cats for adoption as pets, awww . . . or for dinner. 
. Baltimore is just 1/2 game ahead of the AL East cellar-dwelling Boston.
