It was Oakland’s day. There wasn’t anything the Rangers could do about it. They certainly didn’t try hard.
Some 46,889 fans packed Oakland Dump.com to say fareware to their beloved team. It was the largest crowd ever for a major league team’s last home game in a city forever. These fans loved their team. They just hated their owner, John Fisher, who was the son of the couple who started The Gap, inherited his fortune, and, unfortunately for Oakland Athletics fans, decided to use the money mommy and daddy gave him to buy their favorite baseball team and, like a spoiled brat, burn it to the ground.
Payroll isn’t an indicator of success, but it is an indicator of commitment, and Oakland’s payroll is always last in all of MLB, or near last. This year’s total team payroll was $62.8 million dollars. Or, to put that another way, it was Seager plus Semien.
Fisher is the owner who sells off his All-Star players instead of paying them. That’s why Matt Olson is in Atlanta, and Matt Chapman is in San Francisco. It’s why Marcus Semien is in Texas, via Toronto. Cole Irvin is in Batlimore, Frankie Montas is in Milwaukee. Players find success in Oakland. They find contracts elsewhere. That’s why Oakland is inconstant rebuilding churn. They will be good for a few years, then they get stripped down to the studs, they are horrible for years and years until they get good again, then the selling off happens all over again.
Here’s a surprising bit of trivia. The Oakland Athletics won the American League West in 2020. Not Houston. Oakland. Then all those players were sold off.
The 2024 Athletics have great young players that will not be Athletics once they have reached free agency years. It’s doubtful this pattern will change now that the team is fleeing Oakland for—?
Sacramento for a few years then Vegas? The Vegas part of this is not a done deal. The owner is so cheap, instead of getting a larger parcel of land to build an air-conditioned domed stadium in Las Vegas, he chose a smaller parcel of land and is planning on building an open-air stadium. In Las Vegas. Where it’s hotter than Dallas. They still have not broken ground on the stadium, which is a huge red flag.
Baseball has to suffer through owners like John Fisher and Jerry Reinsdorf, who has destroyed the White Sox, or Charles Montfort, the Rockies owner who never saw a roster he couldn’t make worse. And because of it, fans in those cities have to suffer along.
Oakland won’t have to suffer anymore. The Athletics are Sacramanto’s problem now.
The Rangers rolled over and played dead for them in their last home game ever. A proper send off to an improper farewell.
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TODAY’S GAME:
