Baseball, You Done Me Wrong - The Rise and Fall of a Baseball Fan

Baseball, You Done Me Wrong - The Rise and Fall of a Baseball Fan

Baseball has always been my favorite sport and with the exception of the years between 1968 and 1973, I have followed the sport closely, filling my head with largely useless baseball trivia. I grew up a New York Yankee fan. As a result, I was about as spoiled a baseball fan as one could be. The Yankees won the World Series the first 5 years of my life. While one might argue, and have a very good case, that both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cleveland Indians looked to have superior rosters, it was the Yankees who dominated the baseball world in the 50's. They won 9 American League (AL) pennants and 7 World Series in the 10 year period between 1949 and 1958, the first 10 years of my life. They played 154 games in those days and the Yankees averaged 96 victories. The 2 World Series they lost went the full 7 games. The year they failed to win the pennant, 1954, they still won 103 games only to come in second to Cleveland. In 1959 they lost out to the “Go Go” White Sox, but they followed that by winning the AL pennant the next 5 years, 1960 – 1964, during which they captured 2 more World Series. By the time I was 16 the Yankees had been in all but 2 World Series during my life, and had won 11 of them. As a sports fan, I was living the life.

As they say, all good things must come to an end and things changed but I had become accustomed to my team winning. In 1964 CBS bought the Yankees. It seemed like for them it was just another business and frankly they were an incompetent ownership group. You can't successfully run a baseball team like a big corporation. Decisions need to be quick and decisive. The Yankees became a mediocre team and did not win another pennant for 12 years. Their losing took some of the fun out of following them.  CBS ended up selling the team ten years later, 1973, to one George Steinbrenner, who was loud mouthed, impatient, and egotistical. His bombastic personality rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't like that he seemed to treat people badly. I will say this for George, he cared about the team and put money and resources into it. As a fan I appreciated that. He was also highly motivated to win and under George the Yankees finally returned to their (my?) accustomed level of being on top of the baseball world. The Yankees won the AL pennant in 76, 77, and 78 winning 2 more World Series.

Yogi, Whitey, and Mickey - 3 stars of the 50's Yankees

Still, Steinbrenner was just too much for me and my interest in the Yankees waned. It didn't help that I moved to the West Coast, never to return in 1974. I weaned myself off the Yankees and started looking for another AL team. I latched on to the Oakland A's,who were owned by the notorious Charlie O. Finley. Unfortunately for me it was just as they were declining after a successful stretch where they won 3 World Series in a row.

I initially followed them from afar as I was living in Oregon. In the fall of 1978 I moved down to San Francisco and became a full fledged Oakland A's fan. I started attending A's games at the Coliseum in the 1979 season. They were a bad team which was an adjustment for me. But, in 1980 Charlie O hired Billy Martin to manage the team. They still were a mostly a bunch of unknown, or if known, marginally competent ballplayers but Billy instilled an exciting, aggressive style of play. It became known as “Billy Ball” and the team finished the year with a winning record.

In August of 1980 the Haas family, headed by Walter J. Haas, bought the Oakland A's baseball club from Charles O. Finley for 13 Million. Haas's stepping in to buy the A's prevented the team from leaving town as Charlie was about to sell the team to Marvin Davis who planned to relocate the A's to Denver. Walter felt it was important to keep two MLB teams in the Bay Area. He would later play a significant role in keeping the Giants in the Bay Area when they were about to skip out to Florida. Again, because he thought the Bay Area was richer for having two teams. Unfortunately the Giants have failed to reciprocate and in fact seem rather eager for the A's to leave town. It's the main reason I can't get myself to root for the Giants. The Bay Area misses you Walter J. Haas.  Anyway, Charlie had largely gutted the team as well as the scouting and administrative staff to keep costs down during his reign. But the Haas family promised to put in the time and resources to build the club back up. The 1981 season was the year of Fernando Valenzuela but more notably, “The Strike”. The season was interrupted that summer and as a result the middle third of the season was lost. The A's managed to make it into the playoffs beating Kansas City but eventually losing to those darn Yankees in the AL Championship Series.

Encouraged, I called the office that winter inquiring about season ticket plans. They were very friendly and invited me down to the stadium to visit. We set up a time and I drove over the Coliseum and parked right in front as instructed. I was greeted by someone from the office who gave me a tour of the offices and showed me all the team's championship trophies. I was then escorted out to the stadium where I was shown all the places where tickets were available. I was encouraged to try out the various seat locations to see what would work for me. I sat in a few different places and picked out a couple of seats in section 117 on the aisle (116 section side) in row 24 or maybe it was 25. It was right behind home plate. I bought a 20 something game package and they threw in the last home game of the season for free. They also threw in tickets to two additional games. The seats were fantastic! An additional perk was this was a section that often included scouts which made for interesting conversations, not to mention that they all had speed guns to clock the speed of the pitches being thrown. This was well before they showed pitch speeds on the scoreboards.

In '82 the A's returned to their losing ways but they now had some interesting young players. Players like Tony Armas, Dwayne Murphy, Rick Langford, Mike Norris, and a guy named Ricky Henderson who was doing exciting stuff, especially on the base paths, like going first to third or from second to home on a ground out. However, Billy once again resorted to his self destructive behavior and was let go. He was followed by Steve Boros, Jackie Moore, and finally Jeff Newman. We finally got Tony LaRussa in the middle of 1986 season. Tony would lead us back to the Promised Land.

When Heidi and I got together I had these season tickets and now she started going to games with me. She wasn't a big baseball fan but had previously been a Giants fan. The first 11 games I took Heidi to the A's won, sometimes in a glorious way. She was hooked. I tried to explain that the A's were not really a good team, she was just lucky. They just happened to always win when she was there. She didn't make it to every game but she probably saw at least 15 games with me that season and I think she only saw them lose twice. The team finished the season 25 games out of first place....

In '87, La Russa's first full year, the A's started to turn a corner. In '88 they were the top team in the AL and the next year, 1989, the year of the earthquake, they beat the Giants in the World Series four straight. In 1988 I married Kris and we moved to Rocklin. That year we shared season tickets with a friend from Consilium. After that, it was just too long of a drive so I let them go, but I remained a huge fan and still attended games here and there..

It's now 2023, 35 years later. I have remained a loyal fan and have been a daily lurker on the A's Nation Blog as well as reading most everything else I can find about the A's. I have even followed their minor league players. After Walter Haas passed away the family sold the team to Schott & Hofman at a discount because they promised to keep the team in the Bay Area. They were cheap owners.  They put a tight limit on what they put into the team,. They were just looking to make a profit, but at least they did try to keep the team competitive. When they bought the team the A's was drawing 2 million fans a year, outdrawing the Giants across the Bay. In 2005 Schott & Hofman sold the team to current owner, billionaire John Fisher and his partner, Lew Wolff.  Joe Lacob, the current owner of the Warriors basketball team, wanted to buy the A's but MLB Commissioner, Bud Selig handed it to his old fraternity brother Lew Wolff. Us A's fans can only fantasize as to what might have been if we'd had an owner like Lacob willing to invest in the team, as he has done as owner of the Warriors.

Fisher has been equally cheap. Well, equally is generous. In baseball, players can only negotiate their salary through arbitration for their first 6 years in the Majors, and only with the team who owns them, a process that limits their salary. After 6 years they can negotiate freely and for good players this is where those big contracts begin. Cheap teams, like the A's, try to build their teams with players in that 6 year window. For years the A's have traded or let go of their best players when the team lost control of their salary. The A's would either just let them go, they used to be compensated with draft choices, or trade them during that 6^th year. As a result the A's go into a mini rebuilding period every 5 or 6 years. However, in the past they would bring in some decent players in an attempt to stay competitive and bridge the gap until the next crop of young players developed. A's fans have learned to accept this cycle. However this time they traded those players a year early, with one or more arbitration years left. These players had just reached their peak. Evidently Fisher was unwilling to even pay the later arbitration years' salaries. The window we fans all wait for was closed early. All our star players are now playing their last arbitration years on other teams when they should have still been with us while this year's team is on pace to replace the '62 Mets as the worst team in the last 100 years.

The A's initially wanted to build a new stadium in San Jose about 60 miles south of San Francisco. The Commissioner's office would not approve due to the Giants objecting. If you look at the map of the Bay Area and you wanted to place two baseball teams within that area you would pick San Francisco and San Jose. Oakland is less than 15 miles from SF. San Jose is the 3^rd largest city in California, larger than San Francisco who is 4th. Oakland sits at 8^th .  Plus Oakland is in between the other two. Walter Haas had ceded the San Jose area to the Giants when they were about to move Denver so they would have the option to build in Santa Clara County if they needed to. They didn't. Now the Giants not only will not help the A's but selfishly want them gone. Wolff dropped out of the picture after MLB ruled that the A's could not build a new stadium in the San Jose area.

Fisher has further diluted the product on the field, while at the same time sharply raising ticket prices. In addition he has eliminated popular game purchasing plans. It appears he is purposely driving down attendance in order to justify any action he would like to take in regards to the team. Even worse, MLB has been supporting him the whole way with little regard for the fans. Even the press likes to harp on the A's attendance rarely mentioning anything about the team's disregard of the fans. Oakland fans are passionate but not stupid. Fans are alienated and purposely staying away, including the drummers who sit in the outfield because of how we are being treated. The baseball world likes to blame the fans and the  ballpark.  The Commissioner blames the City of Oakland, and the State of California. California? There are 4 other teams in California who have managed to do just fine.

Fisher has recently announced that they are moving the team to Las Vegas. I'm 74 years old as I write this and I have been a lifelong baseball fan. I will not be following the A's and once again I find I myself without a team. Worse, MLB has managed to alienate me to the point where I am hardly following any baseball this year. Baseball, you've been the number one sport in heart. You were the number one sport in the country when I was young. Now you are at best third and likely soon to be the fourth sport in the U.S. The problem isn't California. The problem isn't Oakland. The problem isn't the fans. The problem is the Fischer ownership and you, the MLB leadership. To Fischer I say: Stop threatening me and just move your anemic team and so I can move on. To MLB: The party is over. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.