Close to Home: Fans lose as A’s owners strike out

I was blessed to spend 11 seasons in the front office of the Oakland Athletics, from 1981 through 1991. At the time, the team was owned Walter Haas and his family, who also owned Levi Strauss.

If one were to list the qualities of an ideal team owner, Haas checked all the boxes. He was there to win and was willing to invest what it took to build an organization and acquire the personnel necessary to achieve success on the field.

He also appreciated fun and innovative promotional strategies and provided us the resources to build a ballpark experience that was welcoming to everyone, from the most die-hard fan with pencil and score card to a young family looking for a memorable way to spend a summer afternoon.

The results? Oakland A’s teams of the late 1980s and early ’90s were among the most competitive and entertaining in the history of Bay Area sports. Homegrown heroes like Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson carried on the tradition of legendary athletes who had honed their skills on dusty Oakland sports fields. Attendance soared to nearly 3 million per season and everyone from your grocery clerk to your grandmother was sporting A’s gear.

Most importantly, the Haas family understood they were not ordinary business owners. They were stewards of a valued and historic community resource, and it was their responsibility to nurture and deploy its power to build community pride and support good causes.

Case in point. In 1987, the A’s hosted the All-Star Game and we had nearly three years to plan how we would take advantage of our moment in the sun. About 18 months before the game, we presented a detailed plan to leverage the game and squeeze every possible dollar from our supporters, from season-ticket holders to corporate sponsors. Haas’ reaction? “Well, that’s great, but your priority should be to use this game and everything around it to make a positive statement to the world about the city of Oakland.”

So, Plan A landed in the waste bin, and Plan B evolved in a new direction. We created a Celebrate Oakland committee, including everyone from political and business leaders to schools, youth sports leagues and grassroots community groups. Every news organization that arrived to cover the game was fed nuggets of Oakland history and positive stories about what was going on in our city.

The All-Star workout the day before the game sold out for the first time ever and the proceeds endowed a perpetual scholarship for top Bay Area scholastic athletes. The gala party the night before the game, which had traditionally been an exclusive affair for the sport’s elite, was transformed into a community celebration with fireworks and the relighting of the Necklace of Lights around Lake Merritt, which had been dark since World War II. Commissioner Peter Ueberroth said the Oakland event would be the new standard against which future All-Star Games would be measured.

The Haas family was not operating a charity. When they sold the team shortly before Walter’s death in 1995, they turned a nice profit from the $12 million they paid Charlie Finley in 1980. But those profits derived from years of investment to build a strong organization and a brand that was embraced as a community asset. What’s more, Haas discounted the price in exchange for the new owners’ commitment to keep the team in Oakland.

Contrast that record with the current owners. John Fisher, who inherited his wealth from his father, the founder of Gap, appears to view his tenure with the team as little more than an opportunity for self-enrichment. For years, the A’s have benefited from a revenue sharing program in Major League Baseball intended to transfer money from large market teams to those in smaller markets, allowing them to invest in player salaries and maintain a competitive balance in the sport. (How the Bay Area, with over 8 million residents, qualifies as a “small market” is a separate story.)

What has Fisher done with that generous subsidy? Apparently, it went in his pocket, because any A’s player who moves beyond minimal earning power is quickly hustled off in trades or abandoned free-agency opportunities. A’s fans learned not to develop an emotional attachment to rising stars because they would soon be sporting opposing uniforms. The current product on the field is an embarrassment to the sport, and the A’s response has been to raise ticket prices. That fans still show up at games is a puzzlement.

After years of flogging the absurdly complex Howard Terminal stadium project, which would have required a nearly $1 billion public subsidy, the A’s appear destined for the bright lights of Las Vegas, assuming Nevada and Clark County political leaders are prepared to pony up nearly $400 million in public bonds and tax rebates.

Most baseball fans can vividly recall the details of their first game. My father took me to Candlestick Park when I was 7 where we saw Willie McCovey hit a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth to grab a comeback victory over the Pirates. A fan was born. How sad that those who came of age in the glory days of the green and gold will miss the opportunity to pass on that experience and nurture the next generation of fans. How sad that this former source of identity and civic pride may soon be stripped from the East Bay.

It's not realistic to expect every team owner to replicate the example set by Walter Haas and his family. But in Oakland, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Having experienced the best, it’s depressing to see the A’s fall into such ignoble hands. The resulting degradation of a proud franchise is a tragedy that continues to play out before our eyes.

Fortunately, there is a side benefit to this story. Until recently, if the A’s were playing, the game was on television in our home. This spring I’ve already made a serious dent in my summer reading list.

Steve Page retired as president of Sonoma Raceway in 2021.

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